A picture is worth 791 Words

I could tell it was going to be a long day, even the night before when the rain began at 11:00. It didn't stop until after lunch and I was torn by this meteorological development. Clearly the rain was an awesome relief from the hotness of the last few weeks, but deep down in my heart I knew it was no good.

The rains have come late to Eastern Equatoria this year, and I can safely say that though the farmers were not excited about the ensuing drought, I was a bit more positive about it. Look at me, the optimist! No rain meant the roads were slightly more navigable than usual for this time of year, which meant that we could actually get to our final destination without digging ourselves out of massive mud pits for hours on end. Monday, however, we were not so lucky.

Esther, our social worker who seems to always be armed with a camera, decided to capture me at one of my finer moments. Pay no attention to the terrible posture I am exhibiting.

This was routine drive to Chahari, one of the three schools we are supporting with the Distance Support project. Every two weeks I go there to take food for the school feeding program (I have many thoughts about this school feeding scheme, but I think I will begin that diatribe in a later blog when I’m real fired up about it), to meet with the teachers about how their work is coming, how the students are performing, where all the girls are, and to monitor the construction of the new school we are building. I love Chahari. I love the kids and the community and out of all the teachers I have met here, these few seem the most committed.

An hour into the drive from Isohe, we were 2 feet deep in what must be some of the greatest mud in the world for very schwaa mud baths. I’m pretty sure this mud is the reason why Sudanese women have gorgeous skin. Unfortunately for the car and the driver, it is super squishy and really hard to get out of once you are stuck. But after an hour of gathering stones and digging ourselves out, messing with the huge Tanganyika jack that never seems to work, and spinning the tires down to - I would say - about nothing, we were out…and then stuck again. Literally, this went on for 2 and a half hours. When we finally got to Chahari, the three of us were covered in black mud and I was expected to have a meeting with the teachers. Obviously they took me seriously.

The meeting that followed was priceless…after being berated because the new school was not finished, I moved on to something I could actually do something about. When I asked the teachers how the school could be improved, I got requests from rain coats for the teachers to soccer nets for the kids and everything you could imagine in between that had not much to do with actual teaching or learning. But I rolled with it and told them I would try. Tough crowd.

And then, to top the day off, we got stuck in the exact same place on the way back to Isohe. At this, I just laughed and our driver, Andrew, called the base on the radio to come tow us out (I'm so excited by this...I have a radio call sign! While I wanted it to be kitten, Pietro (Papa Golf), I am told, mandates that radio names be first and last initials - so, I am now SIERRA MIKE, soon to be SIERRA DELTA!! - just in case you happen to be in South Sudan using radio channel 1 in the near future). A few days later, over the radio came a call for Sierra Mike. Everyone in the car, including myself was unsure who this was...then I thought, "THAT'S ME!!!" It was awesome! - bit of an aside.

Tough day. However, it was nice to get out of the office and get my hands dirty. I seriously feel like I am back behind my desk at the Dickstein. Lots of reports to write, manuals to read, statistics to compile. With this constant sitting and pasta eating, I'll be lucky to fit into my wedding dress. Mental note: Must run. Revision: Must leave the office before it gets too dark to run.

I think the drive to Chahari was just a warning, though. Now, the rains have come mightily and this day, I am sure, will be mild in comparison to what is to come. The rains of course are a blessing, but when I think of just how difficult it is to do a few hours of real work here, every day of a good , dry road is a blessing to me. And here on this blog (at least for now) it's all about me.