I want to be a pilot!

I know in some previous posts I have complained about flights in Sudan and how each time you step on the plane you pray that you will land safely. But, after my return trip from Juba which involved stops in two other states of Sudan it made me grateful for flights so that I could see so much of the country. Flying on a small plane (mostly 9 seaters) you fly really low so it's like a scenic flight and if you wanted to you could reach out and touch the pilot. Seeing them fly really made me want to learn to be a pilot!
The first stop after Juba was Nimule, right on the border of Uganda. As we approach the whole landscape changes and becomes green and lush. The rivers are full and look like they flow all the time. The green hills are dotted with perfectly round tukuls. We land on the runway (really just a small dirt clearing) and almost crash into a group of men huddled together under plastic sheeting held up by wooden posts sitting on the end of the runway. I am busy staring at them a while before I even realize that they are soldiers and that they have large guns pointing up into the sky to shoot down airplanes- pointed in the sky right where we came from. I'm don't have time to explore who they are and why they want to shoot down planes before we have to take off. (All I know is that this is the heart of the Lord's Resistance Army and there has been some serious insecurity here because of them). Our next stop is KajoKeji, also on the border with Uganda. This is in Central Equatoria and I'm excited to get to see another part of Sudan. The plane stops so many times it's really more like a bus service than a flight. Considering the lack of roads to all of these places, flying is still the only way to get around here. Finally we reach Kapoeta. We think... As we reach something which looks like a town the pilot turns around and asks if anyone if is from Kapoeta and if the place we are about to land really is Kapoeta. I'd never been asked for directions to a runway by a pilot before! Thankfully at the end of our runway is a crashed plane which was never taken away, so it's easy to see that you are at the right place. So I told the pilot he was right and we proceeded to land.
If only I had my camera on this trip to share some photos of my tour around Sudan... But I can share photos of the crashed plane at the end of the runway instead.

IDPs and Refugees

This morning I was told that yesterday there was an incident of fighting involving several gunshots fired in Kapoeta. This incident took place between returnees to the area and the original inhabitants that never left during the war. Recently there has been some tension and it was just a matter of time until it came to this level. Some returnees came back to Kapoeta and were not welcomed mostly because they weren’t from the same tribe as the native inhabitants here, leading to the situation that happened yesterday.

The issues as I see them are this:
1. The civil war in Sudan created nearly four million internally displaced people (IDPs) and some 480,000 refugees. Sudan has the highest number of IDPs in the world! These are people who fled their homes during the war but didn't cross any international borders. They don't have the same rights under international law as a Refugee (or someone who fled and crossed an international border). This means that there was no agency such as UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) helping them out as it was outside of their mandate. Sudan is still full of people living as IDPs in all areas of the country. Now IDPs want to return to their homes and no one is helping them, no one is welcoming them, and when they arrive security problems arise.

2. When refugees fled Sudan they arrived in camps in places like Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, and some even made it to the US. Some in the refugee camps had a better life there than those who stayed behind in Sudan. They had access to food rations, free housing, sometimes to an education, and also being in the camps there was a chance of resettlement to a developed country. Now peace has come to South Sudan and it's hard to leave the things in the refugee camps to come back to Sudan where a lot of the things they got used to in the refugee camps are not there (no schools, no free food handouts, etc). Refugees are returning to Sudan, but also keeping their home in the camps across the border so that they can access these services. People are simply moving to the towns close to the borders and not going back to their hometowns further inside the country.

If the Sudanese cannot get their refugee and IDP issue worked out, I actually don’t see much hope for a lasting peace as populations of people keep moving, causing insecurity and reigniting old tribal tensions that were there during the war.

So what can be done about the unimaginable number of refugees and internally displaced people that are returning expecting a warm welcome upon being back in their country and instead finding hostility aimed at them? Sometimes I think that there should be an organization to deal only with IDPs, refugees, and the population movements in Sudan because the amount of work involved in moving that many people safely is tremendous.

Beware of Landmines!

Anytime you leave the compound you have to be aware that there are land mines all around this area (and all of South Sudan). Kapoeta town was fought over heavily by the Northern government and the South, so the SPLA laid down many mines to keep the government in the town during the war and the government did the same to keep the SPLA out. Many roads and villages have been cleared, but there are still some areas where you cannot travel. Doing work sometimes becomes difficult as you must be prepared to not be able to reach certain areas. Aside from the work that we are trying to do, it stops returnees who wish to return to their home free from fear of land mines. Over 80,000 people in this region live in areas that are affected by land mines, and there are casualties every year due to unexploded land mines.

Thank goodness for the de-miners though or else we would not be able to work here at all. And what a job they have too! They move around finding the mines and destroying them. Sometimes you can hear them exploding the mines that they find. At the de-miners compound they have a big collection of bombs that they have found sitting around. The bombs are at least as big as I am, and much heavier... It’s strange to see these bombs and imagine them falling from an airplane onto
someone’s home!

It’s no wonder the de-miners like to come over to our compound to relieve some stress. A nice surprise when they came over to the compound along with other NGO workers for a spontaneous Wednesday night party which includes charades. I figure any ex-pat living in Sudan should be good at charades since sometimes that is the only way to communicate when you don’t know the language. Lots of laughs were had, and as you can see- lots of Tuskers (the Kenyan beer)

Flash Floods

Returning back to Kapoeta following a week in Juba is not an easy task. The drive would not be too long except that the road between Juba and Torit (which you have to take to get anywhere East of Juba) is impassible because of insecurity. The insecurity is caused by the LRA (the Lord’s Resistance Army from Uganda), or others using the LRA as a scapegoat. So this means taking a flight from Juba to Kenya- only to return back to Sudan. The flight takes us to Loki, Kenya- on the border with Sudan. I won’t talk about the flight now because I don’t want to scare anyone who might fly in Africa, but all I can say is that I will never fly another WFP (World Food Program) flight again- certainly not with a pilot named Chris!

Loki (as it is fondly called) is the hub of ex-pat activity. Or at least it used to be. When the war was going on it was the only way into Sudan and many people just worked from there. Now that access to Southern Sudan has opened up, Loki is not quite what it once was… Lots of NGOs are closing up shop in Kenya altogether and moving on establish themselves entirely in Juba.

To get to the Sudanese border we have to wait for a security escort because there was an incident a few days before we were to travel. I feel a sigh of relief upon crossing back into Sudan and away from Kenya. Who would have thought that Kenya was more of a problem than Sudan?

It was a long rainy night the day before we left Loki. As we set out in the morning the rain was still pouring down. I knew that the road out would be bad, but not quite as bad as this! We just cross the border before encountering our first problem. Three trucks have gotten stuck in the mud and there is nowhere for us to pass. I’m not quite sure how our driver makes it through and around the trucks, but we are able to pass. Thinking that was the end of it we continue only to reach another mess full of trucks stuck in the mud. Thankfully there is a bigger truck busy pulling trucks out of the mud which I'm sure he will be busy doing all day.

The next big roadblock is a river that was bone dry when I drove over it 2 weeks ago and now after one night of rain the river is rushing quickly. Another NGO’s car got swept away as they tried to cross the river during another flood, so I know crossing a river is a challenge. There is nothing to do when we arrive but wait… The river comes and goes and we just have to wait for the right time. As we wait we are surrounded by Toposa people who are also waiting to cross the river on foot. If they can make it we can too! We risk it and manage to get across safely, although I was holding my breath the whole way just in case we got swept away.

Back to Kapoeta at last…. With the rain what should have been a two hour journey took nearly six.

Welcome to Kapoeta

This is my first blogging experience, but I thought that living in a place where most people only think of the images of war and violence that they see on TV I should try and show another side of Sudan that most people rarely get to see. My goal is to show a little of South Sudan to the outside world. I will be adding stories and photos of the people that I come across, the work that I’m doing, and the small steps of progress (or lack of progress) I see towards peace in South Sudan.

The town I’m living in is called Kapoeta, about two hours from the Kenyan border. It used to be a garrison town, but slowly this is changing. During the war days, it was fought over between the North and the South. You see remnants of war everywhere in the town.

The native inhabitants of the town are called the Toposa people. They are pastoralists and their cattle are everything to them. They are friendly people although many of them have guns as so many weapons flooded the area during the war. There are problems here between tribes stealing each other’s cattle as they are one of the only means of wealth in this area.

Here is my short introduction to Kapoeta town, more stories to come soon. Let me know what you would like to hear about…