Adjusting to life in Sudan

Greetings all,

First of all I would like to apologize for the delay between my last post and this one, the internet was down for over a week and this is the first chance I have had to get down to writing everything that has happened since the last post.

A good place to start would probably be to tell you how the teaching in the secondary school has been going. I should first of all mention that I got the age range of my students wrong in a previous post. It was sometime last week I was talking with another teacher about the older students and she revealed that my oldest student was in fact 58; I suppose his walking stick propped against the wall should have been a clue.  She also revealed to me that out of the 40 or so students in the second and third classes only a handful weren’t married and quite a few had children. The next lesson I taught after learning all this was a little more intimidating than when I had taken my first class. The one thing that is noticeable however is how keen some of the older students are to learn even if an education may not benefit them too much at their current ages. It makes me realize how much we in the west take our educations for granted, these guys didn’t have the opportunity to learn at a young age but had to endure the wars that have burdened Sudan for the past 50 years. The lands to the sides of the roads from Torit (the closest town) to Lohutok still have numerous mines on them which people keep clear of and guns are a common sight, when I walk to school in the morning I will greet local farmers and shepherds walking out to work with AK-47’s slung over their shoulders which they carry in case of cattle-raiders or for hunting. The fact that the older students received very little education in their youth makes teaching the second and third class slow and difficult at times, not to mention their first language isn’t English so certain words such as simultaneous (as in simultaneous equations) have to be explained which proves tricky. However, they are all eager and very bubbly so even though the lessons prove testing I enjoy them. In comparison, the first class are the polar opposite, they are nearly all beneath 18 and quick to learn, but are not so keen and are silent for the majority of the lesson. A few of them model themselves on western rappers and will come in a lot like our teenagers with their trousers falling off their bums and big studs in their ears. Their attitudes make teaching the first class quite difficult at times. However, they all play football on the field in the evening and when I play with them we get along really well so I pray that I could enthuse them to learn and get to know them better. Any prayers for the second and third classes and patience in teaching them would be appreciated as well as prayers that the first class teaching will improve.

Every day before lunch at the school there is a devotional period where we have some singing and a talk from one of the teachers. Since 4 of the 6 teachers are seasoned missionaries the talks are all pretty good. The singing involves a lot of clapping, but the Sudanese peoples voices aren’t quite as good as those of other African nations, but their enthusiasm is normally just as good. The principal of the school deemed that I should have the Wednesday devotional to give talks. Last Wednesday was my first; I chose to speak on pride because although I am by no means the perfect person to be speaking on the topic I thought that the talk might be beneficial to some of the first years.  At the end of the talk a fellow teacher called Ellen Fox said she thought the talk was very good, however, she is the only other person whose first language is English in the school, so whether the students of the School fully understood my talk I am uncertain. I am however grateful for the opportunity to speak to these guys about Gods word.

Since last speaking to you, I have attended the local church twice; both times roughly 25 people have attended, about 4 of those being students from the school. Pastor Tito who had accompanied me to Lohutok from Torit delivered the first week’s sermon. He is about 6ft 3, well built and his enthusiasm for the gospel is a real encouragement. His talk was good, however, last Sunday a visiting Pastor from Juba (the capital of South Sudan) gave a talk on tithes. Throughout the whole sermon I was pulling my hair out as the pastor was preaching prosperity gospel claiming that when we give tithes to God he will multiply our earthly wealth over and over. Later that afternoon I went to the Anglican Inland Church compound to speak to the pastors about the issue. The only pastor present was Tito and after telling him my concerns he informed me that he and the permanent pastor here in Lohutok after the sermon had talked to the visiting pastor about the sermon telling him it was prosperity gospel. Tito informed me that prosperity gospel is currently a big problem in Africa and that he rebukes it whenever he sees it, however sound doctrinal preaching will not be present everywhere due to education levels and the fact pastor training isn’t as thorough as it is in the west, I suppose only time will change that.

Last weekend the governor for the Eastern Equatoria of South Sudan came to visit Lohutok. The whole village turned out to greet him at the meeting place on the road up to Lohutok under a big tree. There was a lot of singing and dancing and some of the guys were dressed up. I didn’t stay for a lot of it as the main duty of the day was talking about what the village needed from the new government and the people here seem to have a way of saying what should be said in a minute in an hour. The senior school requested funding so they could pay teachers and set themselves up more securely instead of depending upon missionaries, however there plea seems unlikely to receive anything substantial. It was interesting to see the seeds of a new government being sown, however, how much this new government will be able to do I am dubious about and pray that no corruption will spring up.  

I have seen a fair bit of wildlife out here in Lohutok already, things like; geckos, lizards, scorpions, bats, snakes, ant mounds and cows (these two are on the football pitch), termites in the house (they make pretty patterned tunnels up the wall out of mud), there are also a lot of interesting insects and butterflies out here, apparently no zoologist (I think that’s the right term) has ever been to look at the wildlife in this region, so it is likely that there are uncategorized insects and small creatures here. I have been told that baboons and monkeys are very common higher up in the mountains, so some time I will have to venture there to have a look.

The two guys I’m living with are proving to be good fun and enjoyable company. Adam took me for a motorbike lesson on the airstrip here last week and I’m hoping to go again soon, but the pair of them are normally quite busy working here on the compound. Elijah and I cut our hair this week, Elijah made a mess of mine so I insisted with the help of Adam on making patterns in the side of his, which he is now rather fond of.  The food is beginning to become slightly monotonous here at the house, but compared to the school meals of just beans or boiled leaves it is gourmet.

I would really appreciate any prayers regarding teaching, but also that I may become more integrated with the villagers as so far I haven’t ventured too far into the village or made too many non-school connections.

Yours in Christ,

Chris

The School

The road up to the School

The Governors visit

Elijah's  Hair

driving on the airstrip

Welcome to Lohutok

I am writing to you from my new home at the base of Lohutok village. The last week has been pretty hectic so this week’s blog will probably be a little longer than last weeks. The day after writing last weeks blog I departed for Torit, South Sudan with a missionary couple to visit the South Sudan AIM Headquarters where all of the missionaries in South Sudan were meeting for a couple of days. The plane to Torit was tiny, it was six seated and the back seat where I was sitting was pretty cramped. It was great fun for the first hour or so until I got a little uncomfortable. The noise of it all was so loud that you needed to put on ear covers and couldn’t really have too much of a conversation with anyone. The airstrip at Torit was pretty good in comparison to some of the others I’ve seen; it was a dirt strip where the locals have their football games. On arrival, I had been expecting to have to go through some kind of security check to get visas and stuff, but there was no airport or any officials. The AIM compound was right next to the strip and as soon as I got off some of the missionaries were waiting to take my bags into the house. Later that day I went into the town to sort out paperwork and was taken to a decorated cargo container where the immigration office was. I now have a South Sudan pass for 3 months because South Sudan doesn’t yet do visas. It was at Torit that I met Cath Bezold (I think you can find her testimony on youtube but I’m not sure) a South African Missionary that will be working with me in Lohutok from time to time. All of the guys there were really nice and whilst for them it was a retreat from all the work they’ve been doing, I was keen to get going and do something, but hearing them talking about different problems out here will probably help me out over the next couple of months. Whilst staying there I was sleeping outside in a tent alongside some other guys. It was during the second night that the biggest storm I’ve ever seen hit at about 1 in the morning. According to the locals it was the biggest they’d seen in a decade. Two trees on the compound were ripped out of the ground and the tents we were staying in were battered. I abandoned the tent about 15 minutes into the storm as the sides had decided to no longer be waterproof and my mattress was turning into a sponge for the rain. I ended up sleeping on the living room floor sharing a mattress with another missionary. The next morning I must have had about 15 new bites, but was grateful to be dry. We spent the morning repairing the compound and drying stuff out (I don’t seem to be doing too well with the weather so far). On Monday myself, Cath, 3 guys working for Cath and a local pastor called Tito set off for Lohutok. Cath was somewhat worried about the road checks, as she has had bad experiences with them as they can sometimes be drunk and/or demand money. However, everything went very smoothly, except for the roads, which are extremely bumpy, people weave across the road choosing whichever path looks best. I arrived in Lohutok just in time for Lunch. I am staying with a South African/German family called the Matusiks; there are 5 young children (4 girls and a boy). They work for a German missionary organization called Diguna who have close links with AIM. Diguna set up their own large compounds and try to be self sufficient opposed to AIM who normally try to live among the locals, therefore the compound here grows a lot of food and has a big workshop full of vehicles including a number of motorbikes belonging to Stephan Matusik. Stephan is a pretty impressive guy; he has served as a South African Paratrooper, speaks four languages and seems full of stories. However, after two days of being here he left with his family as they are attending a Diguna conference for two weeks. I am living in a small house on their compound with two other guys, a 16 year old American called Elijah and a 22 year German bike mechanic called Adam, who are helping Stephan out here. The setups quite nice, but I’m beginning to get bored with the same staple foods, although we did make pizza last night as a treat. I started teaching in the school yesterday; the secondary school has 3 classes each of which has roughly 15 or so students. I am teaching all 3 physics and maths, they are a long way behind. The students who have been there for about two and a half years have only completed roughly a terms worth of work and from my lessons yesterday I’m uncertain whether they’ve understood what they have been taught. On the whole, I think my first day of teaching went fairly well and there are signs of real promise from the first class who are all of a younger age (the older classes range from 17 to about 60). I am just happy that I didn’t break down at all. The one thing which did strike me as extremely impressive was the speed of the arithmetic’s, they have no calculators and therefore have had lots of practice with calculating sums in their head, so I would say something like, “ therefore the answer is 2600 times 0.48” and in a matter of seconds one of them would shout out, “1248.” It’ll be interesting to see how they handle logarithms and other mathematical problems without calculators if we get to them. At the moment the school is pretty stretched for teachers, there are about 6 of us and pretty much everyone is taking two subjects regardless of whether they are their strong suits. I haven’t yet been up into the village itself (the school is also at the base) as I haven’t yet had reason to do so although I hope to venture there at some point. The villagers are very friendly and wherever you go there are greetings of “hello teacher,” or “mung,” which is the local word for hello and seems to be repeated over and over when you meet someone. One big plus is that beside our compound there is a rough football field and every night all of the guys from the village come and play and people come and watch, so far I’ve played the once and did alright, but my lack of Lohutok vocabulary was a hindrance. I hope that it’ll be a useful way to get to know all the guys here.

I am now off to meet my language helper, Joshua, for an hour so.  So, as they say here: homo bino (thank you very much) for reading.

Chris

-Saturday 1^st October

the plane to Torit

The runway

The guys cutting up one of the fallen trees

the wet and broken tents

view of the mountain on which Lohutok is situated from the compound.

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