onward..South Sudan

Magwi, South Sudan

We jumped the border several days ago , up through the Acholi heartland of Northern Uganda by a bus of other urbanites returning to the homeland . Chickens and children and sweaty people viaed for a comfortable place to sleep as we wound through the countryside and finally at dawn to Niamle-a border town of blowing red dirt and men with guns starring eachother down across a stick across the road. (Photos as soon as we have a decent connection not run by a gas powered generator and a wish). In Niamle we lost our bus to a break down and I took a hard fall shredding my knee and my pants. Another busa finally picked us up and we rode relentlessly through the land , more dusty and more drought stricken as we drove on. The roads we drove on were literally being built underneath us by hand , transformed from gravel and dirt by men and a few women in turbans laboring next to rudinmentarly marked minefields. We crossed the Nile several times on bridges with no support to speak of. Uganda the much richer neighbor to thesouth of Sudan , shockingly had neglected its roads far more than South Sudan though , which has let its people pay the burden.

Arriving in Juba was a shock and this from a seasoned humanitarian aid worker whose worked all over the developing world (!) and several African barefoot doctors from Uganda. The national capital is rather like the end of the earth these days. It is the wild south -lawless and violent. On our first night in a rundown guest house we ate at the bar /disco /house of ill repute next door to avoid a walk in the dark (no electric anywhere ) and an ethiopian prostitute tried to take a walk with Kahlo, my 5 year old, to a waiting car. I suspect our arrival attracted some attention in this quiet nowhere place.

It was a literal breath of fresh air to come to the field . After traveling 50 miles on the back of a motorcycle across ditch filled roads , sorghem fields, villages of thatch roof round houses and goats and small children most of whom had rarely seen a pale skin child. Kahlo scared a young boy to death and children ran after our motorbike, we arrived in Magwi , near back in Uganda and site of our clinic and some of the worst fighting of the war that swallowed lives here for 20 years.

We are spending these next  months in a guest house in the countryside among our Sudan staff . We washed clothes this morning by hand and talked of needs and priorities . They are seeing ecoli and all types of diease on the rise , typhoid most notably. Maternal health and infant mortality are sliding down a terrible scale. This new nation which the people consider a blessing from god is being tested in ways that are barbaric and profoundly unfair . The lives that war didn't take are in the balance. We are finding ways to try to help . The aid agencies , our staff tells us have abandoned Magwi. We are trying to plant roots. Tomorrow we tour the local clinic, our clinic for now, and get a better grasp on conditions and work to see what we can do . I am sure when I climb inside my mosquito net at night what I see here will haunt and move me and affect my dreams . My heart is  here and I hope we can do something..anything .