Adjusting to the unpredictable

Trucks of cattle leave Nimule

In the past few weeks there has been major disruption in Nimule and its surrounding area.  This has been largely due to cattle raiding by tribes who have followed internally displaced people (IDPs), who are cattle keepers, to our area.  The result has been a lot of killings of both cattle keepers and local people as well as the theft of cattle.  Thankfully the national and state governments sent representatives to calm the situation down and hold meetings with the locals and the IDPs.  They have left extra soldiers to patrol to stop any more disturbances.  The cattle keepers have been ordered to remove their cattle back to their traditional tribal area.  They are doing so, piling the cattle into trucks.

To make matters worse, some people (I suspect they are local gangs) have having what I can only call a murder spree, killing people with either knives or guns.  The killings have been totally random and usually take place in the evenings or overnight.

Younger children playing with duplo

To cut a long story short, the effect of these happenings has been to close the schools and send a lot of people fleeing to Uganda, where they are being refused admission to the refugee camps and sent away.  As from Monday we have reopened although the majority of children are missing.  We have truncated our school hours so that we are only open during the mornings to try to avoid security issues.  It seems from everything I hear that the perpetrators are all late sleepers – at work in the late evenings and overnight but resting in the mornings.

Last week I and some fellow teachers went through all our extra-curricular games and put together a good supply of jigsaws and various games for literacy and numeracy.  Those children who are attending are having a rare chance to learn through play, and the teachers are learning at the same time how to teach by non-formal methods.  It is very hard to get South Sudanese teachers to use anything but 'talk and chalk' methods, so this is a whole new experience for them.  

Stenciling

I am so glad to have been able to reopen.  It must have been very tough on the children at home to have been living in such an atmosphere of fear, so it is good to take their minds off their troubles a bit.  Since Monday we have divided the children between two classrooms, by age.  The small children have wooden blocks, duplo, simple jigsaws, jenga and outdoor play.  The older children have more complicated games such as Scrabble and a lovely 250-piece jigsaw map of the world.  All ages are enjoying dominos.  For the older children we are having slightly more formal lessons in music (learning the recorder) and painting with stencils.  

Some other schools are also reopening, so hopefully those who have gone to Uganda will hear from their relatives and come back.  Then we will be able to resume normal lessons.

In the meantime, a new classroom has been built and one classroom had been plastered before we were forced to shut.  The workmen came back to resume the plastering work yesterday.

Children play on our only remaining
piece of playground equipment.