Refugees or stayers?

You will have seen from the news the terrible events here in South Sudan.  My last post was on the same subject.  The town has seen a mass exodus even though there has been not one single gunshot.  As I have seen on several occasions in the time I've been here, this is the usual pattern.  The refugee camps in Uganda are filling up purely on the basis of events elsewhere and alarmist rumours.  Tragically the cycle of moving to and from refugee camps continues across generations.

The churches and local officials are trying to talk people into staying.  In my view they are completely right.  Everyone has planted their subsistence crops; these crops will now go to waste while their planters live on foreign aid.  Children are wrenched out of school and will learn camp culture rather than a normal social culture.

But what, I hear you ask, has happened to Cece Primary School?  At first I worried that the school would have to close due to lack of numbers, like almost every other school in the country.  Then I had a sudden, and very miraculous, inspiration to open the doors of the school to any primary-stage children still in Nimule.  The numbers attending were right down to six children last week.  Since I announced the open-door policy the numbers are starting to rise.  Yesterday and today we had fifteen children, a third of whom are new faces.  As word gets around I expect the numbers to increase.  This is our contribution to the effort of stabilising the local situation.  Inevitably some of our teachers have left for the camp, but with small numbers this does not matter too much.  We also lost both cooks.  We are about to employ a replacement, as feeding the children is, literally, vital.  I am so relieved that we are able to continue and perform a real public service now that other schools are closed.

Charles Anyanzo, the Director of HUMAES, my local partner organisation, has also had a very good idea.  Like me, he is very concerned about the persistent refugee mentality which, combined with the political situation, completely stops any progress in the country.  He is considering the possibility of HUMAES going into the camps to educate the people on a range of issues; adult education, health, sanitation, conflict resolution and peace-building, to name but a few areas.  For this we would need the permission of the UN and the Ugandan government.  The overall aim would be to heighten awareness of 'nationhood' and to break the refugee mentality so that South Sudan can stabilise.

At the moment we are at the brainstorming stage.  If anyone can think of ways to achieve these aims in practical terms, please let me know.

We have a situation here!

I thought it would be a good idea to publish a post about the current situation here, from my perspective, living in Nimule.

You may have seen on the international news that there is renewed fighting in South Sudan.  It is all too true.  In spite of all international mediation and peacekeeping attempts, the powers-that-be and their respective armies have done everything to thwart those efforts and are now killing each other and many civilians.  So far, the fighting has all been in Juba and other towns at some distance from Nimule.  Nimule remains quiet but with panicky fears among previously traumatized people, who jump at every shadow.  I have lived here for nearly three years now and have ‘seen it all before’, so there is nothing new; however I thought it might be good to describe the effects of ‘situations’ to those in more peaceful countries.

Juba and elsewhere

People living in Juba and other towns are frantically calling relatives elsewhere in the country.  Due to fighting in the streets of Juba they are unable to go outside to work or buy food.  Pascalina told me that her sister is stuck in her home with nothing left to feed her crying children.  We also heard that troops have massacred all patients and staff in a hospital in Juba.  This information came from a nurse who was fortunate enough to be off duty at the time.  

The fighting has also spread to other towns along the Juba to Nimule road and elsewhere in the country.  Working its way in our direction, Kerepi, Pageri and Magwi have all suffered torching of homes and many residents have taken refuge in the bush.

Here in Nimule

Here, we have not suffered any violence.  Soldiers are patrolling day and night.  We are hoping it will this situation will end before getting to us, as has been the case with all the other ‘situations’ so far.

In the midst of the doom and gloom, a family appeared at the local Catholic church.  The husband was a quiet, politely spoken man.  The wife was completely irrational with fear.  ‘Where’s the swimming pool?’ she asked.  It turned out that they had been sent back to South Sudan from Norway, where they had been refugees for years while their family’s application was slowly processed and finally rejected.  Their children are unable to speak their tribal language and are completely at sea.  No wonder the mother has reacted in such a way, coming from peaceful, prosperous Norway to the edge of a war zone, where things are no better than when she left all those years ago.

Roads and travel

The road between Nimule and Juba (the only tarmacked road in the entire country) has been blocked so that it is impossible to travel between towns.  At first the border with Uganda was also blocked against South Sudanese citizens to stop them fleeing to the refugee camps in Uganda, but that has fortunately been lifted through our County Commissioner’s intervention.  Foreigners and Ugandans continue to be able to travel freely.

Phone and internet

As far as I know there have never been any landlines in South Sudan.  Apart from the poorest citizens, most adults have mobile phones which use airtime vouchers bought from one of several mobile phone operators.  The same companies supply internet access, which can be used either on phones or computers.  All these companies operate from Juba.  Some have packed up completely so that there is no longer even a network signal.  This is because the situation in Juba is so bad that nobody can work, as mentioned previously.  Those companies that are maintaining a spasmodic network signal are unable to send airtime vouchers elsewhere because of the road blocks.  

In the case of my own phone, I was lucky enough to have bought airtime the day before the voucher supply was finished.  However my friend Pascalina’s family along with the rest of the local community are receiving frantic calls from relatives who have fled to the ‘bush’ from their destroyed homes begging for airtime so they can communicate.  I have therefore had to send some of my own airtime through the phone electronic system to help out.  The HUMAES office has also been fortunate.  They had the presence of mind to stock up on airtime for a month’s worth of internet use, hence my ability to send this post.

Fuel and electricity

Fuel prices, which had already risen to very high levels because of the ongoing currency crisis, have now risen even higher.  Because of the unresolved conflict over the country’s oil fields and the lack of road access from other countries, all oil is imported through Uganda along our wonderful tarmacked road.  As it is not now possible for fuel tankers to travel through to Juba the situation must be impossible there.  Here, the only ‘public’ transport is by boda boda (privately owned motorcycles which are flagged down in the street).  Up until a few days ago a short trip cost 5 South Sudanese Pounds (SSP).  Now it is 10 SSP.  

Judging by the last time we had a ‘situation’, soon it will be impossible to buy fuel at all.  People may cross the border to buy fuel in Uganda in jerrycans at vast expense because of the unfavourable exchange rate, but due to the poverty here, that is not likely.  Currently one litre of petrol costs 120 SSP.  To give an idea of the enormity of this, I should explain that an average teacher’s monthly salary is currently 500 SSP.  So, a litre of fuel uses a quarter of a month’s salary, which is beyond most people’s capacity.  When I first arrived here, the exchange rate for $100 was 500 SSP.  Now it is more than ten times that amount and rising even within the day.

Electricity is produced using privately owned fuel operated generators.  This is because generators are a lot cheaper to buy than solar equipment.  The fuel crisis will cause a lack of electricity as a result.  Most homes have no power in any case, so it is mainly businesses that are affected.

Education

As those of you who have been following my previous blog posts will know, education here is shaky and substandard at the best of times.  Now that it is such an uncertain time, people worry about sending their children to school.  Who knows if the unrest might not spread here very suddenly as it has elsewhere?  If it does families will need to flee immediately.  We took the decision to close the school this week hoping that things will subside and normalize soon.  I hope and pray that we will be able to sustain the school, which is so necessary for our children’s future.  But what else can we do?  Human life has to be a priority at a time like this.  I don’t like to think of these children living lives like their parents and grandparents, constantly shuttling between mud hut, IDP and refugee camp and back again in an endless, hopeless cycle.

Food

Last year there were widespread crop failures due to a combination of drought and fighting.  This year there have been seed distributions organized by the UN.  Unfortunately after planting there has been very unreliable rainfall.  We had a long spell without rain during which insects ate a lot of the planted un-germinated seeds, although some have survived and sprouted.  The locally produced food is mostly for family consumption so food in the market is largely from Uganda, with the same exchange rate problems as with fuel.

When we reopened the school at the beginning of term we found that quite a few families were missing because they had gone to the camps in search of food.  This situation is likely to escalate now.

Healthcare

In the whole time I’ve been here, medical facilities have been very basic.  There is a hospital funded by Save the Children and various other NGOs, which supposedly supplies the whole area around Nimule, but it lacks staff, drugs and basic equipment.  There is also a clinic run by the Catholic Church which is now completely out of drugs of any kind and is also short-staffed.  Treatment is free at both of these if available.  The alternative is to go to privately run clinics in the town.  Some have equipment such as xray and ultrasound scanner, which are lacking from the first mentioned.  However clinics are also low on drugs.  Like other imports drugs are now astronomically expensive, causing great hardship and even death from easily treatable complaints.  I am told that tetanus is unavailable across the whole country.  

My own situation

As in the previous situations, I am still here.  I will remain and try to keep the school going if at all possible.  It is quite possible that the whole situation will blow over.  I heard that there has already been one ceasefire attempt.  Hopefully another, more successful attempt will follow.

Pascalina’s family is comparatively well off, so we are not in a desperate state.  I am also making a contribution myself towards food.  In my turn, I am receiving a lot of moral support from some sisters who arrived recently from Kenya.  We all support each other.  

This morning, a large convoy of Ugandan tanks, soldiers, police and ambulances, escorted by an aeroplane, rolled through the town.  At first sight my heart sank because in the previous situation the Ugandan government heavily reinforced the government forces here, very likely prolonging and worsening the fighting.  However, I’ve been told that the convoy is a rescue mission for Ugandan citizens trapped in Juba. 

On my way to early morning Mass along an eerily silent and empty road, a soldier on patrol greeted me and asked if I was going to church.  When I said yes, he asked me to pray for him.  Please pray for this poor country and its people.

The Tortoise and the Hare

In South Sudan there are innumerable bank holidays for all sorts of occasions, including such events as World Refugee Day, World AIDS Day, International Women’s Day, Girl Child Day and more understandable ones such as Independence Day and Muslim and Christian festivals.  Education is much disrupted as a result.  To make matters worse, schools rely on the local Education Office informing them of these days.  This rarely happens before the previous day and even then not all schools are informed.  Some get the information secondhand and distorted.

A prime example happened this week.  I met one of our teachers in the street after school on Monday and was told that the next day was a public holiday for Eid.  He had received the information from a teacher at another school.  Exercising all due caution I said that I would discuss it with the school management committee.  Once I had passed the news on, it was decided to go to a bar in the evening to watch the news on tv to see if it was true.  Few people own private televisions in Nimule.  It turned out that our teacher was misinformed; the holiday was to be on Wednesday.

We duly opened the school as usual on Tuesday and were among very few schools which were open that day.  The school was closed on Wednesday for the official Eid holiday, as were all other schools.  We opened again on Thursday, again, almost alone among Nimule schools.  The reason this time was that it was Girl Child Day.  We took the view that as there was no official celebration of this event in Nimule this year, there was no reason to close.

This coming Saturday is Independence Day for South Sudan and it is likely, but not definite, that schools will be closed again on Monday.

All this comes in the midst of a severe financial crisis.  Government teachers, who are very inadequately paid in any case, have not been paid at all since February.  They are leaving the profession in their droves, leaving classes untaught.  Teachers are currently taking strike action, although where the money will be found is anybody’s business.  Teachers are not alone as the Government has no money in its coffers for any purposes.  Even the official Independence Day celebrations are completely cancelled this year.

Thankfully Cece Primary School does not have any government teachers.  Our teachers are all paid regularly through your kind donations.  As a result, our children are being taught most of the time. 

For the last period on Fridays we always have a whole school session consisting of stories and songs.  Last Friday I told the children the story of the Tortoise and the Hare.  At the end I asked the children if they wanted to be the tortoise or the hare.  They were unanimous that they wanted to be the tortoise.

I pointed out that our school is called ‘Cece’.  In the local Madi language ‘Cece’ literally means ‘Slowly, slowly’, or ‘Little by little’ in English.  With motivated and conscientious teachers and not too many days off school, our children will do very much better than their peers at other schools.  We truly are the tortoises.

That said, the financial crisis is causing prices to escalate ever higher and our teachers’ pay seriously needs to be increased.  Please can I ask once again for your regular, monthly assistance with this?

Donations to the school should be made through the Sean Devereux Children’s Fund, who are able to claim Gift Aid on the school’s behalf, which means we can reclaim 25% on top of donations made by UK tax-payers.  Please email me on rebeccamallinson1@hotmail.co.uk so I can email you the Gift Aid form.  This applies whether or not you are a UK tax-payer. 

A small monthly donation will help a lot with our day to day running costs of staff wages, feeding, pencils etc. Larger lump sums will go towards construction costs for our new school.

Any additional money will not be wasted as our school is running on a shoestring and there are many other needs, such as chalk, exercise books, stationery and food.