We have peace at last!

After six and a half years of civil war, South Sudan has declared peace and has sworn in a new ‘unity’ government, which is now just over a month old.  It is called a unity government because it consists of all the warring parties from the conflict.  It remains to be seen how well this will work, but at least at the moment, hopes are high.  This is causing a lot of refugees to return home, including trained teachers.

In a recent post, I described the difficulties we have faced with teachers.  I am happy to say that we have recently appointed several new teachers to replace those who have left.  The majority of the new teachers are trained and have considerable experience teaching in Uganda.  One is newly trained on a similar course to the Solidarity with South Sudan one, where Mohammed is studying.  This influx of teachers has transformed the teaching experience for the children. 

Coupled with the arrival of the new teachers, we have received a delivery of new textbooks using the New South Sudan Curriculum from the Ministry of Education.  They are very much better than the old books, but at the moment are only for Primary 1, 3 and 5.  We have been promised that the books for Primary 2, 4 and 6 will arrive, but we don’t know exactly when yet.  The new books include more interesting lessons with hands-on activities.  The only difficulty now is the need to find enough scissors, colours and a regular supply of paper and other stationery for the classes.

Another piece of good news is that HUMAES (our local partner NGO) has started a pilot project in our school to help our older girls with their particular child protection issues.  These difficulties have been mentioned in a previous post.  They have organized our girls of 12 years old or older by class, with a peer mentor in each class and overseen by one of our teachers.  The whole group meets once a week in the lunch hour and learns about various important issues affecting them, such as bodily hygiene, menstruation, sexual abuse, draconian punishment etc.  If a girl is suffering any sort of abuse at home, she can discuss the problem with the teacher-in-charge or the peer mentor in her class.  In less serious cases, the teacher will talk to the girl’s family and try to resolve the problem.  If necessary, the neighbours and local chief will be called to work together to provide back-up.  So far we have had one case, which was peacefully resolved with the help of the neighbours.  This is not a model which I can imagine being successful in Europe, but in a tribal society (where there is no concept of nuclear families) it is an acceptable approach.

Several weeks ago, gale force winds struck Nimule.  Our school kitchen collapsed completely, so that our poor cooks were left cooking in the blazing sun.  By contrast, one day we had heavy rain throughout the school day, so that the cooks were completely unable to provide food for the children.  We have just rebuilt the kitchen using the old foundations and leftover building blocks from previous construction work.  The new kitchen is now finished.    

This emergency building work caused us to raid the funds allocated for other things, particularly money intended for uniforms for our new children.  However, we have recently received some donations which are enabling the tailors to start work, while the school is not operating.

Several donors have quite spontaneously sent large donations.  Thank you so much for thinking of our school and helping us so much.  This money will be used to start on the construction of our last classroom block, which will complete the primary school classrooms.  The only problem is that the border with Uganda is now closed so we cannot access building materials.  This means that an immediate start is not possible.

I am happy to send gift aid forms to anyone is able to help with the construction costs of the new classroom block, or with regular donations so that we can buy school necessities and pay staff salaries regularly.  My email address is rebeccamallinson1@hotmail.co.uk. 

It is also possible to make donations online through Virgin Money Giving.  Please be aware that it is necessary to put ‘Cece Primary School’ in the comments box, as Opportunity through Education also collects funds for other causes.  Virgin Giving charges a hefty admin fee on large donations, so please send direct to Opportunity through Education if you are considering sending £1,000 or over.

Impact of the Coronavirus precautions

I am very sorry to see on the news how badly Europe is affected by the Coronavirus.  Coronavirus has not reached us, so everything seems very unreal.  However, the Coronavirus precautions are impacting us very severely. 

On Wednesday last week, I heard that all schools in Uganda were being closed as from Friday.  I needed to go to Uganda to fetch the deaf children from Mbale.  However, my passport was not with me as I keep it securely locked in the desk of a friendly pastor.  When I called him asking for my passport, he told me he was in Kampala until Friday.  I was therefore unable to leave immediately as intended.  I had to call the children’s school and explain that I could not fetch them until later.  Fortunately they were very understanding and helpful. 

In fact, this delay proved to be a Godsend, as I had a severe cold, cough and temperature at the time.  If I had left that Wednesday I would almost certainly have been detained in quarantine for two weeks (as has happened to some other people).  The pastor returned on Friday as promised and I left Nimule in a good state of health.  The journey takes two days, so I and the children only started the return journey on Sunday.  When we reached the border on Monday morning, I found the Ugandan Immigration Department closed and crowds of desperate people waiting outside.  I did not know if we would be able to cross at all. 

I called the father of one of the children to tell him our situation.  He said that as well as his home in Nimule, he also has a home in Elegu.  Nimule is a divided town, with part of the town (called Elegu) on the Ugandan side of the border.  He called his older son to find us and take us to his home for lunch.  If we were unable to cross to Nimule-proper, he offered for the children to sleep there overnight while I stayed in a hotel. 

In the event, we heard an announcement that the border would reopen at 2pm, so we came back ready to cross.  We waited for two hours, some of it in the pouring rain.  At nearly 4pm there was a sudden announcement that all South Sudanese nationals could pass.  I asked for advice, as I am not South Sudanese but needed to accompany our South Sudanese children.  The border officials kindly allowed me to go with the rest of the crowd.  There was no stamping of passports, which was a bit of a worry, but we all had our temperatures taken as we were hurried across the border.  Once in South Sudan, we piled onto motorbike taxis and headed for home. 

Since that day, the border has been entirely closed to all apart from long distance lorries, so we arrived home in the nick of time.  I tried to return to the border the next day to get my passport stamped, but was turned back, with the advice just to take things easy and come back when I heard that the border had reopened.  I have heard that many people are stranded on both sides of the border, desperately pleading to be let through.  Security officials have responded by beating people.  Some have swum across the river to get home, braving the crocodiles.

I arrived back to find that in my absence the South Sudanese government had closed all schools for at least one month.  They have also closed the churches and banned all public gatherings including funeral ceremonies.  So Cece Primary School is not open right now.  

We are not wasting time though we can't teach right now.  As it is coming towards the end of term exams, so I have asked our teachers to work on exam papers, in case we are able to reopen before the end of term.  I am also taking advantage of the non-teaching time to do a thorough clean-up of our school storeroom.  Uniforms are being made for the new children, which will be a good welcome back for those currently without uniform.

The presidential decree initiating the school closures expects that if the crisis has passed, schools will reopen after one month.  Let us hope that this is correct.