- Pack up one base and move to new property
- Unpack at the other end and try and make sense out of having the office, the clinic, the store room, building materials, a semi kitchen and two living spaces out of one small house/room.
- Break up. Colleague/boyfriend tells you it's over!
- Spend all of Saturday fighting a huge fire on the land with tree branches, in flip flops and a skirt… that consumed at least 30 acres!
- Try to start a school that has no classrooms, under singed mango trees and in ash covered dirt, with half the teachers never having been trained.
- Hear that the founding director of Yei Children's Village has just passed away from Cancer, whom everyone has been praying for.
- Witness the intense wailing mourning from our mamas' and girls in the village that lasted at least 1 1/2 hours before they all gather together for worship and prayer
- Spend the next few days driving children and mamas back and forward for funeral and burial services
- Find out that the headmaster has been charging parents an extra fee to compliment the teachers salary, without the offices knowledge
- Find out the headmaster doesn't cover his tracks to well and is digging a huge whole for himself by trying to rip out pages from the registration book so I don't figure out how much he has collected.
- Discover that all the teachers have issues with the headmasters leadership and I have to put the Headmaster on probation
- Try and sort out how to cut the school numbers in half because the headmaster didn't keep a record of the number of pupils registered and we are way too full.
- Learn that half the teachers have no idea how to teach and after giving a 10min lesson just sit and do nothing.
- Hear the ICC have issued a warrant for arrest against the standing president, Omar Al –Bashir and spend late hours of the night reading news articles about how this could cause a war to begin again in Sudan.
- Leave a friends birthday bash in town just as a truck full of armed soldiers drive by and thank God they didn't stop us, or that we didn't have to drive the other way past their check points were they would have surely demanded money.
- Wake up one morning to hear the LRA attacked and killed 5 people only 2km away and could be coming through the bush directly behind our property.
- Go into town to witness hundreds of scared villagers moving into the centre of town, carrying their provisions on their heads
- Listen to the radio as the commissioner announces for everyone to take up their pongas (machetes) and weapons.
- Watch as men drive around town on voda voda's armed with AK47's, Kalashnikovs and pongas ready for an impending attack.
- Return to base after sending out urgent prayer requests to find the children terrified, saying that they are all going to get killed and they will run into the bush and hide
- After praying with the children and getting them to all move into 3 houses for safety and appointing the older boys as night guards try and sleep peacefully. Forget it! Finally get some sleep at about 5am for an hour till the rooster crows
- Discover the next day, that despite the LRA attackers being seen heading north west, they actually looped back around and came very close to the compound, one suspect was even caught not far from us.
- Hear at the security briefing that approximately 200 LRA soldiers have gathered near the Congo/Sudan boarder. Only about 80km away
- Took in 3 new children whose mother was just brutally killed in the LRA attack last week. Killed by Ponga while carrying an infant on her back. Infant is now with us along with her 3 year old sister who had her head beaten with rocks in the attack and has a big soft spot on her head and still isn't walking straight. Then we have her 9 year old brother who managed to escape by running into the bush during the attack but his 11 year old brother wasn't so lucky – he was abducted. All of them saw their mother being murdered.
- Took in another boy who was living with his parents in a very poor situation. Had to share same bed as the parents and father was continually abusing the wife while he was there. Neighbours then took him in but can't look after him, so he is now living with us.
- Found out that one of the teachers has not been teaching her assigned subject the whole term out of stubbornness. Have to issue another warning letter
- Had some visitors today that came to Yei a month ago from Khartoum. Said now since the Warrant against Omar al-Bashir white people have now become targets and they are having to flee/evacuate.
- Also since the Warrant many organisations/NGO's have been forced to leave Dafur leaving thousands possibly millions without aid.
- Then on the way to use the Internet today we meet a student from Jennie's school who just lost her husband to a landmine. The painful events never cease….
Then you just have the general frustrations of having no personal space, living in an office, having crying babies and children wake you up every morning, constant miscommunication between cultures, general culture shock, having armed military and police everywhere, being yelled out at everywhere you go because your white, having drunk men propose marriage or ask for money every time you go into town, constantly hear about the local defence force being accused of rape, theft or killings – (the very ones employed to protect the people). Having all your bones rattled every time you have to drive somewhere or eyes filled with dust if you have to take out the motorbike while trying to dodge potholes, goats, dogs, chickens, people on pushbikes with very wide loads and vehicles travelling the opposite direction on your side of the road. All while trying to get the eggs in your backpack home without breaking. The children also love to come for medical treatment and will even pick their scabs open just to have ointment, even if it does attract dozens of disease ridden flies and often leads to infection. Getting a plaster is a special event – like a sticker in the hands of a 3 year old.
But holding our youngest tonight, Josiah Doga and watching him sleep on my chest, kissing his forehead and smelling his baby skin makes it all worthwhile. Teaching the girls worship songs and listening to them gather for prayers every night is an inspiration. Seeing the kids dream of a better future gives me hope, and helping them understand that change is possible makes some of the frustrations subside.
