Things I've Wanted to Tell You

Seth and I are leaving South Sudan. If you read our blog you already know this.

I’ve been sick to varying degrees since May and with the baby on the way it’s time to come home. So all of that is happening, but that’s not what I wanted to tell you.

What I want to tell you about is this year we’ve lived. I’ve wanted to tell you the stories of our lives and friends here; from the absurd to the painful to the laughable. I’ve wanted to tell you about the hard and beautiful moments. It would be a lie to say I didn’t have time to tell you these things while they were happening. The truth is I didn’t have the clarity of mind or the will.

So indulge me if you will as this blog (at least for me) becomes a reflection of the last year. I will try to post regularly over the next few months as many of the stories as I can, so check back often.

Let’s start with a monkey story…

The Education of Johnny Cash

Some of you may not know this, but I know how to break horses. I don’t mean I worked a summer on a ranch and learned a thing or two; I mean I rode and trained horses several hours a day for more than a third of my life. I was good at it, and people paid me to do it.

My background as a professional equestrian has given me a knack for training most animals and an understanding of animal behavior. Like when my friend says to me that her aggressive rat of a dog pees on her when they are at the dog park, I can say, “That’s because he thinks he owns you and is marking his territory.”

I really hate undisciplined pets.

That brings me to Johnny Cash - the Cornerstone Children’s Home pet monkey (and his sidekick June).

I had determined before reaching Nimule that I was going to train Johnny… you know, as a side project. Sure, there may have been some grand ideas of all the useful things Johnny Cash could be trained to do for us, like go to the market for hot samosa, mingle posho (cook, basically), carry an AK-47 and guard the compound, discipline children, and spy on our teenagers when they left the compound - you know useful things. In reality I just wanted him to stop biting people (or at least the wrong people), and I knew this would take some serious will breaking and most likely neutering.

Johnny lived on a compound with 60 resident children; another 200 school children under the average age of seven were on his compound daily. If I could get him enough under my control to keep him from terrorizing and trying to maim these children, then I would feel pretty good.

Prior to our departure I tried to do a little research. There are NO books on training monkeys, no websites either (I know, can you believe that?!?!). For several thousand dollars you can find someone to train your monkey and train you to train your monkey. All I figured out was that Johnny Cash is a vervet monkey and is not recommended as a pet. Sweet.

My biggest inspiration came from a podcast we heard one day while driving around Denver. You can listen to it here; I’m going to summarize it and probably not very accurately so you should go listen to it later – it’s great.

It’s told by a guy who was doing lab research for his Ph.D in Neuroscience. He had a lab of monkeys that he was using for different experiments. One monkey in particular was precocious, and he grew a strong affection for this monkey and it’s lively spirit. This affection soon began to affect his lab work as the monkey would not do as it was supposed to, and as the man ended up compromising and pleading with his beloved monkey, his work became impossible. Eventually he had to shut down his personal feelings and attachment towards the monkey and become very strict, cold and unwavering in his interactions with the monkey.

After many months of this treatment the monkey finally fell in line, but it seemed to lose all its spark and life, and all the things the man had loved about the monkey were gone. The monkey became resigned and dull.

The man continued his lab work and completed his Ph.D, but he was so crushed by his experience that he decided that if he had to continue that kind of research to pursue his career, then he wouldn’t pursue his career. 

He couldn't stand that he had had to break the monkey’s will.

At the end of the story I turned to Seth, who was practically in tears and said, “that’s what we need to do to Johnny Cash.”

I will continue the story of Johnny and June over the next few months.

Thanks for reading.

An ellipse to end a chapter

It's a simple story really, but confusing nonetheless:
Two months ago, everything was moving forward as planned; our project at Cornerstone Children's Home was wrapping up, and we were cultivating new relationships and dreaming about new projects with our friends in Nimule. We had moved into our new house and were busily making it into a home - buying furniture, putting in a solar electrical system, figuring out such issues as water collection and waste disposal. We had said we planned to be in South Sudan for two years, but the way things were going, it seemed like that horizon could extend even further out.
The one surprise, a happy one, was Sarah's pregnancy, and we were going back and forth about whether to go to Uganda for the delivery or spend some time back in the US. In the meantime, we were making the three hour bus trip every month to see our obstetrician in Gulu, Uganda. Sure, Sarah had been sick and her energy level was low, even as we headed into our second trimester, but we chalked those up to the normal maladies of early pregnancy.
We were only slightly alarmed, then, when Sarah started having some severe cramping late in July. Our calendar indicated a doctor's appointment only a week away, but we decided to play it safe and make an early trip just in case. The news started bad and got worse: Sarah had lost weight between weeks 12 and 16, her hemoglobin and iron were low, and - the coup de grace - she had typhoid and had carried it for the entire pregnancy. For the next week we were back and forth to the hospital each morning and evening for Sarah to get injections that would start combating the illness. Miracle of miracles, even after finishing the treatment, our baby was still healthy.
During that week we made the decision that we couldn't live with taking unnecessary risks on behalf of our unborn child, and staying in South Sudan had suddenly become one of those unnecessary risks. We decided to return to Denver in early September and stay indefinitely.
We're stepping into a great void of unknowns. With ever improving mobile phone and Internet service, we plan to stay in touch with our colleagues on South Sudan, supporting them, and developing projects together. We don't know exactly what that will look like, but we are confident that it will be beneficial. We have met with unwavering support from our friends here in Nimule as we have faced this challenge, and we are looking forward to introducing them to our child one day.
At the end of the day, we are sad to be leaving so many wonderful people but honored to have such profound friendships. We are proud of the work that we did at Cornerstone Children's Home. Mostly, we continue to feel blessed by the prospect of parenthood and the hope we adhere to for our child. Uncertain of what the future holds exactly, we nonetheless look forward to what it may bring.

Ethiopia and what came after

The first thing I remember about arriving in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, is the Ethiopian Airlines employee on the shuttle bus that took us from our plane to the baggage terminal. I asked him, "who's the best wireless carrier in Ethiopia?" (hoping to get a SIM card once we cleared customs), and he laughed, "there's only one carrier in Ethiopia: the government." My initial impression was, "that does not bode well for Ethiopia." (The next morning when my friend Jon and I walked around for an hour trying to find a place that sold SIM cards, were eventually escorted by a young woman who was eager to help us, and found a large concrete building where they wouldn't sell us a SIM card because we didn't have passport photos at least partially confirmed that impression.)

(No, it is not equally difficult to get a mobile phone in America - just a mobile phone contract. If you don't believe me, go to your nearest convenience store and peruse their prepaid offerings.)

But the second thing I remember is that we left the airport and drove to our hotel on a three lane highway that was both paved and flat. I didn't see a single motorcycle taxi the entire way, and I wondered if we were really still in Africa.

The truth in Addis, as in so many places, is that the impression it leaves depends very much on what the observer chooses to pay attention to. Addis is vast and sprawling, unafflicted by the population density - the sheer amount of people - that I'm accustomed to in African capitals. Addis is well-developed, with its paved roads and not totally unbearable traffic, tons of restaurants and coffee shops, and well-maintained power grid. Of course to see that, one has to overlook the shanties that press up right against the walled compounds and ignore the fact that many of the restaurants are pretty empty and what tables are occupied are as often occupied by a foreigner as not.

Nonetheless, I'm still riding high on Ethiopia generally and Addis in particular. Sarah and I joke that we should go there on vacation again sometime when she's not pregnant and can actually enjoy the food (except we wouldn't fly through Juba again). The reasons for my affection for Ethiopia are, in no particular order, as follows:
The generally excellent climate as a result of its high altitude. It never got too hot - at times it maybe even got too cold - and when the rains came they were a sight to behold.
The ubiquity of the best coffee in the world. Our unassuming hotel served up what I deemed at the time to be one of the best espresso machiatos I had ever had. This prestigious award was revoked a few hours later in a hole in the wall coffee shop that actually served the best espresso machiato ever. Even when we were in a far flung village with limited medical services and a dicey road, our $5/night hotel (bed bugs no extra charge) served us top notch espresso machiatos with every meal. I wonder if the Italians give away industrial espresso machines as part of some aid package or something (and, if they do, Mr. Berlusconi, might I draw your attention to the fledgling nation of South Sudan...you can have as many wives as you can afford here).
The Ethiopians we met were, across the board, kind and hospitable. As in, business owners were willing to let strangers use their bathrooms and people smiled at us but didn't stare and stuff. Even the black market currency exchange guy (who jumped into our van, pulled money out of his sock, made sure that we counted it all to ensure that he wasn't shortchanging us, and then jumped out at the next intersection) was really sweet.

Maybe the most important reason that I'll think fondly of Ethiopia was because the projects we saw there were examples of the kind of development I want to be a part of. In particular, we were able to visit three child sponsorship sites run by Compassion International - and at all three we were with friends who sponsored children at the site.

Compassion caught me a bit off guard: I've seen the evaluations of child sponsorship programs by various development economists that suggest that child sponsorship isn't a very cost-effective approach. Visiting a Compassion site, however, reminded me that cost-effectiveness isn't always the most important measure of a dollar spent and that some things that can be observed can't be measured. Goods given and services rendered can be quantified, but is there an equation that measures the depth of kindness and affection that caretakers demonstrate towards children? Is there a way to gauge the impact of the hope offered to families when other members of the community come alongside the families to support their children? I'm not asking if anyone has ever attempted to quantify these benefits - I know people have - what I'm suggesting is that those measures always miss the mark.

In short, visiting a Compassion site reflected to me the tensions that I feel like we're constantly holding: data and good management matter, but so too do people; strong programs can be impactful, but so can strong people. We hold out effectiveness over mere good intention, at the same time recognizing the vital role of relationships in fostering truly vibrant communities.

Sarah and I came to Nimule armed with knowledge that we thought we'd immediately put to work and change people's lives...like by the hundreds and thousands. Right away. It has been almost a year now, and as we look back most of the things we expected to do haven't come to fruition - no teacher training, no literacy programs, very little small business development - and the truth is, no one is beating down our door begging us to do those things. And I should be devastated by that fact, except for this: there is a children's home that is right now this very moment being run entirely by a local staff, and those people love those kids with profound affection - we got to be a part of that transformation; there are specific kids that we have seen overcome unthinkable trauma and become more fully the best versions of themselves - we got to stand with them through that process; every day now, children come to our house to read stories, play games, do arts & crafts, and help Sarah in the kitchen - we get to continue investing in their lives; we have men and women from the community come into our home every week and share with us their vision for this community - we get to be a part of helping them achieve that vision.

We are not superstars. We are not anyone's heroes. I think at one time I wanted to be both of these things. Instead, I find that I'm happy with what we are becoming: we are a part of many people doing what they can to bring wholeness, reconciliation, and redemption into this world. It's humbling, it's a whole lot different from what we expected, and it's something that we will carry with us the rest of our lives - no matter where we are or what we are doing.

Our New Nation

When I remember the independence of the Republic of South Sudan in the years to come, it won't be the flag raising or the official ceremony that I'll remember. Instead,
my first memories will be of the final hour of unity and the first minutes of separation.

On that night people began gathering a few at a time on the compound of Cornerstone Children's Home, where our friend Juma John had told everyone to come for a midnight celebration. The crowd would bring light to the new day by lighting candles at midnight, illuminating a new nation.

The gathering grew steadily larger and larger, from just a few dozen at 8pm to several hundred by 11pm. Groups presented songs and dances, men made speeches. Between every presentation someone would interject how many minutes remained until independence.

Juma's speech (30 minutes until independence) was a call for the citizens to be responsible for their new nation, to live in righteousness and combat corruption, and to remember the sacrifices - millions of lives lost along the way - that had brought them this new hope. The plaintive nods and murmurs of agreement drove home the reality that everyone in attendance had a story of deep personal loss along the way; they all knew someone who had died in the war or in exile, and in this final hour they were all remembering. By the same token, they had all worked for this peaceful transition and chosen a path of forgiveness over vengeance.

At Juma wrapped up, he called for someone from the crowd who had been alive to celebrate Sudan's first independence from Britain in 1956 to come forward and share what that experience had been like. Not a single person took up the invitation, so he asked again and still no one accepted. He called on the oldest person he knew to come up and share; the man diplomatically informed him at he wasn't that old. I scanned the crowd for someone and couldn't pick out anyone who fit the bill. Maybe it was the late hour, but maybe it was the already scant demographic. They moved on and began distributing candles.

At midnight, the first candle was lit by Samuel Juma. Samuel, a Sudanese refugee living in America, has been the driving force behind Cornerstone Children's Home. When nobody else was doing work with orphans in South Sudan - and despite the fact that he himself had no experience doing so - he felt like he had to do something for the vulnerable children in his homeland, so he started a feeding program. He hoped and believed for this day for as long as anyone, and now - framed against the 24 bedroom home that already houses 60 children - he brought the first rays of light to the new day. From him, the candles of those next to him were lit, and so on until hundreds of people of all ages and sizes stood holding their candles aloft in a sea of radiance. They all placed their hands over their hearts, closed their eyes tight, and sang their new national anthem for the first time. And then they danced. Played. Laughed. Prayed.

I didn't see anyone cry; maybe they had shed enough tears each the last 25 years. That didn't stop me crying, of course. Over and over again, one of the many young girls who live at the home would run up to me in delight, face aglow both from the candlelight and the enormity of her smile, and I couldn't help thinking that this new nation was for them - a nation of promise and possibility. It's not a perfect thing - far from it - nor is it a guarantee that everything will be good and right from now on. But maybe, just maybe, they'd be able to live the rest of their lives as uninhibited and full of joy as they were on this one night. It's not such a bad thing to hope for.

Juba, Part 2

During our two days in Juba, I was left over and over again with the impression that every system that might keep a city alive was failing; meanwhile there were always people around who would keep their own lives and the pulse of their neighborhood beating, just on a much smaller scale.

I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get money from an ATM. I went to every single ATM in Juba, to no avail. Despite claims that Visa would work, this incedibly intricate network designed to ut money in people's hands was useless to me. The money changers who sat at the perimeter of the car park, however, always smiled to see me and always gave me an excellent ate of exchange to turn my fleeting supply of Ugandan shillings into Sudanese pounds. They kept my low grade sense of panic from developing into a full throated outbreak.

Sarah and I spent an hour walking around the Ministris complex looking for the office where we needed to extend our visas. When we did find it, it was hidden behind a building which was hidden behind a building - and by building I mean a stack of prefab boxes. Once we actually got our visa renewed, we found that they were marked for single entry - pointless for us as we were leaving the country the next day, but the SPLM official in charge assured us, "as long as the date is valid, nobody will care if it's single or multiple entry."

By late afternoon we found ourselves at Oasis Camp - one of those prefab hotels along the river Nile. It was only a few hundred meters from our guest house, and while the rooms were overpriced, the restaurant (though still expensive) served delicious meals in a sitting area that sat right on the banks of the Nile in an environment of calm and serenity.

Maybe that captures Juba: calm and reprieve can be found for a price, otherwise life is chaotic and governed by the circumstances of the moment.

After two days in Juba with no ability to access money, we had run through almost everything we had. After paying for our guesthouse and a ride to the airport, we were left with 150 pounds (about $50); we were delighted. Juba airport, though, was about to wipe the smiles off our faces. In the airport terminal there wasn't a single computer, there was a single boarding gate, brown outs were frequent, and our boarding passes were handwritten - I saw one man given only a confirmation number written on a torn off scrap of paper.

And then there was the shakedown: as we went to get exit stamps in our passports, the immigration agent told us there was a 92 pound exit fee per person. I told him I didn't have 184 pounds, he told me I could pay $90 instead. I told him I didn't have that either, and he just shrugged and held onto our passports. I asked, "if I can't pay, does at mean I can never leave Sudan?" He shrugged again. I pulled out our last 150 pounds, offered it to him, and watched as he counted it. "Where's the rest?" he asked; it was my turn to shrug. He sampled our passports and returned them to us.

For the next hour we sat at the gate and waited for our flight to board, stewing in frustration. And then our flight was called, we were patted down for security, we boarded, and sitting inside the prop jet we were returned to a world of order and sanity - a salve on our wounds.

Juba, Part 1

A month ago, Sarah and I found ourselves in the unenviable position of needing to visit Juba (municipal motto: "Coming soon: a real city!") - the capital of South Sudan (national motto, with thanks to Danie Hauer: "There's no way of knowing!" which is the most correct answer to almost any question a person might ask about the new country). It is noteworthy that it has taken me a month to even touch this topic; I want to remember as little of it as possible, so think of this entry more as an act of catharsis on my part than anything else.

Juba is a city of readily apparent contradictions. Along the river Nile lies a long expanse of private compounds, each hiding an upscale hotel behind its gates. Of course, describing a hotel in Juba as "upscale" is a bit inaccurate. Nearly every upscale Juba hotel is a grossed collection of prefabricated boxes with individual air conditioning units whirring away and the promise of a bed, satellite television, and a hot shower within. A more appropriate term for this kind of hotel is "expensive" or maybe "exorbitantly expensive", with prices for a room for one person starting $150. The reason that the term expensive is not applied, however, is because in Juba this is the starting point for the price of a hotel room, and the constant presence of innumerable foreign NGOs ensures that these hotels are fully booked.

Immediately inland from these hotels lie fields of shanties built of sticks, cardboard, and tarp - each inspiring the observer to marvel at how a family could fit themselves inside, but somehow they do (as to the exact method? There's no way of knowing). No matter how many times one stumbles upon these shanty towns immediately juxtaposed against an image of prosperity, it never fails to darken the spirits at least a little. In Juba, I found myself wondering how these families felt about life in Juba as compared to life in he refugee camps from which they likely came, and I realized I couldnt conceive of an appropriate response.

Sarah and I found the prospect of spending two-thirds of our monthly income on a two night hotel stay daunting. By a fluke of chance, we happened upon the phone number for a Catholic retreat center that offered the very reasonable rate of $50 for a double room - the caveat being that it offered neither conditioned air, nor television of any kind, nor hot showers (though the kind sister who took our reservation assured me that the bathroom and shower were self-contained in the room). After I had made the booking, I asked where exactly in Juba the retreat center was located and was told to call before I arrived for precise directions.

The morning we were set to depart Nimule for Juba I did just that, and while the answer I got wasn't exact, it was a start: "go to the Aquana factory and call me from there." Despite the fact that I had no idea what the Aquana factory was nor where it was located nor how the word Aquana was spelled, I felt confident that once we got to Juba somebody would be able to get us there. That confidence began to dissolve in the Juba bus park as I asked one motorcycle taxi after another if he could take us to the Aquana factory and was greeted with blank stares and shrugged shoulders (where's the Aquana factory? There's no way of knowing). When finally a driver gave us a confident nod that he knew where the Aquana factory was, I put Sarah on the back of his bike, found one of the clueless drivers, ordered him to follow the non-clueless driver, then squeezed myself and the suitcase that held clothing for Sarah and I for an eight day trip to Ethiopia onto the back of his bike. This arrangement pushed me up against the driver in a manner that is as physically intimate as I have ever been with another man.

At the Aquana factory a short, plain woman ambled up to us and told us to follow her, which we did - on foot, around puddles and along stretches of road turned to heavy reddish mud, with one of us carrying an enormous suitcase. We walked alongside one of those heart-crushing shanty fields, across from which was a walled compound with a small gate, which we went through and found ourselves in the surprisingly verdant courtyard of the Friendship Guest House. The woman, who I took for a nun, sat us down and got us each a cold bottle of water.

For the first time in my life, I actually experienced something I've long espoused: in an unknown, uncertain, and potentially unfriendly environment, the demonstration of Catholic kindness and hospitality hits the soul with incomparable resonance. Despite my own wishes otherwise, I'll probably have to go back to Juba someday, and when I do I'll take solace in knowing that I can stay with the Catholics.

A home apart

I find it hard to describe the feeling of being both a part of and apart from the same thing, but this is the moment that brought it most vividly to life inside me:
I am sitting in an office where we keep all the toys, games, and medicine for the kids. We call it the POD office (POD, as in Parent On Duty - "who is On Duty?" the kids ask with a special emphasis on the capitalized words).
The POD office is in a building on the north end of our four acre compound, and the room that has become the POD office was chosen for that function because it allows the P who is OD to look out over the entire compound as it slopes down from the office.
So I am sitting perched on a hill that affords me not only a view of our compound, but a view that stretches out for miles. I can see the clouds in the sky and she shadows they cast on the trees and hills in the distance. The foreground is composed of children at plag (at the moment football and Connect 4), the middle ground a mixture of green-roofed trees and thatch-roofed huts, and the background a mix of the tans of land and the greens of the bush leading to four hills that descend in height, one to the next, as I scan from left to right.
So I am sitting looking out over this as I read a back issue of The New Yorker on my iPad.
We are home yet not home; it feels more like home than it ever has before - I move as a warm knife through butter rather than as a chainsaw through a redwood trunk - still it presents me with these marked juxtapositions that remind me that I both belong and stand out. The really cunning trick that I need to learn is not how to make myself fit in more in order to feel at home, nor is it to carve out a little niche of deep familiarity where I can feel at home. It is to feel at home in standing out.

Sell all you stuff - it's worth it- would I lie to you?

We sold or gave up almost all of our possessions when we moved to Sudan. I used to hear stories of other people doing this sort of thing (you know told in awe) and I would think “yeah, big deal” or “what a pain in the a**”. I’d also heard the "how romantic/how freeing" sentiment and could understand that.

When we made the decision to move to Sudan I didn’t think twice about how it would feel to lose everything I owned. Don’t laugh but I’ve never thought of myself as materialistic. Prior to my career in fashion I had never paid more than $30 for a pair of jeans. My apartment was decorated solely in items either given to me or found at thrift stores. It had a vintage feel, but not in a cool hipster or shabby chic sort of way, more like a creepy cat lady way. So I never really expected to identify getting rid of all our stuff as one of the hardest things about moving to Sudan.

I’m not sentimental either. I don’t keep cards or letters, my photo collection fits in a shoe box. Most items from my childhood burnt up in a fire a few years back and I didn’t shed a tear, but I’m telling you I cried nightly as items left our home eight months ago.

Now granted, I had a wardrobe I loved and the likes of which I will never have again. It was personally handpicked (by myself) from every designer in the country and had a retail value of over $15,000. Each item had a special memory, all of a sweet time in my life when I owned a successful women’s boutique, worked with my best friends, and met my husband and Jesus. As each item was sold or given away I felt myself go with it and wondered if the new owner was worthy.

There is a saying that I think most people are familiar with that goes “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” Simple enough right? The rich are bad and can’t get to heaven – sweet. deal. No problem for me ‘cause I’m not rich. I really always filed this saying under weird things Christians quote.

Then after all my items were gone I found myself reading and weeping. What Jesus is actually saying here is giving up all your stuff freaking sucks and it is likely if you try to follow God, at some point he may ask you to do just that and you probably won’t want to.

The good news is life goes on; I’m making new memories with the new things I own. Best of all I never worry or stress about losing my things, I have a freedom from trying to constantly obtain stuff or worry about my appearance.

Oh man, I’m totally lying to you. I hold on to things tighter than ever knowing how precious they are and how hard they are to replace. I think of things I want all the time and I hate my clothes.

Maybe someone out there more virtuous than me and can tell me how to get that “freedom” and “romance” other people feel when they give it all away.

Here We Go Again

We've been here before, just eight months ago: everything packed up into a few bags that necessitate last minute decisions about what we really can't do without (this time: no, I can't do without my stovetop espresso maker. Seriously), awkward moments with friends when we have to figure out how to say goodbye while trying not to let despair creep into our tone of voice, counting down hours and then minutes until we get on a plane, and this sense of anticipation but also anxiety - we tend to live our lives so fully enmeshed in community, and now we're going back to a place where friendships are few and far between.

I would submit that for me at least, the second time is harder. The first time I didn't entirely know what we were getting ourselves into, the kind of internal anguish we would encounter, the battles we would have to fight in advocating for children who have been neglected or overlooked, the long hours and days when Sarah and I would hardly see each other, the intense heat, the chronic loneliness.  Going back, I have to remind myself that it doesn't have to be like that.  I have to remind myself of that over and over again.

And I would submit that this time will be different.  Eight months ago, we knew exactly what we wanted to do.  We had programs and timelines and goals and objectives.  Oh, and folly.  We had that too, but we didn't really know it yet.  In just a few weeks we will pass on the administration of the children's home, and we will be left to our own devices.  What we have this time are ideas and hopes and values.  We have a couple programs we started, which were not a part of our original plan.  Our goals are more like, "try and work less than 60 hours a week" or"make time for cooking together" and less like "develop sustainable, replicable programs in literacy and microenterprise." What timelines we have are loose and flexible.

I still want us to be sustainable. And replicable for that matter.  I still want us to do work that reaches as many people as possible...but I've found myself trapped by that desire and neglecting the individuals and small groups of people right in front of me.  I like lots of the ideas that we had a year ago for programs, but I don't want to neglect the small ways that I can serve and enrich the life of one of my neighbors when that doesn't fit cleanly into a program.

Last time we were leaving, I hadn't been in Sudan in over 2 years, but I was confident in my ideas of how everything would go.  This time we're returning after 1 month away and 7 months of living there.  Ironically, this time I feel like I know very little about what life will hold for us.  Ironically, I have more hope for this nebulous hope than I've had for anything in a long time.  I don't know exactly what we're about to do, but I believe in it deeply.  I believe that over the next several months we will participate in the strengthening of a community and the enrichment of people's lives.  I'm pretty sure we'll see some kids learn to read and some people who have lived on the margins of society come into their own.  I know that it is worthwhile, without knowing exactly what it is.

Context Matters

2/17/2011 Being out of context
It has now been six months since we arrived. One of the best
indicators that the "living in rural Africa" novelty has worn off is
when the opposite of what was novel becomes novel. For example:
staying in a hotel and delighting that you don't have to walk 100
meters to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. And, well, the
novelty has worn off. I saw my friend Ken, the Maybe But Probably Not
Murderer yesterday and it barely registered. The constant presence of
lizards, spiders, et al for even the most private acts (like
defeating) is assumed. Even the 105 degree heat doesn't faze me any
more than the average Joe. There are rhythms and patterns of
familiarity that typically govern the day.
My role in the lives of the children is as the provider of things -
school supplies, medicine, food, soap, games, bandages, the occasional
smile/hug/word of encouragement (wouldn't want to be too generous with
those, though). And someone always needs provision, and someone always
has a complaint about what has been provided. And it's exhausting
sometimes, which is why I wasn't particularly excited about the
prospect of taking a group of kids to the market to buy sandals
yesterday.
A brief but relevant digression: I have come to recognize that every
relationship can benefit from a change of context (digressions from my
digression: this may be why romantic relationships need dates. Triple
digression: please, people, don't call it "a date night." It is a
date. You might designate a specific night for a consistent date, and
that might be "date night," but please don't use an article with the
term).
As a teacher, one of the best pieces of advice I ever received was to
go to as many extracurricular events as possible. When I didn't have
to be the warm yet strict, extremely focused taskmaster and could just
be present and enjoy myself and take pride in my students, my role as
an educator was strengthened not undermined, because I wasn't only an
educator, and I wasn't an adversary (which I often was in the
classroom) - I was a supporter with no other agenda.
As the provider of all things, my relationship with the children is
pretty strictly limited to our home. It's about four acres, so it
encompasses a whole host of different interactions, and I tend to
escape from the compound for exactly three reasons: going out of town,
going out on a date with Sarah (to one of three restaurants), or going
out of my mind (this tends to involve a long walk in which I mutter to
myself and try to avoid the various crazy people who have recognized
me as one of their own).
Funny things happen on the way to the market: instead of sixty
children, I find myself with only three, and suddenly we're having a
prolonged conversation (about why I don't cook for Sarah and whether
she will one day beat me because of it. They, of course, would never
want a man to cook for them). There are no chores for me to remind
them to do, and no supplies for them to request of me, so instead we
talk and laugh. It must be appealing, because soon three other
children join us.
In the market, I make the children at first pretend like they don't
know me, so as to avoid paying the white person price for their new
sandals. I pretend to shop for myself while keeping a distance of
about 50 feet from the kids, and when they've found the sandals they
want and settled on a price they come to me for the money. This works
for about 15 minutes, but the market isn't huge and it's hard to
disguise six children coming to the white man to get money from him
and then returning with the balance (which makes me feel a little like
the Artful Dodger).
Girls of a certain age want to see every pair of sandals being sold by
every vendor before they make a decision, so shopping takes a long
time. I am greeted by approximately one thousand people (the novelty
has worn off for me, apparently not for them) while I wait for them to
find just the right pair and haggle it down to just the right price
(they know that if they can stay under the budget I have laid out for
them, I'll let them buy sweets with the balance. This makes them much
more discerning shoppers).
We push ever further back in the market, but by the time we find our
way out all of them have new sandals that they picked out themselves
and - if the smiles on their faces are any indication - that they
love. What they don't have is a remaining balance, but I find myself
feeling unexpectedly generous and unhurried by the slowly setting sun,
so we stop at the various storefronts along the way looking for
something called Super Dip, which the children love and which I
suspect might be one of those Chinese candies laced with cancer that
the FDA forbade in the US. But, again, the children love it, and I'm
feeling particularly indulgent toward the children, so sugary cancer
it is! And again, we find ourselves in a prolonged conversation (this
time about eating pig - which they all claim they have done and
liked...until I say we should buy one and eat it, then their story
quickly changes).
We arrive back at the compound in the twilight of the day, and the
children rush off to show their new sandals to their brothers and
sisters. Twelve-year-old Kasara looks at me and says, "Seth, I also
need sandals." Two others immediately echo her refrain, and a third
complains to me that Sarah told her she couldn't get new sandals yet.
Then she starts crying, and a too brief step out of context comes to
an end.

Longing & Settling In

I’ve always told friends when they move to a new city, “you have to give it 6 months, the first 6 months are always bad.” I found myself having to take my own advice on more occasions than I’d like to admit these past months.

Sure enough six months in I’m happier here than I’ve ever been. I have adjusted (resigned) to the 105° weather and that not much will get done between 1 and 4 in the afternoon. I can juggle several children’s needs without having a complete meltdown – sometimes even with a smile. I am no longer surprised if not yet comfortable with the creatures I may have to remove from my house at any point in the day (here is a short list: bat, monkey, goat, scorpion, rat, spider, one-eyed dog).

I am truly enjoying my days here, my time with the people and even the town in which we live. Let me tell you this is no small miracle. It has taken me all these six months to say “I’m glad we are here, it’s been worth it.” Most days I didn’t feel that way.

Now we are preparing to go home for three weeks. We will be leaving the compound to begin the three day journey back to Denver in exactly 10 days and I cannot wait. I can smell Denver, see the mountains, imagine every street corner and each friend and family member’s laugh and smile. The longing for home is possibly stronger, yet with less grief than ever before.

Then I see our four year old Amana smile and run to me and I can’t stand the idea of leaving for a month. I see our older children working in the gardens and hate that I will miss the first planting. I know life hear will go on just fine without me, Amana will run to the arms of one of the other mother’s we have hired and there are people here who know more about planting than I do, but now this is home and I’m going to miss it.

The Death of Johnny Cash

What do you say about a monkey who died? On February 22, we found one
of our monkeys, Johnny Cash, dead in his cage and the other monkey,
June Cash, standing by the corpse in a bewildered state.
I liked Johnny, but I wouldn't say we had a close personal
relationship. Instead, I'll leave it to others to share about Johnny.
The following was said by the mourners gathered around the funeral
pyre (because we had to burn the body, because it would have been
super gross to bury it. And yes, someone did sing 'Ring of Fire' at
Johnny Cash's funeral pyre. And yes, it was me):
"Why Johnny Cash? Why not Simba [our dog]? Simba deserves to die." -
Lawa Joyce, our head cook
"Johnny Cash bit children and scared them. Johnny Cash bit me and
scared me." - Dorothy Mandera, 7-years-old
"I am not sad that Johnny Cash died." - Kasara Lamwaka, 12-years old
(who, nonetheless teared up a little bit)
And then there was 13-year-old Amacha Emmanuel, the happiest and most
resilient child at Cornerstone. In my 6 months here I have seen Amacha
deviate from happiness one time (when he got angry and bit another
boy). Other than that, he has an ever-present smile and cheery
disposition. Perhaps it was because of his unflappability (read, the
fact that he never screamed and ran away when a monkey came near him)
that he and Johnny Cash had developed a special bond. Johnny climbed
all over Amacha, and Amacha just laughed.
As the fire was burning down, I realized I hadn't seen Amacha and went
to see if he was alright. I found him in his bedroom, lying on his bed
and drawing a picture. He seemed a little quiet but otherwise fine, so
I asked him if he had heard the news. He looked at me, nodded, and
broke into his trademark grin, and I realized: no, he hasn't.
I told him, and his face was crossed with a look of pain and shock.
The knowledge settled over him, and he began to sob. His body shook,
he wiped tears away again and again first with his hands then with his
t-shirt, and he kept trying to make himself stop and failing. Before I
knew it, I was crying with him.
And I asked myself why, because I thought Johnny Cash was alright, but
I had no special affection for him. And I realized: Johnny was
Amacha's friend, and more than that Johnny gave Amacha the opportunity
to feel like he was good at something special - when every other child
fled, Amacha stayed; when Johnny was acting like a crazy monkey,
Amacha could calm him down. Johnny made Amacha's life more full, and
Amacha did the same for Johnny. Amacha has other talents and
abilities, other ways that he feels special now - but it's distinctly
possible that being the monkey tamer was the first time he was able to
feel that, and now it's gone. Amacha will move on, but that's
something to grieve.

One Perspective on the Referendum

For weeks now, months really, most people have wanted to know about one thing: the referendum. January 9. The day South Sudan would vote on whether to remain united with the north or to secede and become a sovereign nation (with most indications that they would opt overwhelmingly for the latter). The day that would never come to pass, many feared.

January 9 has represented so many things, so many disparate things: on the one hand, every southerner has looked to it as a future hope and an historic day; on the other hand, they've recognized it as a potential marker of catastrophe and terror.

January 9 has now come and gone - of course the referendum period is actually a week long, so the voting won't officially close until later this week - and one thing I was struck by was a peculiar feature of democracy: at its most basic, it is the repeated act of individuals standing in a line then marking some boxes on a piece of paper. It's a mundane thing really, but the power it contains is staggering.

In America & Western Europe, I think this truth is sometimes lost in the regularity & orderliness of our voting, but in much of the world the powers that be so deeply fear the will of the people that they'll go to remarkable lengths to subvert it. Here in Sudan, there has been justified fear that this vote could lead to a return to civil war. So far that hasn't been the case - though the potential still remains. It is unbelievably difficult to reconcile the image of a snaking line of eager voters with the consequence of widespread destruction.

I imagine someday, Sarah and I will tell some younger generation about being present at the creation of this new nation, and these are the moments I will relay:

·         The elected member of the referendum commission in our state came to Nimule and gave a rousing speech in which be reminded his fellow South Sudanese that, yes, this was a vote about freedom, and yes, he was going to vote for separation, but as a nation they would never find true freedom until they forgave their brothers in the north for the wrongs the south had suffered.

·         The buses that arrived in our town (and probably dozens of others throughout the south) each morning of the week leading up to the referendum and departed each evening. On the buses, optimistic volunteers from the southern capital Juba were coming to circulate throughout the town and mobilize people to vote.

·         A visit from two of those volunteers, who came to our compound to instruct people on "how to vote." Not which way to vote, mind you, but instructions on the actual process of voting. "For 50 years we haven't voted," one of the volunteers pointed out to me. "So the people need to know what to do."

·         The trucks with giant speakers in their beds that circulated through our town from 8am-11pm every day blaring music and reminding people that, really, they should vote for separation.

·         The women running across an open field early on the morning of the 9th, racing to be the first person in line to vote.

·         The hundreds of people standing in a line that wound through that same field as they waited in line for the poll to open, and the line growing longer and longer and longer.

·         The open-palmed hand (like a traffic cop would use to tell you to stop) that represented separation. In a country where so many of the voters are illiterate, the choices have to have a visual representation. Thus, two bands gripping each other in a handshake equaled unity, and the single open palm equaled separation.

·         On the 9th, people greeted each other not by shaking hands - as they normally would - but by slapping high 5's with their open palms.

·         That evening, in the midst of a country likely coming apart, our friend and colleague Akera and his fiancée Mary were united in marriage. It was a strategic decision on their parts - with a bride price still commonly practiced and often exploited to milk the groom out of everything possible, Mary's family hadn't agreed to the union. But there's another way to get married: the woman simply sneaks away, and shortly thereafter the family receives a letter from the man informing them of her whereabouts, explaining that she won't be returning. He puts some money in the envelope too, and it's understood that they're married. Akera & Mary figured that in the excitement of the referendum, it might take a while for her family to notice her absence. They won't have an official wedding until later, but we gathered together to bless them and hear their commitment to each other (and to drink soda - always to drink soda).

There's still a long way to go in this process - votes to be cast and counted, lots of details to work out, founding documents that will likely need to be completed. There's still a lot that could go horribly wrong. But - increasingly - there's a lot of reason to hope. 

The Old Man and the Referendum

Old men are a rare sight around here - a seventy-year-old must have
survived no fewer than four major wars, two likely as a combatant and
two likely as a refugee. The old man that shows up at our compound now
from time to time, even considering the scarcity of the elderly, is a
sight to behold.
I don't know his name; it seems no one does except him because
everyone refers to him either as The Mose (which means old man) or The
Old Man. Even when he introduces himself by name, the name slips
immediately from the hearer's ears. There are men here in their 30s
and 40s who remember the old man from their youth, men who consider
him like an uncle or a mentor, who never refer to him by name but
speak of him reverentially.
His head is bald save for a tuft of brittle white hair above either
ear, and he wears enormous bifocals as thick as glass bottle bottoms
with a frame often held together by electrical tape. He requires the
use of a cane to walk, his left leg always held completely straight -
and even then he is only capable of a few short steps at a time. He
smiles often, revealing a mouth that is well on its way to
toothlessness.
When he opens his mouth to speak, though, he speaks with a crisp
patrician diction whose unparalleled enunciation catches the ear. He
was likely educated in a British system, long before conflict took
hold of his country and rendered harsh judgment on the educational
infrastructure.
I have heard him speak because he has taken to moving from town to
town and from church to church within each town to stand before as
many congregations as he can every Sunday until the referendum to
plead for peace. Dressed in gray flannel trousers, an open collar
shirt, and a navy blazer, he pushes himself up on his cane and turns
to his audience. He has three pages of notes written in a clear hand,
and before he speaks he begs the assistance of the pastor and declares
without shame that he can't actually see what he has written, so the
pastor will have to feed him his lines.
The first line reads, "Tell them their God is with them."
The pastor whispers to him, "Tell them their God is with them."
The old man's voice resounds, "Your God is with you!"
It continues on like this for three or four lines, but then something
happens. The prompts from the pastor act as a spark and enkindle the
passion inside him, and he begins to string together line after line
of rhetoric about the value of peace in times of conflict, about the
democratic process, about the role of citizens, about the many things
that the South Sudanese have to be grateful for. There is a
translator, as there always is in official meetings in a country where
the people speak dozens of different languages, and this translator
struggles to keep up with the old man as he speaks, but the old man
never falters and from time to time corrects the translator with a
more apt turn of phrase.
He closes by reminding the people that they had another opportunity
for freedom fifty years ago, an opportunity that was squandered by
rampant fear-mongering andgreedy tribal chieftains who colluded to
sell their birthright. He calls to their attention the tragic number
of lives lost because of that folly, and he asks that those lives
would be the payment rendered for this generation to taste freedom.
Then he thanks the people, and - with every bone in his appendages
quavering - lowers himself back into his chair.
Later he'll ride as a passenger on a motorcycle - one hand clutching
his cane the other holding on to the bike - to the next church or a
radio station or anywhere that he can speak his message. Late in the
evening he'll eat with his hosts if food is offered, and he'll wait
for someone to offer him a ride home. He might not be noticed for
several hours because he sits with great contentment, but in time
someone will say, "Get the motorcycle keys, so I can take The Old Man
home," and into the night he'll disappear.

On Losing Things

Before moving from Denver to Nimule Sarah and I got rid of a lot of our possessions. Our furniture, our dishes...our cat. Sarah, who used to own a women's clothing boutique, liquidated her wardrobe. I learned from the experience of watching item after item go out our front door, never to return, that as much as I'd like to believe I'm not materialistic, I had formed an attachment to an awful lot of material things, and I didn't realize it until I was watching them all go away.

But then we squeezed what was left into a few pieces of luggage and came here, and I thought, 'At least that's over. What else could we possibly give up?' but I found that I became very possessive of what few things we did have, constantly locking drawers and keeping an eye on the door to our house if it was ajar; then I found that it didn't matter. We began losing things - an iPod, a knife, other assorted knick knacks. Mostly they were things that were pretty inconsequential, but to me the knowledge that it didn't matter how much we gave up because we could still lose more was at once disheartening and liberating...but mostly disheartening. It was a constant reminder of the loss of so many small conveniences. When you lose a (fill in the blank with just about any noun) in Sudan, you can't very well just replace it.

There were certain big things I was determined not to lose or let walk away - chiefly my computer, my kindle, and my jeans. The past tense isn't appropriate here, because I'm still bound and determined not to lose those particular things.

Before long, though, I stopped caring about losing little things, accepted it as part of life, and figured we could just adapt and carry on.

And then I lost my wedding ring, and somehow I was caught off guard by just how greatly it affencted me. I saw my naked hand and knew simultaneously both that the ring was gone and that this kind of gone was the permanent kind. I turned into a whimpering child, a deflated balloon. Orphaned children saw me and took pity (they even organized to walk the path where I seemed to have lost it and scour our house from top to bottom in search of it. When that came to nothing, they began trying to form bits of whatever they could find into a suitable ring for me, again to no avail because I have fingers far too fat for a Sudanese child to conceive of).

My wedding ring is basically a $40 hunk of metal, but unlike every other possession I've ever had - whose true value only became apparent to me when the object was no longer mind - that ring was symbolic of something. It meant something to me; unlike other possessions which often construct our identities, my wedding ring always reminded me of my identity. It had a weight to it that I actually had to adjust to when I first started to wear it. It required me to adapt in the most basic and mundane human behaviors, like clapping my hands or drumming on a table out of boredom. The ring did not itself bind me to Sarah, but it was the most visible reminder of that bond.

It has been four days since I lost my ring, and I still find my thumb gravitating to the base of my ring finger seeking the shape of it. I walk the path where I lost the ring at least five times a day, and every time I find my eyes scanning the ground alongside it searching for what I know I won't find, reminding myself that the rain has probably washed it away or a goat has eaten it but still failing to convince myself to stop looking.

It's just another object, I know, but losing something that costs so little but means so much leaves me feeling so vulnerable and powerless. I begin to imagine losing not the object but the person, my worst fears playing themselves out in my mind, and before long I'm thinking, 'why on earth did we come here again?'

But in our marriage vows, Sarah said to me, "I vow to choose the opportunity to do something great over our convenience and comfort." I remember standing with her at the altar, listening to those words, and thinking, 'this is absolutely the woman I want to spend my life with.'

And our life right now is frenzied, unpredictable, exhausting, and stressful. And our marriage is regularly strained, and we often feel the acute loneliness of being so visibly different in a culture that tends to encourage conformity. And I think sometimes we probably ask ourselves if this is the kind of opportunity that we were looking for. And it's funny the things that confirm that it is: letting a seven-year-old girl fall asleep in your lap when she's sick, helping an eight-year-old boy pick out his clothes for the day, watching a ten-year-old who has never experienced rain gutters before dance under the gutter spout during a downpour, explaining the concept of parallel lines to a twelve-year-old, sitting on the veranda with a group of teenage girls who want us to sit and listen to their laughter and their songs (and eventually want us to sing songs of our own to each other, and we oblige).

There are moments when the loneliness arises from the fact that there are so many people we love with whom we want to share in these unique moments.

But for now it's the two of us, and in some sense it will always be just the two of us. Ring or no ring. 

Welcome Home

When you tell 60 children who have sent their entire lives living in mud huts that they are about to move into the brand new house, the construction of which they've witnessed slowly come together over the course of five years, they will not immediately be inclined to believe you. They will, in fact, come up with all kinds of reasons that they will not be able to move into the new house.

There are no bed frames, no mattresses, no sheets, and no curtains - they will point out to you, and at the time of the pointing out they will be right. What's more striking are the things that they don't point out - all of the rooms that won't be occupied aren't yet painted, none of the hallways are, the multiple-purpose room is entirely unusable. The kids couldn't care less about those things; they know the purpose of a house: the house is to live in and sleep in, to gather in a room with your closest friends and share secrets long after you're supposed to be asleep. It's to have a place to put your action figures where they can be prominently displayed. What they know is that a house doesn't have to be perfect to be home...but it does have to have beds and mattresses...and by the way the rooms aren't big enough to hold the number of beds we are describing to them, in case we hadn't noticed.

And then on one magical day, perhaps not the exact day we had expected but within two days of that day, a large truck arrives carrying 60 mattresses - the fat ones, not the thin ones - and just a hint of disbelief is carried away in its newly emptied bed. Later the same day another truck offloads wooden bunk bed frames and carries away an even greater load of disbelief as the children realize that this plan we've been describing to them, right down to the fact that they'll each have their own bed with their own brand new mattresses - will actually come into being not just someday, but someday soon.

We even bring them in and show them exactly which rooms are their new rooms, and before long the new roommates have formed together into a cleaning crew, removing every hint of dust or dirt from floors, walls, doors, and windows. Gone is their disbelief, now entirely replaced by eager expectation. Mori speaks almost no English, but he finds the words to narrate to us which bed every boy in his room is going to sleep in, and walks around for two days telling everyone willing to listen, "Ocira sleep up, I sleep down" except the down part is so full of expectancy that it comes out "dowwwwwwwnnnnn."

Of course African transport isn't exactly synonymous with reliability, and we find ourselves waiting on those curtains and bedsheets - the ones we bought all the way in Kampala, Uganda (eight hours away by bus). For some inexplicable reason when the purchasers arrived here on a bus with the curtains, the bus operator refused to open the cargo hold and continued on to Juba, Sudan. The next day they forgot to load them on to the next bus. The day after they remembered, but the bus broke down. Each day at least a dozen children ask, "will today be the day?" and we wearily shake our heads.

After waiting three days, we decide that curtains or no curtains it's time to move. A house doesn't have to be perfect to be a home, and the anticipation and excitement for this particular home have become palpable. We had hoped to move over the weekend, but instead we greet the kids as they return from school on Monday afternoon and tell them, "as soon as everyone in your room has their belongings packed up, come to the church, and we'll bring you to your new room." General pandemonium ensues, with children throwing whatever clothing, shoes, and special items they own into an assortment of bags, luggage, and cardboard boxes. Despite the dirty, sweaty nature of the task before them, many of them put on their nicest clothes, some even donning ties to mark the occasion. Some sit silently in the church with their belongings awaiting further direction; some are balls of frenetic activity, bouncing back and forth from one place to another to make sure everything they have is really there.

Soon the members of an entire room are assembled, and they look at us imploringly, and we know that the time has really come. We gather them together for a photo, and then they pick up their bags and walk together the 200 meters from church to house.

If the sun weren't shining that Monday it wouldn't have mattered, because the grins on the faces of those children as they moved, room by room, into their new house, would have illuminated the whole of south Sudan.

Many of the youngest children have spent their entire lives sharing a mattress with someone, and the first thing they do in their new rooms is climb into whichever bed has become their own, though it seems unlikely that they'll easily be able to fall asleep there that first night, so overcome are they with excitement.

One group of boys immediately decorate their room with whatever bits of fabric they have around, and as I come down the hallway they welcome me to their room and explain that it is already the smartest room in the house.

I ask Saidi to show me his new room, and he sets off five paces ahead of me, moving with a determination that is only softened by the bounce of his shoulders and his wide angle smile. As I enter, there amidst his brothers he throws his arms open, turns to me and proclaims, "We have waited five years for this house. Now we are here, and it is so good. This is my room, and it shines! God bless this house! Thank you! You are welcome."

Days here are generally long, are often wearying, and tend to produce the most unexpected challenges. On days, however, when I get to stand in the middle of a milestone in life for the children we are here to serve, all of the hours, all the fatigue, all the difficulty recede into the darkness; joy rules the day. And so it is. 

Things I urgently feel you should know:

·         One of the cooks here has a young daughter. Her name is Kevin. I don't know why that is; it just is. Sometimes you have to accept that.

·         Two weeks ago we were in a 2.5 hour meeting with the engineer in charge of our new building to renegotiate a labor expense (long story short, the original bill of quantities is for his crew to do all the interior prepping and painting of the ceilings and walls, they are now only prepping, thus a new, lower price needed to be reached). This meeting began at 8:45. At night. But we negotiated a new price. We even wrote it up a memorandum for his home office informing it of the method by which we agreed on the number.

·         Today the engineer informed us that as they have done the work, the new price was too low.

·         I will not renegotiate the price.

·         This is not because I am a hard ass but because I haven't had a meeting with the engineer that has been shorter than 2 hours (the aforementioned meeting was meant to last 15 minutes), and I don't think I can summon enough determination to do another meeting so soon.

·         There is a cow chewing on her upraised hind leg outside my door as I'm writing this.

·         There is often a cow outside my door.

·         As an American in Africa, I think I'm contractually obligated to make a mention of something called a jacaranda tree (or maybe a bush?), but I have no idea what this tree (bush) is. Obviously.

·         Sarah has begun cooking. Three of the last four nights she has prepared food for our administrative staff.

·         Dishes Sarah has prepared: Indian eggplant, curried okra, spaghetti with tomato sauce.

·         Sarah is cooking using a wood fire. The food doesn't reflect that massive limitation at all. In fact, I'll probably regain the 5 kg I've lost since we've been here sooner than later.

·         While I was working in our house and Sarah was on our back porch chopping vegetables with two of our girls, 12-year-old Lily Jane and 13-year-old Muja Joyce, I overheard the following exchange- Muja: My mother used to make this... She was so happy. Now she died. Lily: My father died. I cried and cried. There was a short pause, then Lily began laughing, Muja joined and they went on with chopping.

·         More than anything, exchanges like that are why I'm so happy Sarah is cooking. The girls love to cook with her, and they haven't had someone here to act as their mother since, well, ever.

·         I took Lily to the hospital the other day for a case of stomach cramps.

·         We were at the hospital for four hours, I kid you not.

·         While we were sitting in the open air waiting room, under the tin roof, with the paint peeling off the walls, the hospital employees brought out a TV and put on a DVD.  It was completely surreal.

·         Uploading photos takes forever here, so I can't show you the million cute, wonderful, or brilliant things that the kids are constantly doing.

·         Not numbered among those million things are the kids who became so excited about moving into their new home that they stayed home from school today to help us paint.

·         They made this decision without our information or consent.

·         We did not let them paint.

·         Also, we couldn't send them late to school because students who arrive late to their school are sent home.

·         That policy doesn't make sense to me either.

·         Numbered among the million things is the handful of 6-8 year old girls who crowded around an old mattress that they had laid out on the ground, and when the mosque next door to us began the call to prayer repeatedly knelt down, pressing their faces to the ground, calling out "Allahu Akbar," and giggling like banshees.

·         I'm not sure our neighbors like us.

·         Except Sylve, who is constantly stopping by and is constantly drunk. She likes to steal our sugar when we're not looking. She also like to throw rocks not at but in the general direction of our children. She also likes to threaten to beat them. And to randomly break into screeching, wailing sobs. And to stand in rooms where our children are trying to study and yell very random things such as, "Organization Airport!"

·         There's a long story behind why she yells things like that, but it'll have to wait.

·         We've tried to be patient with her, but we're getting to a point where we just can't have her around. We've set boundaries with her (like, "don't come here when you've been drinking"), and she's ignored them. She's becoming increasingly agitated and stubborn lately. We've had long discussions about what to do and settled on ignoring her.

·         If you have ideas for how to convince 60 kids to ignore the drunk lady who is standing in front of them saying, "Organization Airport" and cursing their (deceased) mothers, we are open to hearing them. 

Getting a little philosophical

Last week I found myself in a far-ranging, fascinating, and provocative discussion with a few friends. The conversation, allegedly, was about the social contract and it's well-being after a couple hundred years of democracy, but we talked about much, much more than that.

One of the themes that we kept returning to, in part because none of us could find a way to respond to it, was, "what is an ideal society?" And one of my friends made the bold assertion that life would have been better as a peasant in 12th century France than as a 21st century urban American, because, although life would be shorter and harsher, one had a clearer sense of one's role in the community, stronger ties to that community, a sustained relationship with one's family, and possibly even more leisure time.

Agree or disagree, that's a real argument, and there are plenty of counterarguments to be made; I know because I immediately began thinking about what we are trying to do through Cornerstone Friends. While southern Sudan isn't quite feudal Europe, a lot of our programs address conditions that are at least similar in appearance - take for instance the general lack of education available to the typical Sudanese child and the staggering rate of illiteracy among the adult population; it's not dissimilar to the lack of education among most of European society prior to the Enlightenment (if not later). We are trying to improve both the quality and the amount of education that Sudanese children receive in Sudanese schools, and we are trying to reach as many of those children as possible.

But what end does education serve?

As my friend pointed out, education brings with it the burden of self-awareness and an often unsatisfying struggle to understand one's role in the world and maintain one's connection with others. While education liberates a person to think and make choices rather than be constrained by the limits of tradition, tradition is not automatically a negative (nor, for that matter, is choice automatically a positive).

We will be working in a society that is overtly traditional. Is it our role to educate people to defy tradition or to better understand it?

Yes.

We want to improve education because we believe that it is both a joy and a burden, and that as people bear that burden education produces discourse. Discourse, however, is not the end; it is the means to the end of constructing a society.

I'm not sure there is a single ideal society, but I do believe there are principles that guide its construction, and one of those principles is that it should arise from the values of those it governs. How to do that is a question of even greater complexity, and it's the kind of question that can only be answered by people who have the skills and abilities to look at a problem from every imaginable perspective and identify the various strengths and weaknesses of each.

Those skills are not innate, they are learned, and someone always learns them, but for a society in transition (such as southern Sudan) a crucial question is whether those skills are in the hands of few or many. I personally believe that for all the shortcomings of tyranny of the majority, it is preferable to absolute authority, because it encourages people to live not only for themselves but for their society as a whole and to be active within that society. People who see problems can acquire the skills, through education, to address those problems. People who see injustice, cruelty, and oppression can oppose it and propose a different way. People can live for more than just survival, can be part of something larger than a family, can imagine and hope and dream.

And that's the kind of society I want to live in.

Discoveries, both here and abroad

We've been discovering an awful lot lately; that's what our summer has been about. Primarily, I'd say that we've been discovering the joy of living in Colorado. We spent a long weekend in Telluride, driving out the long way along highway 285. We spent a day on inner tubes shooting the rapids of Boulder Creek (which claimed my wedding ring). We've been making a list of things we absolutely must do to take advantage of being Colorodans before we move (to wit, 6 weeks from Monday).

Of course it isn't all fun and games for us. With Christian already on the ground in Nimule, we've also been taking stock of the situation there and thinking about and planning for this first phase of our work. Our most exciting discovery has been the breakthrough in solar-powered products designed for the developing world. We are thrilled by the products being manufactured by Tough Stuff and D.light. They're both impressive in their own rite.

For us, giving our kids reliable nighttime lighting would allow them to use the evening hours to study. We've looked into a full power system using a hybrid of wind, solar, and petrol, but the cost is jaw-dropping.

So let me say that solar lamps are one of those brilliant innovations for the developing world that replace an existing product with something more efficient, less expensive, and less dangerous. Many, many households in the developing world already use paraffin (kerosene) lamps to light their homes at night. If you have ever used one of these lamps, you know that they aren't especially bright, they can be irritating to the eyes, and they are expensive to maintain because they constantly need kerosene. If knocked over, they can cause household fires. In short, they serve a purpose, but they also pose a lot of risk.

What stood out to us about Tough Stuff was the durable solar panel, which is a separate from the lighting units they design. Tough Stuff has designed a whole complement of products, from lamps to small cell batteries, that can be powered by this solar panel. Even cooler, for distribution they have developed a network of micro-entrepreneurs who receive training to sell Tough Stuff products in their villages.

D.Light is equally cool, though their product line is a little different - their lamps have an integrated solar panel, so the lamps themselves are placed outside in sunlight during the day and then brought inside at night to provide hours of illumination.

In both cases, the products were specifically designed for conditions in the developing world (such as weather and utility), and their units retail there for less than $25 each.

We think that for us this could be the difference between spending thousands of dollars to power a home for 65-100 kids and spending a few hundred dollars.

It might make me an epic dork, but these are the kind of things that excite me and fill me with hope that we might live in a time when poverty could be greatly reduced or even eliminated altogether.

You should take a look at these two companies' websites and let us know which product you like better.