Christmas Greetings

Dear all, 

 I hope you have a lovely and restful Christmas and a Happy New Year. Looking at the news, I can see that this year in the UK has been a second year of great difficulties with Covid. I do hope this improves in 2022. As far as Covid is concerned South Sudan has been probably one of the least affected countries in the world, so we have really been very fortunate. Of course, objective figures have been masked by lack of testing and general problems of poor infrastructure and logistics. However, it is still remarkable that a country with such poor health infrastructure can be so little affected compared with countries such as Britain or America which have plenty of medical resources. There are always a lot of funerals here, but this hasn’t noticeably increased. Most people are not complying with the Covid regulations, largely because of the far more pressing problems faced by South Sudanese on a daily basis – such as where to find the next meal. If people are living from hand-to-mouth, there is no way they can self-isolate. They simply must cultivate and sell their crops or starve. It is extremely rare for anyone to have the luxury of a room of their own, so isolation at home is not physically possible in any case. Another major reason for lack of compliance is that many people view Covid as ‘Satanic’. Anything to do with it is shunned – Covid testing, facemasks, handwashing, social distancing and vaccines. Some even propagate the myth that the sign of Satan (666) will appear on a person’s arm after receiving the vaccine, or that they will die soon afterwards. This is having a very serious effect on vaccine take-up in Uganda too, which will unavoidably lead to many teachers leaving the profession and stop many older pupils from finishing their education. I have personally seen young people who were mid-course, unable or unwilling to complete their courses because of the mandatory vaccine requirement. Enough about Covid! 

Private maths lesson for Alice

For me, a great highlight of the last few months has been the teaching of a few of our deaf children by the eldest, Alau, who is the only one at secondary level. The picture shows Alau teaching Alice. He has decided that he wants to become a teacher for the deaf when he leaves school. This will involve doing a teacher training course at a specialist training college. He particularly wants to teach in South Sudan because there is no help for deaf children here. I am hoping that once he is qualified we can open a deaf unit in our school and stop sending primary level deaf children to Uganda. We would be able to help more children at a smaller cost and without the long journeys and school fees. We have been paying him out of what should have been school fees for the deaf children if their schools had been open. Thankfully Alau has been vaccinated so he will be able to move ahead with his plans.

 

Foundations for a block of 4 classrooms

Another achievement was the building of foundations for a new block of classrooms. This is just a large slab of concrete right now, but hopefully we will be able to raise funds so that classrooms can be built in the not too distant future. 

Our contribution to the anti-Covid effort has been to have school in two shifts. This has had the added benefit of making the school less crowded and quieter. However, some parents of ‘afternoon’ pupils complain that their children are not attending because they dislike coming in the afternoons. Once we have more classrooms, we will be able to rethink our school day. 

Schools in South Sudan have just broken up for a two week Christmas break. On our last day, the lower school (who operate in the mornings) all did Christmas story related activities. I was teaching Primary 2. We told each other the story of the nativity and then improvised a Christmas play. There were a lot of applicants to be Mary, Joseph and the Angel Gabriel. The smallest boy in the class was the baby Jesus. The sight of some of our boys who are almost street urchins being angels with flapping wings was very funny. In the afternoon, the upper school was very poorly attended and so we played board games together. I had very recently taught some of the oldest pupils to play Scrabble. This is a huge success and very educational for them too, helping with vocabulary, spelling, spelling rules, strategic planning etc. We have three sets of Scrabble and also several of Lotto. They were donated by UNICEF. 

We go back to school straight after the New Year. However, I will be in Uganda for the first week as our school opening coincides with the post-Covid reopening in Uganda. I will need to take all the deaf children back to school. Thank you all for your support for the school during 2021. I am really so grateful, particularly at such a difficult time for all of you. 

Once again wishing you a lovely Christmas.

World AIDS Day 2021

On the first of December World AIDS Day was celebrated in Nimule. This is held every year and is very close to the hearts of many because Nimule is one of the most seriously affected places in South Sudan. The main reasons for this are that Nimule is a stopover for many truck drivers coming from Uganda, who lodge in what amount to brothels, and also because polygamy is the traditional norm in all the local tribes. As families with HIV are the main target group for our school, Cece Primary School always takes part.

Primary 5 and Primary 6, our two highest classes, took part. This year our pupils surpassed themselves. By popular request they repeated a performance of a poem and song which we composed as a class exercise several years ago on the subject of the devastation caused by HIV. This was followed by a new song called ‘AIDS you are merciless’. Our school finished the day by performing a Madi traditional dance in the lyrics of which a girl is warned not to go to the disco because she can end up with HIV. This contribution was our first performance of a traditional dance. It was taught to the children by one of our new teachers, Habiba. Afterwards we were complimented by many people on how well our children had done. I have to say that I was very proud.

You may notice from the photos that the majority of performers were girls. I am finding that as adolescence hits our pupils, the boys have become very resistant to taking part in singing, dancing or drama. I was glad to see that this wears off. One of the secondary schools which took part produced a comedy drama about a schoolboy who went off the rails and ended up with HIV. The ratio of boys to girls was roughly equal. In spite of the subject matter, it really was very funny. Thank you all for making it possible for our children to go to school in the first place. All other schools in Nimule are fee-paying, with a lot of additional financial requirements as well. Our particular children, those from families with HIV, disabilities and orphans, are the least likely to be able to attend school under normal circumstances because these problems all create destitution.

Recent highlights from Cece Primary School

Dear all,

I am writing to update you on the progress of Cece Primary School.

Laying the foundations

In spite of my previous pessimism about our prospects for building a new block of classrooms, one of our donors came forward with enough money to start work and lay the foundations.  Work has been underway for a week now and is nearly complete.  We are using the same team of workers as previously as they have always been very efficient and hard-working.  To be honest I don’t know how they keep it up in the sweltering heat of the day.  They start work before I arrive at 7am and are still working when I leave at 4pm.  All their work is done manually.  They are sleeping on site and receiving meals cooked by our school cooks.  Once the foundations are complete, we will need to fundraise for classrooms.  We constructed our previous block of classrooms over the course of around two years, building one classroom at a time.    Very likely we will do the same again.

We have also been producing uniforms for the many children who had outgrown their old uniforms.  This cost was assisted by a final donation from Pencils for All.  The actual production of the uniforms has been an uphill struggle because previously there were two tailors working together, but this time one decided not to take part.  This left the remaining tailor struggling to make over 60 uniforms on his own.  To make matters worse, he collapsed at one point and was hospitalized for some time.  Since he measured the children, more children have joined the school, who also need uniforms.  It seems to be a never-ending battle.

One of our two new guards.

I have mentioned the poor security situation in the school compound before.  We have finally managed to find two ex-soldiers to be school guards.  One is a school parent with five children in our school, so he has a vested interest in our school.  They started work last week.  The difference is immense; no more gin bottles and used condoms to greet us in the mornings.  They are also assisting with clearing the compound of long grass and bushes.

Another great boost has come from a donor in Australia, who has started a crowdfunding page to help generate funds for the school.  If anyone else would like to do the same, I can put you in contact for advice on how it is done.  As mentioned in a previous blog post, I cannot easily travel to the UK due to the Covid situation, which makes it difficult for me to fundraise for the school face-to-face as I did previously.  Another reason for being unable to travel is the very short school holidays, which are the South Sudanese Ministry of Education’s way to help schools catch up on the year without school in 2020.  Crowdfunding is a really helpful way of reaching new people, who might like to support the school as it expands.

Alau teaching Alice maths.  She had forgotten a
lot, so this 'private' coaching is a real help to her.

Also as a result of the Covid lockdown in Uganda, Alau, who is the oldest of the deaf students, currently at Senior 3 level at secondary school, has been working with the younger deaf children, so that they don’t lose too much of their education.  We are paying him using some of the school fees sent for the deaf children, as these are not being used otherwise.  Schools in Uganda have now been closed for two terms in both 2020 and 2021, leaving children nationwide completely without education.  In other words, they have only had one term of schooling each year.  Schools are supposed to reopen in Uganda in January 2022 – let us hope it will be continuous education from then on.  Alau has been doing a really good job, which makes me think he might like to have a career in teaching for the deaf.  If so, we might consider starting a Hearing Impairment Unit at our school once he is properly trained.  This would enable us to provide schooling for more deaf children at a lower cost and without the current long journeys.  At the moment this is all speculation however.  It would be a groundbreaking venture, as there is no special needs education in South Sudan at all.

The main needs of the school are for money for more uniforms, the usual teacher salaries and other running costs.  As mentioned, crowdfunding seems to be the way to go forward due to the difficulties with travel at the moment.

Firefly School for the Blind

I wrote in a post early last year, that there is a young man called Peter Ngong living in Nimule who is completely blind.  I have been trying to help him since he was in his mid-teens.  He is now around twenty years old.  His situation is as difficult and unsettled as ever.  His school place, which I mentioned in the previous post fell through because he got too frightened at the last minute by various gloomy predictions from those around him in Nimule.  In the end he completely refused to go.  This is the outcome of a lifetime of traumatic experiences.  A few months ago I suggested to him that he might do a vocational training course, but neither of us had any idea what would be possible at that time.

Two months ago we acquired a new teacher at Cece Primary School, who comes from a town called Atiak in Uganda, around 40 kilometres from Nimule.  One day I was telling him about the deaf children who I take to school in Uganda.  He responded by telling me that he has a good friend in Atiak called Alfred Okello, who is completely blind and has founded a vocational training institute specifically for blind people.  It is called Otet Uganda/Firefly School for the Blind.

Hearing about Firefly School, I immediately thought of Peter, who is sorely in need of education and work skills.  As mentioned in the previous blog post, he loves music.  Currently his sole occupation is playing the electric keyboard at church and setting up and repairing electric keyboards at other places such as churches and schools.  Although he gives a valuable service, he is not paid and relies completely on handouts from well-wishers.

My networking hat firmly in place, I thought of a woman called Sharon, who lives in Gulu and who is the founder of a local NGO called Mission Uganda which has a strong disability remit.  Sharon has a passion for assisting people with disabilities.  Here is a link to the Mission Uganda website. 

I decided to put Sharon in touch with Alfred and we all corresponded by email.  Alfred, on hearing about Peter, said that we really must meet up.  Alfred and Sharon made a day trip to South Sudan to meet Peter and me at the school. 

The meeting at our school.  Peter is standing
next to me, third from the left.
Alfred is next to him, followed by Sharon.

Peter arrived in his usual unkempt state, the result of lack of help from those he lives with.  He made a sharp contrast to Alfred, who was neatly dressed and shaved and very articulate.  Peter is so much in need of help to improve his life.  He is very bright, and I am sure that once he has found the right place and people his life will be very different.

The outcome of the meeting was beyond my wildest dreams.  Alfred offered Peter a job teaching keyboard and possibly also bass guitar and drums at Firefly School.  At the same time he will get plenty of opportunities to learn other skills which are on offer there, such as Braille, computer skills (using specially adapted computers for the blind) and academic subjects.  It will also be possible for him to learn livelihood skills such as agriculture, basket weaving, making liquid soap, making shoe cream out of burnt charcoal and beekeeping.  Beekeeping is extremely lucrative in our part of Africa as most people have very sweet teeth and the wax can be used for making shoe polish and candles.

One of many
aubergine plants
grown by Alfred.

Currently Firefly School is closed due to the Ugandan school lockdown, but Alfred is taking advantage of this time to do construction work, including accommodation and classrooms.  Once all is in place, Peter will finally be in a conducive environment where he can earn his keep without begging, and gain a much needed chance to develop his talents.  I am glad to say that Peter accepted the offer at once.  Let us hope he has learnt not to listen to his pessimistic neighbours and doesn’t change his mind.

Blind-friendly latrines

I made a trip to Uganda to visit Alfred at his school and was very impressed.  The school is in the countryside, a few kilometres out of town.  In spite of his blindness, Alfred is very keen on environmental issues and organic farming.  He uses his hands to feel the different leaves and identify the plants.  He has organised the construction of latrines with separate exit holes for urine and faeces.  The urine will be used as a pesticide and the faeces as manure.  This is the first time I have seen toilets of this type.  During the school lockdown he has been working with his family cultivating vegetables.  This will continue once the school reopens.

I am very happy to have found this new contact.  If Peter will accept the post there, he will be in a very conducive atmosphere, where he can build his self-confidence (sadly lacking) and earn his own living.  It will change his life.

 

A hope for a better life

“A hope for a better life” is the motto of Cece Primary School.  We chose that motto because our students have nothing and have no chance of any change for the better without education.  Our school criteria is for children from families with HIV/AIDS, disabilities and orphans.  These categories of people are at the bottom of the heap in South Sudan and very much stigmatized.  To make matters worse, like the rest of the population, they have been driven here, there and everywhere by civil war, each time leaving everything behind or watching it being looted by their country’s soldiers.  Many lost relatives as well.  However, many are now returning from the refugee camps of Uganda as the UN is trying to close the camps down.  This is because, at least officially, there is now peace in South Sudan. 

In fact, things are far from peaceful.  There are frequent ambushes of civilians on the road between Nimule and Juba, one of which made the international news because of the deaths of two religious sisters.  In Nimule itself, since Covid broke out and the schools closed, a lot of older youth have joined gangs which destroy property and people’s lives just for the fun of it.  They have not disbanded since schools went back and the authorities are overwhelmed and unable to cope with them.  Our school playground was destroyed by some of them.  For this reason, we are wanting to build a strong wall around the school buildings.

Looking at the current situation I have really seen the importance of schools for a country where lives and futures are so fragile.  Schools provide regular occupation, discipline and the only opportunities for learning and a means of escape from the vicious cycle of destitution and violence.  To help steer our pupils away from gang membership, we have recently started a girls club and a boys club for the older pupils.  These clubs are following a Christian curriculum aimed at inculcating respect, responsibility and a lot more.  The idea comes from a network of schools called Cornerstone Schools, which are spread across several African countries.  The sessions are led by a local pastor who is a youth leader at their secondary school in Nimule, Leadership Academy.  He is assisted by one of our teachers, who attended Leadership Academy herself and is very enthusiastic about this method.

Schools in South Sudan have now been fully open since May, but there has been a second lockdown of schools in Uganda which shows no sign of lifting in the near future.  This is causing many South Sudanese families and teachers to return home.  The parents are looking for continuous education for their children, and the teachers are looking for employment.  Coupled with the refugees returning from the camps, this creates a huge demand for school places, but also a new pool of trained teachers who were not previously available.

Our heaviest expense, which goes up each year as the school grows, is teacher salaries.  We now have 13 teachers and lack the regular income necessary to pay them.  We have recently replaced a teacher who resigned with an excellent new teacher with diploma-level training who has just arrived from Uganda.  He should be of great assistance as the school advances.  While carrying out the teacher interviews, we found that the general standard of the applicants was a great deal higher than at previous interviews, which is very encouraging.

Teachers are a major investment in our school and our children’s future, ahead of anything else.  Please can I ask for monthly donations for teacher salaries.  Currently regular monthly donations come to a total of £115 plus Gift Aid, leaving a shortfall of nearly £500.  We also have additional regular expenses such as fuel for cooking, internet, stationery etc.  The only reason we are able to keep going is because of occasional large donations from a few generous people, which is an alarming situation if the school is to be sustainable. 

Under normal circumstances I return to the UK every two years to fundraise and I usually find new donors.  This has not been possible during the crisis caused by Covid.  I would be very grateful if all who read this post can spread the word to potential donors, whether individuals or organisations.

I would be very grateful if there is anybody who has experience of crowdfunding, as this might be a way to broaden awareness of the school at the same time as helping us to build a secure wall around the school because of the security situation.  We have been quoted $80,000 for the wall, which is a huge amount and well beyond my capacity for fundraising.  If you are able to assist with crowdfunding, please let me know on the email below.

I am happy to say that our end of term exam results were our best ever for a first term with a 62% pass rate.  This has come as a very pleasant surprise as the children had all been without education for over a year.  It is a very positive start to the year.  In past years, the pass rates have gone up each term to the end of the school year, so we are hoping for a bumper year of academic achievement. 

Another piece of good news is that our oldest deaf pupil, Alau, has agreed to teach the youngest deaf children Ugandan Sign Language at our school until they are all able to return to school in Uganda.  There are four children who will benefit from this, one of whom is not yet old enough to go to a boarding school.  The other three are among those I take to Uganda. 

Lastly, thank you very much to Pencils for All, who paid for our school uniform, school playground and various other things in 2019, and who have agreed to pay for more school uniforms this year.  These are much needed because many of our pupils have outgrown their old uniforms and there are also new students without uniform.  The outgrown uniforms have not been wasted; they have been passed down to smaller children.  See the picture for to see the children in their uniforms and also their long skipping rope which is completely made of plastic bottle top seals.  Making handicrafts from bottle top seals is the current children’s craze here.

We were planning to construct another block of classrooms, but this is beyond our resources right now and has had to drop off the list of priorities.  In any case the classroom situation has eased because we have adjusted the school timetable so that the school runs in two shifts, morning and afternoon, to help keep class numbers lower due to the Covid regulations.  This leaves a couple of empty classrooms which can be used next year for Primary 7 and then for Primary 8, the last year of primary education in South Sudan.  After that we hope to open a secondary section so that our pupils can get a full school education.  All this is reliant of funds however.

What would be terrible if the school collapses for lack of donations, leaving all these pupils high and dry, without any possibility of continuing their education to a higher level. 

Please let me know if you are able to help either with donations or with fundraising.  Rebeccamallinson1@hotmail.co.uk

An eventful journey

I thought I was going to pay next term’s school fees for all the deaf children and take the two new boys to school but the situation changed without warning.

Alafi and Joel (left to right) waiting for
Covid results before we intended to
travel.

On Friday I went to the local hospital with the two families of Joel and Alafi (who were supposed to start deaf school in Gulu on 7^th June) for our Covid tests and certificates, ready to travel on Sunday.  Alafi is a new deaf child, while Joel started very briefly last year before Covid closed the schools.  Unfortunately, on Saturday we heard the news that no Primary 1 children were allowed to go to school due to a surge in Covid cases in Uganda.  I had to phone the two families and inform them.  They were very disappointed, understandably.

I still needed to go to Uganda to pay the school fees for the other deaf children who were in Mbale, so I left South Sudan on Sunday morning, clutching my Covid certificate and hiding behind a facemask.  I travelled as far as Gulu uneventfully and on Monday morning boarded a long distance bus to Mbale.  After about an hour’s journey I had two phone calls within minutes of each other.  Both calls were from orphans whose schools had just locked down for 42 days without notice.  They were in need of funds to get back home to Nimule.  It was very fortunate that the bus was going to have a break at a town where I could send money to them both.  This alerted me to check with the schools in Mbale.  Like all other educational institutes across Uganda, they were also closing down.  So, my ‘fee paying’ expedition was turned into a picking-up-the-children expedition.  I spent the rest of the bus journey phoning families and assuring them that I would bring their children home.

Normally the two boys who attend the deaf secondary school travel by themselves to the primary school ready for me to fetch them.  However, this time I arrived at the primary school in the afternoon only to find that one of the two secondary students had gone back to his secondary school (about 40 kms away) for something he’d forgotten.  I had to call his headteacher and ask for him to return immediately ready to travel early the next day, Tuesday.  Fortunately he reappeared in time.

Early on Tuesday morning we left in a small minibus for Mbale, where I would look for transport to Gulu.  I worried that we would face difficulties as every boarding student in the country would be desperately looking for transport at the same time and the costs of transport would go up.  However, we were very fortunate.  Our driver, seeing me with eight students, realized that we would struggle, so he suggested asking a friend of his to take us all the way to Gulu in his minibus.  As predicted, the costs were considerably higher than those I’d paid the previous day (80,000 shillings each instead of the 50,000 I’d paid for myself coming to Mbale), but at least we didn’t have to face the mayhem of the bus station and were able to travel all together.

We stayed overnight in Gulu and then I put two of the students in vehicles going in different directions, before getting another privately hired minibus for myself and the remaining students to go to the border with Nimule.  Surprisingly, this time the cost was a bit cheaper than my fare on the way to Gulu – 40,000 each instead of 60,000 when I was travelling alone.  At the border we said goodbye to Aluma and Alice who were both being taken to the refugee camp by their families instead of crossing to South Sudan.

We made it back with a day to spare before the Ugandan government had said that they would stop public transport from making long distance journeys.  Thankfully, unlike March 2020, the border between Uganda and South Sudan was open, so we had no difficulties crossing.  It has since closed.

It was a trip that turned out very differently from the one I had planned, but at least I was able to fetch everyone in a timely fashion and the children arrived safely at their destinations.  I hope very much that the Ugandan government allows their educational institutes to reopen after the 42 days they have announced, instead of creating another dead year.  Alau, the eldest, is supposed to start his final year before the equivalent of GCSEs in August.  It would be a terrible pity if this is delayed.

Boy Child Day Celebrated for the First Time in South Sudan

In South Sudan, the various international NGOs all push for girls and women with a policy of silence about boys and men.  Ever since arriving in South Sudan nearly eight years ago, I have noticed the lack of help for boys, which manifests itself in antisocial behaviour such as gangs, rape and stealing.  There is an increasing problem of street children, who are generally boys.  South Sudan has always had a culture of child soldiers, which is also very detrimental to boys’ development into civilized and educated young men. 

Primary 1 girls and boys
present their pictures

These problems continued during the Covid period last year as there were no activities for boys.  Families tend to neglect their boys as they traditionally see girls as useful for chores and never expect boys to participate.  Various NGOs produced sanitary products for girls, money for girls’ education (in spite of the fact that the schools were all closed) and savings opportunities for women’s groups.  Boys and men were left out completely.  At the same time, robberies, rapes and murders escalated.  Skills training targets mainly young women, rather monotonously with a basic choice of tailoring or catering, but does little or nothing for young men.

Football by Jimmy

Like all other schools in the Nimule area we have participated in the various NGO-led girls activities, but I have become very uncomfortable with excluding our boys.  Various boys have complained about girls receiving cash from an international NGO, while they got nothing.  How could I possibly justify the unjustifiable?

I checked on the internet and found that an enterprising man called Dr Jerome Teelucksingh in Trinidad and Tobago had witnessed a similar phenomenon.  He decided to start World Day of the Boy Child.  This is still a fledgling event but I jumped at it. 

World Day of the Boy Child is supposed to be celebrated on 16^th May, but this clashes with SPLM Day (a public holiday in South Sudan).  We therefore held our first Boy Child Day at school on 17^th May.  

The younger classes drew pictures of boys doing the things that boys like to do (football being the most important).  

The older classes developed a song.  The lyrics are:

We are the great boys of Cece Primary School.
We are the only school in South Sudan 
which has Boy Child Day.
Boys need education, just like girls.
Without education, what will we do?
Boys need money, just like girls.
Please treat us equally, do not divide.

We are not going to stick with one day a year, in the face of so much girls-only campaigning.  We plan to start a weekly Boys Club to support our boys.  It will be run by a pastor from a local church, who has a lot of experience of running youth activities and also in counselling.  I am hoping that they can be guided into positive activities and away from negative peer groups.

 

School has started at last – with challenges

Cece Primary School was finally allowed to reopen on 3^rd May.  I arrived early in the morning armed with a large bag of facemasks and lots of old cloth to use for cleaning.

There was a lot of clearing up to do as the classrooms had been closed for a year and one term.  We got out the new desks, gave them a thorough scrub and swept out the classrooms, which were very dusty.  Those rooms with new windows and doors were also full of builders’ rubble.  The pupils worked with great enthusiasm, particularly once they had seen the desks.  They also did some grass cutting and planting of shrubs under the guidance of Teacher Abuni, who is a keen agriculture teacher in addition to his academic subjects.

As is always the case in South Sudan, starting a new term is a slow process.  As the week progressed the numbers of pupils grew, but we have still not seen all our pupils from last year.  All schools have been ordered by the local education department not to accept new pupils until they are sure that all pupils from 2020 have come back.  Some, I already know will not be returning as quite a few families have moved away from Nimule.

A blind grandmother hopes to register
her orphaned grandchildren

Throughout the week, desperate families have been visiting the school asking for places.  We have noted down their details but had to explain that we are unable to accept any new pupils right now.  Altogether the families of 47 children came.  There may be more next week.  Most of those visiting were grandmothers caring for their orphaned grandchildren.  All these carers were in a very bad physical state, and several were blind, led to school using a pole held by a child at one end and the grandmother at the other (the traditional means of guiding blind people in South Sudan).  I don’t know which to hope: that all our former pupils return, or that we can admit these needy children.  We are unable to expand because of the limits set by social distancing.

We now have two teachers doing two-year teacher training courses at separate teacher training institutes.  Another teacher has had a recent operation from which she needs to recover.  This has been a handicap in starting lessons.  We are advertising for two new teachers. 

Formal teaching started on Wednesday after the clear-up, but not on all cylinders because of the teacher absences.  Because we are operating under Covid regulations, we have split the school into two shifts for social distancing; lower school in the mornings and upper school in the afternoons, and divided most classes in two.  The afternoon shift is difficult for the pupils, as most do not come from homes with means of time-keeping.

Some of our pupils at their new
desks.

The pupils love their new desks.  It is the first time that we have ever had all our pupils sitting on seats rather than on mats.  Their view of the facemasks is not so positive.  I am constantly telling them to put them on or go home.  The general opinion in Nimule is that Covid is a myth, so they come to school very resistant to all Covid restrictions.  It is a hard position to be in: it is not good to tell children that their carers are wrong.  I respond that whether or not there is Covid we have to comply, otherwise we risk being closed down by the health authorities who are going to inspect all schools.  After a year without school, that is not a risk anybody wants to take.

A lot of pupils, unsurprisingly, have outgrown their uniforms.  We have asked them to return their old uniforms in a clean state, for reuse by smaller pupils.  Once we have a clearer idea of the numbers of pupils, we will need to buy more, particularly for the older ones.

Another hurdle to be overcome has been the school feeding situation.  As mentioned in my last blog post, thieves stole a lot of our cooking equipment.  This is being replaced, but there was no possibility of feeding the pupils during our first week.  We are hoping to start cooking again next week.  It has been especially difficult for teachers who are timetabled for morning and afternoon shifts.

In South Sudan it is usual for nursing mothers to bring their babies to work as there are no childcare facilities.  Not anymore!  A highlight has been the acquisition of a woman named Grace to care for staff babies while their mothers are working.  This is part of a new three-year project through Plan International.  Grace has received training during the Covid period and is being paid directly by Plan International.  Two of our teachers gave birth during the school closure and they are delighted to be able to teach in peace.  Next week Grace will find herself with the cooks’ tiny children too, so she will have her hands full.

Despite the challenges described, we are all so pleased to be back at school.  We have various needs as mentioned.  We also need to repair our printer as well as pay the usual regular staff salaries.  Printing is needed so that we can test our pupils and make sure they are in the correct classes after their long gap with no lessons.  One of our blackboards needs to be replaced. 

It would be very helpful to the school if people are willing to make regular standing orders, so that we can feel reasonably secure in our school income.  Please feel free to pass on this post to anyone who might be interested in assisting our school.  My email address for further information on gift aid and how to donate is rebeccamallinson1@hotmail.co.uk. 

Thieves at the school

I arrived back in Nimule two days ago.  I met with two pieces of bad news.  The first is that due to the rise in Covid cases school opening is again postponed, this time to May.  The second is that thieves have broken into our school, once or possibly twice.

Charles, the director of HUMAES, my partners in the school, and I, went to visit the school yesterday.  We found the door of one classroom open, although nobody had tampered with the lock.  One of the window shutters and a bar from across the window had been removed.  Clearly the thieves had squeezed through the window and then opened the door from the inside. 

An open door awaits us

The guard from the next-door school saw us and came over.  He told us that he had seen the thieves as he was walking back to the school the previous day.  They were carrying a metal window frame, which had been left over when the new windows were put in last year.  He threw stones at the thieves and they ran away leaving the window frame behind.  He took the window frame into his school compound for safekeeping.  Then a woman came, who told us that she knew who the thieves were.  According to her, they are a gang of local young men who have been doing a lot of stealing in the area.  They are homeless drug-users.  They are very dangerous, even to the extent of shooting people who tried to stop them.

Before we left, Charles suggested that we check the kitchen store even though the door seemed to be locked.  The padlock was not damaged.  We opened the door only to find that thieves had got in there too.  A catering size cooking pot had been taken and also several large boxes of soap.  These had all been donated by Plan International at different times.  In their search the thieves had strewn plastic cups and beans all over the floor.  Whether these were the same thieves as those who entered the classroom or not, it is impossible to know.  It seems that they had a master key.  It was a cheap padlock.  We have replaced it now with a much tougher one.

A missing bar is the clue to the thieves
entry method

Do I despair?  No.  Am I sad?  Not particularly.  On the bright side, the damage could have been worse.  If we had had a guard, he could have been killed, as often happens here.  If our school had all mod-cons such as electricity and western-style learning aids, we would attract far more criminals.  In fact this is the first incident since the school started in 2015.  The name of our school, Cece, means ‘slowly, slowly’ in the Madi language.  It has proved to be a wise policy.

Since the closure of schools last March, many young men have formed roving gangs, camping in deserted huts, armed with guns and pangas (the local word for a machete).  Rape incidents are high.  Drug taking is also high.  It is very likely that these youths were school students up until March 2020, now with nothing to do but create mayhem. 

What type of a life can these young men expect?  The answer is ‘nasty, brutish and short’.  I was told that in another incident a young man who specialized in stealing solar panels was spotted by a guard, up a ladder, removing a solar panel.  The guard shot him to death with four bullets.  Rough justice is common here, and most people heartily approve of the guard’s action.  If crimes are reported through official channels, the police expect to be paid to investigate and often take yet more belongings from the crime victims, supposedly as ‘evidence’ but nobody ever gets their belongings back again.

In South Sudan, all the international NGOs prioritise girls’ education.  But what about the boys and young men?  Without education the boys will spoil the lives of the girls through rape, HIV and teenage pregnancy.  Boys very easily become street children, unlike girls, who have more of a role in their families.  These boys will continue the downhill process in which South Sudan collapses through endless violent crime, unless they are helped. 

I strongly believe that boys must be helped at the same time as girls.  All of them need to get back to school urgently.  Without education, there can be no change for the better in South Sudan.  Please God, let school truly restart in May.  Covid is a very lame excuse in South Sudan, as the numbers of cases are tiny compared to most countries in the world.  Official statistics show that just over 100 people have died, and there have only been around 10,000 positive cases so far.  Is it really worth ruining so many lives for that?

In the meantime we need to get a metal worker to weld on a new bar to the window and replace the metal shutter.  We also need to buy a large pot to replace the one stolen.  The soap can wait!

School at last for the deaf children

I am so happy to be able to say that at last the deaf children are back at school, with the exception of Joel whose school is in a different area, with different rules.  For Joel, school begins again in June.  The reason for the difference is that the District Commissioner for the area of the primary school in Mbale has said that children with special needs have to be prioritized and allowed back to school. 

We left Nimule on 5^th March with five children, and picked up two more (who had been staying in Uganda) on the way.  The whole contingent is now Alau (who is the only one at secondary level), Alice, Lillian, Assumpta, Aluma, Paul and our new boy, Vibrant.  All the children were so happy to be going back to school.  Life in Nimule without speech and hearing is extremely difficult, so they have been very isolated to say the least.

The financial cost was heavier than previously as all those coming from South Sudan (seven of us including me and a helper) had to be tested for Covid at the border at a cost of $50 each, making the total cost of entering Uganda $100 each because of the $50 visa charge.  Fortunately we all tested negative.  The costs of transport have also risen because of the necessity for social distancing.  Four children needed uniform, Vibrant because he is new, and Aluma, Assumpta, Lillian and Paul because they had grown out of their clothes during their year off school.  All the primary school children needed new school shoes for the same reason.  Other costs (school fees, toiletries etc) remained more or less the same.  The costs should be far lower for the next two terms as (unless there is another emergency) the children will remain in school for the rest of the school year, with no more need of border charges or transport.  Previously I have asked for £625 a year from sponsors.  It would be very helpful if this could be raised to £650.

Vibrant, taken shortly before we
travelled.

Vibrant is in need of a sponsor.  Vibrant looks very small compared to the other children and I worried about how he would cope.  He is nine years old and had only just started school in his home town of Torit just before the Covid crisis started, so he has had almost no school experience.  However he turned out to be super-confident and to already have some home-made signs to communicate with the others.  He was even rather bossy towards them.  He is a very cheerful character and clearly very intelligent.  I expect him to do really well at school.

I should mention that schools in Uganda and South Sudan do not have a strict age bracket for each class, unlike the UK.  It is normal for children to begin school at various ages, depending on family circumstances.  This has been especially the case for these deaf children, as there is no availability of special schools in South Sudan, and ordinary schools do not have the necessary training to teach them.  It is also common for older children who do really well to be promoted upwards more quickly than annually, so that they can catch up with their peers.  This is possible at our children’s primary school because of high staffing ratios in the Hearing Impairment Unit and has been the case with most of the children I have brought there. 

Alau

Up until now Alau has not had a sponsor.  Alau’s secondary school requires a full year for coverage of the secondary curriculum.  He is now in Senior 3, the year before the equivalent of GCSEs.  Then, he will have the option to continue for A’levels or move to a full time vocational training course in the same school, which will set him up for the world of skilled work and make his future far brighter than otherwise.  He is a sensible and very hard-working young man of 21, whose future relies on being able to work.  Currently, he spends his holiday times doing heavy shifting of luggage in a transport hub to help support his family, where he is subject to a lot of abuse because of his deafness.  Having skills and qualifications will give him far more respect in the local community.

If you are interested in sponsoring either Vibrant or Alau, please let me know.  My email address is rebeccamallinson1@hotmail.co.uk.

My return journey from Kuron to Juba

In the time I’ve been in South Sudan I have almost always travelled by public transport, but never written about it.  Here is a description of my return journey to Juba from Kuron to give readers a flavour of why I enjoy it.

While I was at Kuron it became very clear that getting back would be more problematic than my trip there, in which I had shared Bishop Paride’s flight.  Flights are far and few between and very costly.  Sometimes Land Cruisers or other tough vehicles make the journey from Kapoeta to Kuron, but there is no public means of travel.  The nearest town with public transport is Kapoeta, around 200 kilometres away. 

While I was ruminating on this, I got the news that my contingent of deaf children were supposed to return to school at the beginning of March as part of Uganda’s gradual reopening of schools.  Before going back to Nimule to collect them all together, I needed to renew my South Sudan resident’s permit, so I realized that I needed to leave earlier than planned.

The road from Kuron to Kapoeta, while it was
still daylight.

Various trucks were arriving at Kuron with building materials for school renovations and for work on a new bridge, which was to replace one which had been swept away by floods last year.  I spoke to the driver of a tip-up truck who was about to leave on his return journey to Juba and he agreed to take me in the passenger seat.  The truck was a modern one with air conditioning, which made the drive relatively comfortable although it was still an extremely bumpy and painstakingly slow drive for the most part because of the state of the track.  We left at around 3 pm, which I was pleased about because it gave me a chance to see the surroundings before night fell.

The driver was a very young and friendly Ethiopian.  He spoke a small amount of English and I spoke a small amount of Arabic, so we were able communicate in a very basic way.  He was an excellent driver and very experienced in negotiating sudden drops from the track into dried up river beds.  I really admired his skill.

For the first part of the journey we passed Toposa villages, surrounded by thorny fences.  Their homes were built on stilts, dome shaped and completely made of long grass.  They were really works of art.  As the residents heard the approach of our truck, children came running to the roadside to wave at us as we passed.  Most people, both adults and children, wore bead necklaces and a cloth around their shoulders.  Women wore short pleated skirts in a traditional design as well.  Many women had lip piercings and exposed tattooed bodies. 

Children who had rushed to the
roadside to see the vehicle, close
to a feeding centre.

Outside one village I saw the remains of a bonfire surrounded by log benches with a tall homemade cross at one end.  This was very similar to the place where I attended the baptisms described in my last post.  It is the nearest thing to a church that I saw in the whole journey as far as Kapoeta.

I saw quite a lot of donkeys, which I know were imported by the Peace Village to provide agricultural help and beasts of burden for the locals, who have no tradition of using animals for work.   There were no towns, no shops or any other signs of outside civilization except for a very occasional sign marked ‘Nutrition Centre’. 

Then we passed along a valley path which wound through mountains.  By the time we had got to the end of the mountains night was falling.  As we drove on in the dark, various small animals scooted across the road in the light of the truck’s headlights.  I saw three hyenas, a couple of dik-diks (a very small type of antelope), an animal resembling a mongoose and lots of rabbits.  The driver was clearly an animal lover; he was extremely careful not to run them over. 

We continued driving in pitch darkness until 10.30 pm when we finally arrived at Kapoeta, which is the state capital for the whole area.  We stopped at a large but slightly grotty hotel which clearly catered for truck drivers. 

As we parted for the night I asked the driver what time he wanted to leave for Juba the next day.  He said he wanted to leave at 11 am.  He must have been terribly tired, as he had driven all the way from Kapoeta to Kuron earlier the same day – sixteen hours of concentrated, careful driving.  However, such a late start did not suit me at all, knowing that the driving time to Juba might be a similar length.  I wanted to arrive in daylight and not too exhausted, so we parted with many thanks from me for his willingness to help me.  I slept like a log, not surprisingly.

The next day I went to the transport hub for taxis to Juba.  ‘Taxi’ in an African context is the word used for a minibus.  As I went through the town, it was obvious that Kapoeta is in the Toposa tribal area as quite a lot of people were wearing tribal dress.  The Toposa are either a big tribe, or simply well scattered over a huge area.  I doubt if there are reliable statistics as their villages can be very remote indeed, mostly without outside access.  There are many international NGO offices in Kapoeta, but apart from the signs for nutrition centres, there seemed little evidence that they had a presence in rural areas. 

I paid my taxi fare and then sat and waited with everyone else.  As I was waiting, the local police chief introduced himself to me and we chatted.  He told me that the taxi drivers were discussing me and were very happy to have a white person taking a taxi.  They said that it was a sign that peace was coming.  If only ……  Anyway it was a nice thought.

Altogether there were ten passengers plus a baby and toddler and the driver in our taxi, crowded four to a row on seats intended for three people.  Two people shared the passenger seat.  As we left the town we waited for another taxi to catch up so we could drive in convoy in case of emergency, either of breakdown or banditry.  Our small convoy finally set off at around 9 am.

I sat squeezed between a young woman with her baby and a Dinka man with facial scarrings.  As with all public transport in South Sudan and elsewhere in Africa, people do not maintain a stony silence and avoid each other’s eyes as they do in the UK.  We all talk to our neighbours.  To me this is one of the pleasures of public transport in South Sudan.  I found that my Dinka fellow passenger was a refugee living in Kenya.  His sister was mentally ill, but their family could not afford medical care for her in Kenya.  He was therefore taking her to Juba in the hope that she could be helped.  I did not comment as I doubt very much that there is much help to be had for mental illness in Juba.  He had made a terribly long journey with her and I didn’t want to discourage him so close to the end of the trip.

Me in a rumpled and dusty state, having
just crossed the river.

As we continued our journey we passed through many checkpoints where our unfortunate driver had to keep paying the traffic police and soldiers.  I was asked for my ID twice, but there were no problems and the officials were friendly.  Until recently the road between Kapoeta and Torit was infamous for the roughness of the track (very bad even by South Sudanese standards) but it has been recently smoothed, so the ride was not bad at all, apart from one place where we had to cross a river and no bridge had yet been built.  There was an articulated lorry with an equally long trailer stuck in the mud, leaving little room for other vehicles to pass except through deeper water.  We all had to get out of the taxi and cross using very uneven stepping stones, so that the taxi would not get stuck

After leaving Kapoeta I noticed that the villages were the more usual grass-thatched mud huts, as they are in Nimule.  We passed through the Lotuku tribal area, centred on Torit (the state capital for Eastern Equatoria).  Juba is in yet another tribal area, the Bari.

We stopped for lunch at a small town called Liria, where we had a proper restaurant meal with soda before continuing our journey.

Soon after leaving Liria we had to negotiate our way through several large herds of cattle, which were being taken to market in Juba on foot.  Then we came to a large area where there were serious bush fires, purposefully lit.  There is a tradition of setting fire to the bush every dry season, which causes a lot of environmental damage.  It was very sad to see.

The main problem of that day’s travel was that our taxi was very old and we had to have the windows open all the way because the ventilation was not working.  Huge amounts of dust blew through the windows.  Some of us put our masks on which helped a bit.  We were covered with dust from head to foot, inside as well as outside our clothes.

We arrived in Juba at about 4 pm.  I took a boda boda (motorcycle taxi) to the guesthouse where I always stay when in Juba.  I had booked by phone early in the day but I found that my booking had not been communicated by the lady I spoke to, and they were not expecting me.  They had to hurriedly clear out a room while I waited, covered in dust and desperate to bathe.  Anyhow, it was a good trip and I was surprisingly untired by it.

The last leg of my journey was by taxi from Juba to Nimule, along a familiar tarmacked road.  It passes through Nimule National Park and across part of the Imatong Mountains.  I have described the road in a previous blog written when I had just arrived in South Sudan seven years ago.

I keep thinking of the happy reaction of the taxi drivers to having a white passenger.  I suspect that if only more foreigners would use the local public transport system, rather than private vehicles or light aircraft, it might even help to bring security and lasting peace.  It would certainly raise demand for improved road conditions.