Faces of Sudan

Dut Akol

In 2007, when I went to Wäramoth for the first time, I met Dut. This was what I wrote about Dut after returning from Sudan in 2007:

'Dut attends Wäramoth Primary School, where he is an above average student. The difference between Dut and the other students at the school is that every day he drags himself for over a kilometre on his hands and knees to get to school and at the end of a long day, he drags himself for over a kilometre to get home again. Dut has severe atrophy of his legs, though it is not known what this is caused by. This means that he is not able to walk. He has never been able to attend a medical facility to receive any type of treatment. Timpir hopes that with the support of our donors, we will be able to provide Dut with a means to transport himself to school. A normal wheelchair will not suffice in the sandy conditions of South Sudan, so we are endeavouring to find an alternative.'

When travelling to South Sudan again in 2008, I had one major goal, to find transport for Dut. Over the past year I had many fantastic suggestions from Timpir supporters of ways of finding transport for Dut. When we passed through Aweil, a large town in Bahr el Ghazal state, on our way to Wäramoth, we found a man pedalling a hand wheeled tricycle. We stopped him and asked where he got his tricycle from, thinking that it may be an option for Dut. He told us that there was another disabled man who had his own tricycle, but he was also now building tricycles for other people with disabilities. This was fantastic news as we knew that we would be coming back to Aweil, so we planned to bring Dut with us to have a tricycle constructed for him.

However, when we arrived in Wäramoth, we could not find Dut. It turned out he had been carried to another village, Ariath, about 3 hours walk away to attend a wedding with his family. Eventually his family came back to Wäramoth, but without Dut as they could not find a way to transport him.

As our time in Wäramoth was drawing to a close, I was giving up hope of seeing Dut and taking him with us to Aweil to have his tricycle constructed. However, the day before we were leaving Wäramoth, Dut arrived from Ariath on the back of a relative's bike. We talked with his family about our plan to take Dut with us to Aweil to have a tricycle constructed, and the wholeheartedly agreed. The next day, we set off for Ariath. Dut, me and the luggage sat on the back of three bikes while Kuol, the headmaster of Wäramoth PS and another strong local young man pedalled the hour and a half to Ariath over sandy tracks.

Once we got to Ariath, we then had to find transport to get to Aweil which is about 2 days walk away. I ran in to an old friend, Nyibol Aleu, who is now the governor of Aweil North, the area that we were residing in. She very generously lent us her car and driver to get to Aweil, a four hour drive away. Dut bumped along in the back of the ute and his excitement was evident.

Unfortunately we had to leave Aweil two days later to travel back to Australia, so we were not able to see him receive his tricycle. But we left him in that capable hands of Kuot Akech, the headmaster of Wäramoth PS, who later reported to us that he had travelled back to Wäramoth with Dut once his tricycle had been made. Kuot told us by phone that Dut has found a new lease on life. For the first time since Dut was a very small child he has the freedom to move wherever he wants independent of other people!

Mel Magol's family

In South Sudan there are stories of people and families that show the desperation and hardships of life. The story of Mel Magol's family is one of these.

I had been conducting registrations for students at Wäramoth Primary School for approximately a week when one late afternoon, while I was sitting outside my tent, a lady and her two young sons came to see us. All three family members looked emaciated, as if they had just been released from a Nazi concentration camp. I was shocked, while everyone in South Sudan is thin, this family was starved.

The mother, whose name is Aliok, told me that she had walked for over two hours with her two sons because she wanted to register them for the school. I asked why she did not want them to attend a school closer to their home. She then explained that their home is actually in Wäramoth and they intend to return to live in Wäramoth, but they have not been able to re-construct their home there since returning to South Sudan in 2007. We started talking, with the help of Kuol's translation, and this is her story.

Aliok fled to Khartoum, in the north of Sudan, with her mother, father and siblings during the 20 year long civil war. While she was there, she met and married her husband, Mel Magol. Mel had been a soldier fighting for the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA), the rebel faction fighting for the people of South Sudan. After several years of fighting, Mel had decided to go and live in Khartoum where he met Aliok. Over the next 16 years they had four children, two girls and two boys.

In 2007, Mel decided to take his family home to their village in Wäramoth , South Sudan, as there was now peace. They returned in February 2007, a very difficult time of the year for the agarian people of Wäramoth . Most of their food supplies have finished, and they are desperately waiting for the rains to begin in June. Mel and his family had nothing to bring with them from Khartoum to re-start their lives in South Sudan, so they started with nothing.

Mel worked tirelessly for the next few months clearing land that had over-grown during the war for his family to sew their crops of sorghum when the rains came and starting to rebuild their house. He built a strong base for one house out of bricks that he made himself. While he was working, the family was getting thinner and thinner as there was nothing to eat. The children were getting sick. Mel eventually decided in about May that he would have to return to Khartoum to try and find work so that he could send money for his wife and children to buy food. He started the long journey back to Khartoum, but along the way, his emaciated body was overcome with sickness and he died.

This left Aliok to look after their four children alone. In Dinka culture, the brother of the husband must take care of the wife, so Aliok moved to live with Mel's younger brother. However, Mel's younger brother had his own family and had only recently returned to live in the South himself. There was a permanant shortage of food for everyone in the two families.

When we met Aliok and her children in February 2008, they had been suffering terribly for a year. While Aliok wanted to return to the house that her husband had started building in Wäramoth, she didn't have any men that could complete the building of the house and finish clearing her land so that crops could be sewn.

Timpir gave Aliok and her family a female goat through the Christmas gift program, to begin their herd. Additionally we gave them a male goat which Aliok will kill and cook as 'payment' for local men to come and finish building her house and clearing her land in time for cultivation in June. They will need all the help that Timpir can give them for many years to come.

Deng

I met Deng at the Pamat market after having walked for an hour and a half to purchase goats for Timpir's Christmas Gift Program. While we were waiting for sale of the goats to start, Deng would follow us around the market. Each time we stood up, he would stand up and follow us. Each time we sat down, he would sit down on the ground with his legs to the side and pull his gown over his legs. For the entire day, I didn't see him smile once. He had the saddest eyes that looked as if they had seen things that no child should have to see. We could not work out what was wrong with Deng as he was not asking for money as some other children do and would not talk with us. One time, when Deng sat down, I caught a glimpse of his calf before he pulled his gown over it. What I saw was grotesque. Deng had an infected wound on his calf, larger than my fist. There was a mass of flies sitting in the wound which is why he was so intent on covering it with his gown. I suddenly thought of what every person from a Western society would, where are the antiseptic and bandages? I knew I had some back in the village where we were staying, but that was an hour and a half walk away, and by the time a went there and back again, Deng would be long gone. So we wandered around the market looking for things that we could use as antiseptic or bandages, but found absolutely nothing. People said that there was a clinic in the town, but it was rarely open. So we went there with the hope of finding someone, but it was devoid of life and resources. Then I had a brainwave…. what about alcohol!? We bought a bottle of the potent local alcohol and I poured that onto Deng's wound. He didn't flinch. It occurred to me that the nerves were probably damaged. Then I thought, well what can I do now? I don't know where he lives, and he doesn't know that place where I'm staying so I can't provide any follow up treatment. I've got nothing to use as a bandage. I had the equivalent of about $2, so I gave it to him and asked if he knew where the closest hospital was (about 4 hours walk away) he said 'No.' There was no way I could give him directions to the hospital or to come to our village, so with that I left him feeling defeated, helpless and useless. I had done the best that I could under the circumstances, but situations like this reminded me just how much I take access to health care for granted.

 

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