Finding something to eat in Northern Bahr El Ghazal is always very challenging. On our initial trip in July, we pretty much ate beans and rice at every meal. This time we decided to go to the market and select our own food. We then convinced the hotel cooks to prepare the meals for us and paid them separately for the work.

The market had a small selection locally grown food. We got pumpkin, eggplant, different kinds of greens, tomatoes and cucumbers. It was awesome coming back from the field each day to a delicious dinner that was something other than beans and rice.

Everything was working beautifully until one day the cooks had a dispute over who was cooking and how the money was divided. After that, the food started coming out cold and not well prepared. I was nervous about having people who were not happy preparing our food, so we abandoned that plan decided to go back to eating beans and rice in town.

As the days progressed the hotel really started getting to me. I tried to make the best of things but some days it was hard. We brought our own sheets and towels but it was still a real challenge. The US health department would have shut them down in a second. The place was unbearably hot, there was no toilet paper half the time, a dirty, leaky bathroom, with bugs in the shower, an awful bed with no mosquito net, just to name a few things. On top of this, it was expensive. But there was nowhere else to stay. Breakfast was included in the price. It consisted of tea and bread, and they were usually out of either one or the other.

One day we met a veterinarian from Vets without Borders. He had lived in Somalia for 30 years and was doing some fieldwork in the area. We became fast friends when I shared an extra tea bag and some bread with him after the hotel told him they had nothing for his breakfast. I enjoyed talking to him about his work and was disappointed when he informed me the hotel was too awful for him to stay and he had contacted a friend from another aid organization and was going to stay in their compound. I realized I would need to make some friends of my own, and quickly.

There was a small fridge in the room with a freezer that worked overnight, when the generator was running. Every night I would freeze bottles of water so we’d have cold water for a couple of hours in the morning. The ones I left in the freezer during he day would remain cold until we got back from the field in the afternoon, even though the power was off during the day. Honestly, that cold water seemed like the best thing in the world when we came in exhausted and dirty at the end of the day.

I also paid a lady to heat me water every night for showering. Otherwise, the water from the tap was pretty dirty and cold, so it was impossible to feel clean.

The hot water for bathing and cold water for drinking are maybe the two things that kept me sane at that place. We’re definitely going to need to set up our own small compound there soon.

Each day before heading off to the field, we would fuel up the truck from a roadside stand that sold jugs filled with gas. The attendant would siphon the fuel into a hose with his mouth and then put it into the truck.

Midway through the second week I decided I didn’t trust our truck anymore. We had broken down several times and were traveling deeper and deeper into the villages. I felt we needed a more reliable vehicle and asked George to find someone else in town who would rent us something better. I felt bad firing Dut, since he’d already been driving us for over a week, but this was not personal. We just couldn’t risk breaking down in these remote areas.

That day we were traveling with the Director of Education for all of Aweil East County, which included 128 schools. We had just left a school and were driving on a remote dirt road when our new truck completely quit. Despite cajoling a number of people to help us push it, our efforts were useless. We had one bottle of water left and the heat was excruciating. There were no other vehicles traveling on the road and no cell reception. We were completely stranded.

Although we had airtime in our satellite phone, we couldn’t think of anybody to call. The driver tried his friends but they didn’t have another vehicle available. People around these parts just don’t have personal cars and trucks. If you’re lucky, you have a motorcycle. The education director didn’t even know anybody we could call. After weighing all of our options, we realized our only choice was to call our original driver, Dut. By this point it was around 3PM and he was not happy about the idea of driving several hours to pick us up. But he reluctantly agreed. Then we sat at the side of the road waiting, and waiting, and waiting. We were there for five hours total, with one bottle of water, which seemed ironic.

The five of us moved from truck, to shade tree, back to truck. I fantasized about all of the cold things I would drink when I got back to civilization. But everybody remained calm and just tried to make the best of things. I got the feeling that the situation was not new to any of the others. The Education Director even commented that I was really getting see how people struggle.

We did meet some very interesting people while we were sitting there. We shot interviews about the water crisis with people walking by and did our best to pass the time. Every now and then somebody would get the urge to try to push start the truck again, and we’d all give it a go. But in the end, it was Dut to the rescue, just as it was about to get dark.

We finally got back to Aweil Town, at about 10:00, starving and exhausted. We searched for somewhere to get dinner but everything was closed or else all their food was gone. I had a package of pasta in my bag, so we found someone who agreed to boil it for us. For dinner that night we had plain pasta poured onto a large, shared platter that we ate with our fingers. But it was delicious.

For me some weeks are easier than others, and this one had its fair share of challenges. That said, it’s tough to complain, because for the people who live here this week was not really too different from any other week.

One day when we were in the field we saw this man and wife walking down the road, in the blazing mid-day sun, carrying their lifeless child (about 7 years old).   She was delirious with malaria and they were walking several hours away to a clinic, so she could receive treatment.  I’ve never seen anybody with that condition.  She was imagining things that were not happening and crying out.  Her eyes were bulging out.  We gave them a ride.  When we got to the clinic, it was a thatched shack with an intravenous drip and a bed.  There was already somebody being treated, so her family had to wait.   So many kids around here die everyday of malaria and I really hope we were able to get her there in time.

Some days the task seems so enormous that I wonder if we are even making any difference at all.  It’s hard not to get discouraged when you see such suffering everywhere.  At times it feels like we are just a “drop in the ocean.”   But water is a major issue and we ARE helping with that.   We can physically see our impact and although it may seem small by comparison, it’s not small at all to the people who need it.  To them, it’s huge.

Each of these boreholes we’re going install at the schools in Northern Bahr el Ghazal will provide water to 2500 people and this is now, before the returnees come.  It’s also good that we’re focusing on schools and existing communities since pretty much everybody else is dealing with the returnee emergency.

Because of this, we were really welcomed by the other organizations.   We were given the opportunity introduce ourselves a number of times in large meetings and were asked to make a presentation on our sanitation system three times.

For all the frustration that comes from the enormity of the situation, there are these wonderful people from the international NGOs up here working so hard to help out.  They all collaborate and work well together, sharing information, resources and ideas.  I think it helps everyone keep from going crazy!

One person helped us convert our budget to reflect the prices in the region.  Materials costs are 200% higher than in other areas we work, if they are even available at all.   We heard stories about people waiting three weeks for cement to arrive.  Most things are imported from Kenya or Uganda.

We’re also partnering with a wonderful community organization who has funding for hygiene training.  They will take on this part of our program until we get our team in place for that.  They are very experienced and know the region well.

By the last few days in Aweil, I was ready to get back to Juba.   We were up super early everyday to get to field and see just one school before they let out at midday.  It was two weeks of hot, hard work and we were dirty and exhausted.   I was literally covered in mosquito bites.

Finally, toward the end of our stay, we found another lady in town to cook for us.  She seated us at a small table outside her dilapidated shack where she served us delicious local food she cooked over an open fire.

Sitting there in the evenings, I began to realize how many homeless street children there are in Aweil Town.  I had seen several of them sleeping on shop verandas during the day but thought they were the exception.  They were not.   As we sat there each night, we met the most charming, witty, smart, dirty, young homeless street kids. They were mostly boys, but there were a few girls.  They seemed to really look out for each other.   Although their situation was super heartbreaking, they entertained us with their humorous interactions, Michael Jackson moves and made up songs. I think some of them may have, unfortunately, been a little bit tipsy from something. But most were trying to make the best of things and were just being kids. We ended up buying dinner for some of them most nights.  We’d start with two or three and then word would get around and others would start coming.  They would share plates of beans and rice and were surprisingly diligent about washing their hands before eating.  Maybe they were happy to have the opportunity to use some soap and wash up.  Those kids totally stole my heart.

Although it’s hard living, exhausting work and unsanitary living conditions at times, Northern Bahr el Ghazal is one of the most needy places on the planet.  Knowing the situation, we can’t turn away and leave them.  So we are just going to have to figure out a way to make things a little more bearable because we have a lot of work to do there and this is just the beginning.

We got back to Juba just in time to bid on a Land Cruiser that UNICEF was auctioning off.   We also spent the week dealing with NGO business at the ministries.

One day when we were having lunch this crazy older man came into the restaurant ranting.   He was speaking Arabic and I couldn’t tell exactly what he was saying but he seemed like an insane homeless man.  I was surprised when several other men in the restaurant not only showed him a lot of admiration, but at one point they all started engaging him in songs, which they all seemed to know. The spectacle was so interesting and it worked in calming him down.   I later learned that he was a very well respected general who had led one of the original battalions of the South Sudan revolution, in the early 1980s.   Most of the people in the café seemed to overlook him as they checked their Facebook pages and enjoyed their lunch.   Although the years of war had taken their toll on his mind, those former soldiers of the SPLA had definitely not forgotten him.   He told the men that every month when he receives his military salary he buys soda, water and beer that he pours on the grave of the late Dr. John Garang, the leader of their revolution.   It’s clear that he wishes his old friend could be there today to see how people are enjoying the freedom and liberty for which they had fought and sacrificed their entire lives.

The first week really involved a lot of logistical meetings and strategic planning.  But week two we needed to travel deep into the villages, talk to the women and really assess the water situation for ourselves.

Our truck was not in great condition and, of course, the roads are terrible or non-existent.   Vehicles around here need serious maintenance and although the NGOs can afford to do this upkeep, individuals are much less diligent, mostly due to lack of money.   The first week our Land Cruiser broke down on the way to a meeting at the Aweil East Education Office.  Luckily we were on a main road and were able to catch a ride with an awesome man who got us to our meeting on time and would not even take money (which is really unusual around here).

Tea lady from Aweil East

The Aweil East Education Office was happy to see us and had collected a ton of applications from schools.  Although we had to verify the data ourselves, from the information they provided the need is extreme.  One lady who runs a small business preparing tea outside the education office talked to us about the daily struggle for water.  She said women in the villages are really suffering.   In many areas there is absolutely no water at all in the dry season.  She said it is common for one jerry can to serve an entire family for the whole day.

Although this lady is from Aweil East, she suggested we really consider working in Aweil North, also.  That area borders Darfur and most of the aid organizations have been avoiding working there due to past security concerns.  Even though it’s a very isolated area, the security situation has definitely improved so we decide to make it a priority to investigate Aweil North first.

Although these are very populated areas, they are extremely remote with no roads to the villages there and no phone network.   The world has no idea what is going on there.  Any statistics we get are just estimates so we will share the data we collect with the other NGOs in order to help gather some accurate figures.

Woman collecting water for drinking in Aweil East

I spend half the year in this region and I’ve seen a lot of places but the living conditions in these villages are the worst I’ve seen yet.   The people have NO WATER.  I’m not exaggerating ABSOLUTELY NO WATER!!! The monkeys are attacking the women who are walking back with water they’ve collected because they need it that desperately too.  It’s the end of the rainy season and the rivers and swamps are all drying up.  So soon it will all be gone until April.   After that people literally travel around looking for water during those months.  They move their houses, kids and everything.  School lets out in mid-December and doesn’t start back until April, so people can travel with their families looking for water.   They are not even thinking about clean water, this is about finding any water at all.   Right now they are drinking from swamps and dirty puddles but soon those will be gone.

Our entire team is extremely troubled by the situation.  It’s so heartbreaking.   The women are affected the most, as the burden of collecting water falls solely on them and the girls. Our entire team is dedicated more than ever to helping the women and girls in this country.   One of our team members is from this region and remembers his mom walking 6 hours a day for water, and honestly, not much has changed.

These conditions are due to the decades of war but things are peaceful now and people are hopeful for the future. For South Sudan to have a real shot at a future, its children need to be able to go to school. Only by getting children educated can countries move out of poverty and break the cycle of dependence.

The children are really suffering.  Education for girls is not even an option right now because they are being forced to help their mothers search for water.  The kids who are enrolled in school only go half-day because it’s so hot and without access to water children regularly pass out in class due to heat and extreme dehydration.

When I asked one head teacher about latrines, the children started nervously giggling at his answer that they just go into the bush.  Open defecation is the norm, rather than the exception, in these villages and at the schools.

We also noticed that two classes share one blackboard.  One side will have the lesson for 5th grade and the other for 6th.  They pass the chalkboard back and forth between the classes.  One class literally sits under the tree and waits patiently until the other teacher finishes his point and passes the board back.

I wonder how these children are ever going to be able to compete with the rest of the world.  No matter how bright, naturally talented or motivated they are, with these limitations their future seems bleak.

This is what the water crisis looks like in South Sudan

Within the next two weeks 12,000 people are expected to be returning to the region from North Sudan.  Some unexpected trains have already begun arriving. These are mostly people who have been living in the northern refugee camps because the war.  They are now being loaded onto trains and shipped back to the South, whether they like it or not.  They arrive with no food or money, just a few meager possessions, and there are not enough local resources to sustain them.  We were involved in so many coordination meetings with everybody trying to have their emergency plans in place.

The discussions in these meetings included topics such as setting up mobile clinics, food distribution, providing anti-malarial drugs, distributing mosquito nets, dealing with gender based violence and protective services for the vulnerable, handing out hygiene kits with bars of soap, as well as concerns about lack of sanitation facilities, which cross over into malnutrition issues.

The World Food Program has enough food to last just one month but after that there is going to be a major problem.  The people already living in this area struggle during the dry months for food as it is, which begins now and lasts till April or May. With the strain of these additional people,  the impending famine is not a threat it is inevitable and unavoidable.

The reports are stating that there is an emergency situation in the camps they are leaving from and that many people have already died.  5000 children were reported to have died last month alone of malaria.  The experts are trying to figure out what to do.  It’s a two-week train ride and they fear there will be dead bodies arriving on the trains.

Many people have been living in terrible conditions in the northern camps but some have been living normal lives there.  All southerners are being forced to come back to the South and there is concern that many of them have no idea what they’re coming back to.  In the North, there are basic services and infrastructure such as roads, power and water.  Many will expect the living conditions to be similar and are going to be in for a huge shock when they step off those trains.

Without this assistance from the NGOs, I hate to think how frightening the situation would be.    I met very interesting aid workers in the meetings.  Despite the extreme living conditions around here, we met doctors, psychologists and other highly trained specialists who have given up their lives of comfort to bring their expertise to these people in extreme need.

We are one of the few organizations who are able to focus on assistance for existing communities, since everybody else is dealing with the pending crisis.  Everyone seems happy we are there and able to help.  But it’s going to be tough work.  That’s for sure.

Waiting at Aweil Airport

On Friday morning we left Uganda for three weeks in South Sudan.  Our first stop would be Juba where we had to deal with NGO business at the Ministries.  We left at 7:30 AM to get there early but schedules are difficult to stick to in Africa.

Our arrival at the South Sudan border coincided with two busloads of people also clearing customs.   Luckily, somebody we knew helped shuffle me through but it still took forever and put us behind schedule.  I felt a little bad cutting the line but still didn’t resist the offer. It would have taken hours to get through if we had gotten in line with all those people from the buses and we did have a plane to catch.

It was pouring rain when we got to Juba, which also slowed us down.  The first and most pressing bit of business to deal with was actually purchasing our plane tickets to Northern Bahr el Ghazal.  The plane only runs on Mondays and Fridays and we literally got the last two seats on the Monday flight. Missing that flight would have really disrupted our schedule.

Although Juba was extremely hot and humid, our hotel was situated in a beautiful location right on the banks of the Nile.  The location was about all it had to offer though.  It was a series of connected, pre-fabricated structures with cold showers, hot rooms and paper thin walls.

On Sunday we were invited to lunch in the village, which is always interesting.   There were about ten women cooking animals they’d just killed and what seemed like a hundred kids running around.  I must admit that it wasn’t particularly appetizing in the heat, with flies everywhere and animal intestines lying around in various piles on the ground.

Village lunch kids

Village Lunch

Then it was time for the last few things to get crossed off the checklist before leaving.  We picked up some more maps from the UN, loaded up the satellite phone with airtime and made our final preparations for the field.

It was our last night in Juba before flying north. That night all I wanted for dinner all I wanted was pizza.   I knew that the food selection in Bahr el Ghazal was going to be extremely limited, so we went to a local restaurant that I knew had pretty decent pizza.  As we were eating, some international aid workers began setting up their band equipment.  I don’t know if they were any good or not, but both the pizza and their music seemed absolutely fabulous at the time.

Our flight to Bahr el Ghazal left at 8AM sharp and at exactly 9:30 we landed on the small dirt airstrip.  We took a rickshaw to the hotel and haggled for 30 minutes about the rate. Haggling is definitely part of the culture and was expected despite the fact that there is nowhere else in town to stay.  The hotel staff took our money and went directly off to buy fuel for the generator.   We began setting up the mobile office and started making calls.  With only two weeks to get our team in place and trained, we had to get to work immediately.  We are scheduled to begin drilling in late January and there is so much to do in the meantime.

Our first official meeting was with the Relief and Rehabilitation Commissioner.   They are the local government organization in charge of overseeing all aid work in the county.  While we were meeting, two people from UNMISS showed up asking us to consider working in a settlement camp where they are trying to place an estimated 12,000 Southerners who will soon be returning to the region from the North.   Aid organizations and local government are trying to provide them with access to basic services, such a water and sanitation, so they will stay there. Returnees are clearly a big consideration among the aid community right now and we began to realize that more and more as the week progressed.

The next thing was staffing up in the area. Luckily, we got off to a great start as our first interview was a huge success.   Simon Achier was referred to us by the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission and is exactly the kind of employee I was hoping to find… bright, eager, resourceful and cool.  I hired him on the spot.  He had been trained by another NGO who lost their funding, so I think we got very lucky.  We planned to spend two weeks together training him and then he would be on his own coordinating with the other international NGOs, selecting schools, mobilizing communities, working with local hygiene training teams, helping set up water user committees, and coordinate with our drilling team.  For now we are partnering with other local organizations to help implement certain parts of our program, such as hygiene training, since we don’t have the resources and manpower in place to do this part ourselves yet.  It’s not a perfect situation but it will work fine as we get ourselves set up.    Sometimes you just have to take that first step and then keep moving forward. You always have to start somewhere and I knew that if we had waited for everything to be perfect we would never be where we are now.

Simon and the new motorcycle

Although we are planning to purchase a truck for our fieldwork, we had to start with a good off-road motorcycle for Simon to use in the beginning.   While we were at the traffic office getting our motorcycle registrations, we ran into a man from USAID who we’d met on our initial trip in July.  Although Northern Bahr el Ghazal a very large region, the aid community seems fairly small and close knit.  It’s definitely nice to see familiar faces from time to time.

I’m not talking about emergency relief aid where the focus is on immediately saving lives.  However, the approach needs to be different when it comes to rebuilding and poverty alleviation.

Take for instance northern Uganda, which has become an aid hotspot in recent years.   This area was caught up in a brutal 21-year guerrilla war with the Lord’s Resistance Army. Beginning in 2007, when the LRA was driven into the DRC and CAR, people began returning to their villages and global aid started pouring into this region.

Although I do not doubt that this aid is necessary and well intended, many of these interventions run the risk of creating an environment of dependence with their easy-and-free approach.   After all, who wouldn’t want a new, free borehole when the one that was installed two years ago is proving to be problematic?  This results in an over-saturation of boreholes in some areas, while other villages drink from contaminated, hand-dug wells infested with deadly bacteria and parasites.

Over the past few years, I have seen a staggering number of broken and abandoned boreholes. This is the dirty secret that nobody wants to talk about.  It’s almost as if organizations see it as some sort of failure on their part if their hand pumps don’t work forever, but that’s not where the failure lies.

Hand pumps are going to break.  Nothing that we use every day can last forever without problems.  Our cars break down, our sinks & toilets clog up, our computers crash.

That said, to go into a village where there are no skilled workers and expect them to somehow miraculously know how to take care of things, is just irresponsible.

Providing aid without adequate capacity building is a recipe for failure.  It is crucial to engage the stakeholders in these projects from the onset. If you don’t, you are likely to be wasting your donor’s money.  We’re experimenting with a number of different tactics to address the issue and so far, have found two key strategies that seem to be working.

One approach is to train Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLA) in conjunction with the water points.VSLAs are a more evolved variation of the standard Water User Committee. It’s a fact that sustaining Water User Committees is challenging.  We have found that a more successful strategy is to monetize the approach and provide a rewarding incentive to stay involved.

VSLAs utilize a very-structured system of saving, borrowing and lending village contributions that is simple enough to verbally explain that even illiterate members can easily understand. Any money borrowed must to be used for income-generating activities and all decisions must be made by the group. Once a year the interest earned is divided among the association, based on the amount each person has contributed.

This works well for borehole sustainability because a discussion of the water point and collection of water user fees are a mandatory part of every meeting. This ensures that funds are available, in a public account, for maintenance and repairs of borehole. The fact that community members are also being empowered to start small businesses with the funds from the VSLA is just an added benefit.

Another effective strategy we’ve found for sustainability is insisting on a significant upfront investment from the stakeholders.  This investment can be monetary but more often it is broken down into materials or services. Although the ability to contribute to these projects varies from community to community, there has to be some system in place to involve the beneficiary.

For our part, we provide stakeholders with a list of options for meeting their commitment. We place a value on certain materials and labor so the community can decide how they want to invest in the project.  We only ask for an amount we know they are capable of providing.

We’ve found that the overall key to success is fostering a sense of ownership, which comes from engaging the stakeholders. They have to actively work with you on the project. Everyone involved needs to see the project for what it is – a collaboration between the community and the aid facilitator. It takes more time, money and follow-up to do things this way, but in the end the beneficiaries feel a greater commitment to the project.  This translates into effective maintenance, long-term sustainability and an increased likelihood of success.

As the plane took off, the vast landscape below appeared extremely desolate. The soil is not good for growing crops, in the best of conditions, and we learned there is fear of famine this year.

I thought about some of the people we’d met during the week in the villages.

Bahr El Gazhal is one of the poorest regions I’ve seen. Everybody coughs and hacks all the time because they’re sick. They walk very long distances to collect dirty water. There is very little in the way of basic infrastructure, such as clinics, and no money to pay a doctor even if there were facilities. School enrollment is extremely low and the children in the villages seemed unusually skeptical of me. I was told that the only light-skinned people they’d really ever known had been Arabs, whom they feared, because they had grown up during the bloody civil war with the North. I hope that having clean water at their schools will help increase these kid’s chances of getting an education and learning about more the outside world.

We visited one lady who lives with her four children in a thatched hut with huge holes in the roof.  Her son is named Doctor John, after the late Doctor John Garang, the leader of the South Sudan revolution. Garang died in a helicopter crash, in 2005, just after the Peace Agreement was signed.

Despite the dire living conditions, the people seemed to have a faint sense of hope for the future, now that they are their own country, independent of the North. Republic of South Sudan flags waved everywhere, bright and colorful against the stark, desperate background of life in Aweil.

I was excited to get back to Juba.  We dropped off an updated letter to UNOCHA, notifying them that the trip was a great success and we would be starting our program in Aweil East County, which has 128 schools.

Next we left for Yei, which is a county over by the border of Congo. We had a big meeting scheduled to discuss the drilling costs for the team we’ll be working with in Aweil.

It was raining all the way there and apparently the locals call it Small London because of that. Our meetings went perfectly. We negotiated the exact price we had hoped, which was at least half the rate most drillers charge for working in the area. Luckily, this team is as dedicated to helping the people of Northern Bahr El Ghazal as we are. So they were willing to work within our budget constraints. It was a win-win for all and everyone left the meeting happy.

Driving back to Uganda you could actually see the Congo border. There were Congolese merchants on one side of the road and South Sudanese on the other.

We generally never have any trouble crossing the borders, since our guys are so well connected. But the immigration official at this one didn’t know us, so it took a little longer getting through. They insisted on looking through my bags, which were filled with nothing but EXTREMELY DIRTY clothes.

After driving all day, we finally reached Gulu. Not surprisingly, the power was off at our office. But it was good to be back after such a long trip.

The next morning, the teams started showing up early to turn in their reports and receipts. I really just wanted a day off but that clearly wasn’t going to happen. The only person I didn’t see was Jacob, who was home sick with malaria.

I was happy with everything our team had accomplished while we were in Sudan. They handled follow-up on a number projects and did assessments of schools in two new districts. We now have even more needy schools on our list.

Our office was a mess with dirty boots, field paraphernalia and two weeks worth of collected data, from two teams, strewn about. As I was sitting at the desk trying to get things organized, I noticed a surprise visitor at the gate. Through the window, I could see a UN truck pull up. I couldn’t imagine why the UN was coming to our office, early and unannounced. I rushed around trying to straighten up and smooth down my dirty hair. I wasn’t exactly prepared for such an official visit, right off the bat on my first day back!

They wanted to talk about our toilets and asked me for a budget! This was interesting timing. We’d approached UNICEF about a year ago about the system but the conversation never went anywhere. Now they were coming to us. I wondered if Patrick, from Aweil, had asked them to check it out. Regardless, this was a wonderful development. We always have trouble with funding for the toilets. If we could partner with UNICEF to build them, that would really elevate our sanitation program to a new level.

Later in the day, I also received an email from the UNICEF Chief Director of Water and Sanitation for the entire country of Uganda. He was asking if we could come to Kampala for a meeting with them, as soon as possible. I was five hours from Kampala and still had a lot to accomplish before returning to the US the following week. I needed to visit ten completed projects in Lira and see two others in Masaka. I also had a meeting scheduled in Tororo. But this was UNICEF, so I happily rearranged my schedule.

I finished up the pressing business in Gulu and packed my bags, again. I spent Friday with our office full of people. We had Jacob going over his reports and getting new assignments; Geoffrey, one of our builders, discussing materials needed for his project at Gulu High School; and our new accountant, Elvis, helping me put together the budget for the UNICEF meeting. You really have to go with the flow in this line of work!

PS – Isn’t it cool that our new accountant’s name is Elvis?

Aweil was originally one large county that has now need divided into five. There is Aweil North, Aweil South, Aweil East, Aweil Went and Aweil Central. The first day, we ran into the commissioner of Aweil West at our hotel. George knows everybody, everywhere and recognized him immediately. We told him about our program and the Commissioner encouraged us to consider working in his county, which has 54 primary schools. We told him we were going to do a thorough assessment before making any decisions and would do our best to target the most needy communities. We gave him a couple of DITB shirts. People love getting the shirts and it helps us spread our name around.

The only truck we could find to rent was the same one that the big NGOs use – white, hard top, Land Cruiser, with the air filter that goes out the top, so you don’t stall when driving through water. Except this one was at least 10 years old and pretty rickety. These are strong, solid trucks that are great for fieldwork. They can last for decades if they’re well maintained, unfortunately this one clearly had not been.

Our first stop was the South Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (SSRRC). They work closely with United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). Those are the first two stops when going into new regions of this post-conflict country as an aid organization. When we arrived at SSRRC, the director was already expecting us. This seemed interesting since we’d just gotten into town. Evidently, the commissioner of Aweil West had notified him that we were coming. Word was out and people were excited we were there.

Next we met with UNOCHA at the UN compound. Their Italian director, Giovanni, was a no-nonsense, very serious guy, which is good because he has a major job ahead of him. These guys are dealing with a massive influx of returnees coming from the North.

Giovanni introduced us to the UNICEF director and the main person coordinating water and sanitation for the region, Patrick. He also invited us to a general meeting of all NGOs working in the county on Thursday.

The meeting with Patrick was a great start, in terms of strategy. He gave us some school water information and was very interested in our toilet design. He told us that the area is prone to flooding and explained that pit latrines just don’t work here, especially for the large schools.

He also seemed impressed by the way we involve the beneficiaries in our program and even suggested that our approach could possibly be adopted across the entire sector. That was exciting. I know we have a solid program, with creative ideas and innovative approaches, but it’s always encouraging to have the more experienced people acknowledge them.

Although he is about to be transferred to the main office in Juba, Patrick assured me that he will still be dealing with issues related to water and sanitation for this region and said we would still be working together.

As the week progressed, we met with education and water officials for the entire region, as well as the different counties. We also introduced ourselves to other NGOs working in the area. It seemed that every door effortlessly opened for us and things were flowing along smoothly.

We had one last meeting before we had to leave on Thursday morning. It was that UN general meeting for all NGOs working in the area. It was held under the mango trees within the UN compound. We pulled up in our old, loud truck, alongside the other shiny, white NGO Land Cruisers with logos on the side such as United Nations High Commission for Refugees, USAID, World Food Program, UNICEF.

It was definitely a meeting of the super heros of the aid world. Interestingly, we’d already met many of these people during the course of the week. When going into a meeting such as this, it definitely feels good if you already know some people.

The meeting began with everyone introducing themselves, which I’m sure was for our benefit, since the others meet weekly and already know each other. The main topic of conversation was the returnee emergency. Each organization shared whatever information they had about how many people were rumored to be on the trains. They also discussed issues such as an outbreak of Measles, strategies for food distribution, efforts to resettle those who had already arrived, and the logistics of providing adequate water and sanitation. As we have come to expect in these types of meetings, toilets were major topic of conversation.

On that note, Giovanni, asked me if I’d like to address the group. I introduced our organization and told them about our program, saying we would be doing assessments over the next few months and would probably begin drilling wells at schools early next year. I also told them that we have a unique toilet design and explained a little about how it works. At that point, Patrick, from the UN, chimed in, saying that our system is an interesting technology that would be a great alternative for the region.

I was the only girl at the meeting, with all of these seasoned aid workers. Despite my colored hair, lipstick and pink notebook, I felt very much a part of the group. They seemed happy to have us coming in to help with the situation. There are no hard rules when it comes to all of this. It’s about effectively implementing a successful program, with long-term strategies that are suitable for the region and sustainable.

When the meeting was over, we thanked everybody and told them we’d be back in two months to continue with our assessments.
I was just crossing my fingers that our rickety truck would crank, so the guys wouldn’t have to give it a push start right there in front of everybody, fortunately it did!

Now South Sudan can get the attention it deserves in terms of aid for infrastructure, education and healthcare. According to the UN, South Sudan has one of the world’s highest rates of maternal mortality, one of the lowest in school enrollment and only 1/3 of the population has access to safe water. That’s not acceptable. We have to help these people. And that’s our plan!

I was up at 6AM on the Monday after Independence Day, in South Sudan. We were flying to Aweil County, in Northern Bahr El Ghazal region, at the southern border of Darfur. Our plan is to expand our program into the region and we were going there to assess the situation, meet with local leaders, introduce ourselves to other NGOs, and figure out the logistics of establishing a team there.

The power on my room was off and it was still dark outside. I tried to brush my teeth, take a cold shower and get ready in the tiny pitch-black room. It’s hard to shower using the light from an iphone.

The small Juba airport seemed dwarfed by the huge UN planes. There was an impressive row of international flags and the red carpet was still in place from the weekend’s Independence Ceremony. Apparently, the little airport didn’t know how to handle all of the air traffic, with the delegations from around the globe arriving for the celebration.

The airport was filled with journalists, aid workers and wealthy Africans who were mostly all dressed in suits. It was very interesting seeing Juba from the air as the plane took off. Although it’s the capital city, from the air you mostly see dirt roads connecting makeshift structures and small buildings with corrugated iron roofs. This country needs so much in terms of development.

The Nile winds around the landscape and is beautiful from the air. But, according to some, this water could become the cause of the next conflicts. There is much debate over the ownership of its crucial water. I could also see another small river that had already completely dried up.

George, who’s only been on a plane once before, which had been delivering supplies during the war, jokingly asked, “Why are there so many potholes in the air?” The ride was a bit bumpy.

As the plane landed in Aweil, it was immediately clear we were in a remote location. The airport was nothing more that a dirt airstrip with a thatched awning that provided a bit of shade to waiting passengers.

Flights arrive and depart on Mondays and Fridays only. It’s a bit strange being dropped off so far away with no way back for days. Also, booking the return flight had to be done from Aweil (no computers or decent communication around there). This made me very nervous. Luckily, we were able to get the last two available seats on the return flight!! If we’d missed it, we’d have been stuck in Aweil until another plane came.

Aweil is at the southern border of Darfur, two hours from the oil-rich, contested, state of Abyei. So far, because of the location, there has not been a lot of aid, with the exception of immediate relief workers. It’s a three-to-four day drive from Juba. The drilling team that we’re going to be using told us a story about getting captured by the Darfur rebels, who mistook them for northern soldiers, when they accidentally crossed the border looking for small rocks. Despite all of this, these people are some of the world’s most needy, so we are prepared to accept the challenge.  However, our team will not be looking for small rocks anywhere near the Darfur border.

Now that the country has independence, the government in Khartoum has given Southerners a set amount of time to get out and return to their own country. This region is certain to be one of the first stops and many people are already flocking in by the trainload. There is concern that the influx of returnees could cause a humanitarian crisis.

Aweil has a lot of charm. This region, because of its proximity to the North, has more of an Arab influence than the other parts of Africa where we have worked. There were donkeys pulling carts and rickshaws everywhere. By all accounts, the people are super honest. It’s also extremely clean. Sanitation is always a big problem in these regions. Aweil is no different in many ways, except trash. You do not see garbage everywhere and plastic bags are even banned.

When we arrived, the citizens of Aweil were still celebrating their independence. The town center was filled with tribal dancers who’d come from the deep villages to perform. My main camera was still broken but I did my best to document all of this with my small backup.

No matter where I go, I can always find something to eat. But this time it took more effort than usual. The people in this region pretty much only eat goat and chicken. I think the terrain is not good for growing crops. After a lot of effort, we finally found a place, run by Ugandan women, which had beans, greens and rice. We informed the ladies we would be eating lunch and dinner there every day.

The kitchen in the back of the restaurant was standard for the area – dirt floors, animals roaming around, and pots of food being cooked over an open fire. There are no stoves, oven or kitchens, as we know them, around here.

Bathrooms are also a challenge whenever we’re in the field. In our Gulu office, we only have a bathing shelter and pit latrine but the ladies heat me hot water for bathing, which is awesome. In Juba, I had a tiny bathroom with a squatting toilet within the shower. There was only one tap which usually ran cold, brown water. In Aweil, it was no different. First thing, I found a frog living in a bucket in my bathroom – the bucket that was to be used for my bathwater. Luckily, the ladies did agree to heat me water for bathing.

Our hotel had just one TV, which was kept in a locked box within the courtyard. The station kept playing the President’s independence speech over and over again, with hopes of giving as many people as possible the opportunity to hear it. Each day, locals would gather in our hotel to watch.

I quickly realized I’d not be finding an Internet café or wifi and just resigned myself to having no communication with the outside world for a few days. I actually get more Sudanese news when I’m in LA than when I’m in Sudan. Aside from radio, and world of mouth, most of these people don’t know what’s going on in the outside world. They have newspapers but they don’t usually make it to the deep villages.

In general, Aweil is not as hot as I thought it would be. In fact, it cools off nicely in the evening and can get downright cold when it rains. The first day, I almost froze trying to catch a rickshaw in the pouring rain. Oddly, it felt a lot like New York City, for a minute.

George somehow found two men with a rickshaw and hired them to drive me around town for the day. Adem, the driver and, Muhammad, my English-speaking guide, were both South Sudanese Muslims. Muhammad spoke perfect English, which he said he learned from listening to Michael Jackson records as a kid. He had grown up in Khartoum and was obsessed with Western culture, particularly music, movies and technology. It was interesting talking to him about being a Muslim who was raised in the North and now living in the, predominantly non-Muslim, South. He was very dedicated to his religion and even dropped me off at 4PM so he could go for prayers.

The rickshaw was a perfect ride, as we were able to easily dodge all of the traffic jams and check points. Finally after hours of zipping around town, taking passport photos, waiting in lines and general finagling, I got it – an all-access press pass to the historic South Sudan Independence Day Celebration.

As the day started winding down, the streets began to clear out. Security was tight. There were heads of state and dignitaries coming from 36 countries. There was no way these guys were going to risk anything going wrong. That’s one thing for sure about a country that’s been at war, they know security. Luckily, our logistical team is very connected and we were still able to go out for dinner.

As we drove through the eerily empty streets of Juba, we passed the huge illuminated ticker that was counting down the minutes to Independence, with words like “Free At Last” blinking. When the clock struck midnight the people became ecstatic, flocking into the streets cheering, singing and chanting. Their day had come. Even in the blackness of the night, the celebrations had begun.

Saturday morning I was up at the crack of dawn. I was on my own, as my team had to leave the hotel early. They just told me to “follow the crowd” to the stadium. I gathered my things into my backpack (water, power bars, sunscreen, ID, some money, and cameras) and set out. The guy’s instructions were perfect. There was a steady flow of people all going in one direction. I got into the mix and, although I was the only westerner in sight, I felt completely safe. I’ve never seen such security. There were military or police on the veranda of every shop I passed. There was nothing but good energy in the air.

I walked with a sea of people to the stadium. The event was held at the mausoleum of, the late, Dr. John Garang. Garang was the charismatic leader of the southern army during the 22-year civil war. He was killed in a helicopter crash three weeks after the peace agreement was signed, in 2005. His status in South Sudan is both legendary and almost mythical. The mausoleum was the perfect place for this celebration.

There were riot police everywhere but people were just happy, not out of control. The whole thing was completely surreal for the first one hour. I was so thankful for the press pass that allowed me to walk through the crowd and directly up to the towering platform overlooking the event. The security personnel gave me two minutes at the top to get shots. There were more invited guests than they had expected, so they asked any South Sudanese who were sitting in the stands to please give their seats to the guests. All the generals graciously got up, giving their seats away and standing for the day-long festivities. The new national anthem was playing and flags were waving. Patriotism and peaceful excitement was the vibe.

Somehow I was able to work my way past the other press people and secure a prime spot in the main area under the podium, where the invited guests and heads of state were seated. I stood among the security teams, with a few other photographers who’d also escaped the crowds.

The heat was intense and pretty soon people started fainting. Even before the ceremony began, the Red Cross was whisking them away on stretchers.

Despite a warrant for his arrest by the International Criminal Court, there were rumors that Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, was coming. And he did!

The ceremony began and the pageantry was spectacular. Nobody seemed to mind the sweltering heat and harsh sun. We were making history. As I feared, my camera did freeze up again but I resorted to the small backup and refused to be disappointed. The experience was going to have to be enough.

Salva Kiir, the president of South Sudan, signed the new constitution. They lowered the Sudanese flag and raised the Republic of South Sudan flag. The speeches were beautiful. Susan Rice represented the US and Bashir officially recognized South Sudan’s independence.

The finale was the President speech. It was humble, thoughtful and poignant. He acknowledged the sacrifices made by everyone during the war, particularly those who’d lost their lives and loved ones. He thanked the international community for all of their support. To the people of the oil rich, contested, states of Abyei and South Kordofan, he pledged, “We have not forgotten you. When you cry, we cry. When you bleed, we bleed.” At the same time, he brought it back around to the positive offering amnesty and forgiveness to past enemies. Lastly he contended that there are many who expect the country to fall into civil war and encouraged the citizens of the new country to work together saying, “We know the world will be watching to see if our first steps as a new nation will be steady and confident.”

I walked back with the same mob I’d come to the event with, feeling very proud for these wonderful South Sudanese people, whom I’d just come to know over the last two years. As of this day, South Sudan is officially one of the world’s poorest countries. Afterward there were fireworks.