Health(care) in Rumbek
It’s getting hot again. The rains have become less frequent and just like a few months ago the sun feels like is cooking the brain inside the head. The rainy season is bidding farewell and it leaves non-existing roads and flooded swamps. And clouds of mosquitoes and other insects that in all this water find the most suitable environment to reproduce.

I am sitting under the big mahogany tree in the work site of our school. I am back here after more than a month. The landscape has slightly changed since the last time I came here. Where the forest ends, beyond the big mango and acacia trees, the river overflowed due to the heavy rains of the past two months and the great plain has been completely flooded . In this newly formed lagoon fish abound and a couple of days ago one of the local people killed a baby crocodile and was carrying it around in order to sell it.

I am blogging again after a long break. A sudden (but somehow expected) loss for words. One may wonder whether this was a real 'writer’s block' or more simply laziness. I can honestly say that the second part of August went by without any particular moment that will be remembered. Well, none except my health, which has kept me under stress for a few days (luckily -it seems - without any particular reason to worry). But which has also given me the opportunity to personally test Rumbek healthcare system, pretty ‘basic’ – it is a euphemism – although much more effective than what one would think.

In the end this experience turned out being full of little stories to take home. Like for instance my first visit to Dr. Gabriel, the Sudanese doctor of the UN mission, whom was so excited I had gone to see him as he was "tired of playing solitary on his computer the whole day" (which comment left me quite puzzled as he is one of the only 3 doctors here in Rumbe while the 'demand' is definitely high...). Or the long time spent waiting in line for the urine test at Rumbek hospital, myself being the only ‘kawagia’ among a crowd of local people patiently waiting for their turn, in the midst of an overwhelming smell of urine. I remember myself trying to breath through my shirt in order not to vomit from that horrible smell. And realizing – perhaps for the first time – that when it comes to pain and the sickness there are no more differences of skin, income, status, etc. and we all are and even look just about the same.




Oh and how could I forget my puzzled face when the doctor tells me to go and provide the ‘sample’ and shows me a place when I can do my ‘thing'. A minute later I finally understand he's telling me to go behind the bush and pee in the little test tube he's just given me. Yes, because for some mysterious reasons here they use REALLY small containers and..grr...even the simplest operation becomes so 'challenging'...

Dinner time in Rumbek prison

An unusual Sunday afternoon
Marco is an Italian student of human rights and he's writing his thesis on the IDPs (Internally Displaced Peoples) of South Sudan. He came to Rumbek to interview some of those who have returned to their native area (so called ‘returnees’) and to collect some data concerning the returnees of this area. We often bump into each other on Rumbek’s main street as we both try to escape from our respective compounds and breath some ‘fresh’ (it’s just a figure of speech...) air outside. This morning I bumped into him after the mass. While chatting he tells me that in the afternoon he will be going with a group of people from the Diocese to visit Rumbek prison. I don’t have to think about it too much and I tell him that I would like to join. I have never visited a prison in my life, plus for the past few days I have been in the mood for ‘challenging’ myself a little bit and this might be a good occasion to do so.

We meet at 4,30 in front of the prison – no more than 300 meters away from my own (golden) prison. The person who is accompanying us has been granted a special permission for us. One of the guards, a young man called Johnson walks us to the males' wing of the prison. I have to bow my head to enter a very low iron gate. A noisy crowd of approximately 100-150 men seems very curious and excited at the arrival of these 2 kawagia (whites) visitors on a Sunday afternoon. We are clearly unexpected guests today. As it often happens here we are very soon surrounded by a crowd of people eager to shake hands, ask our names, etc. I try to smile although I realise that around me now there are also lots of kids.

I ask Marco how old he thinks these kids are. 14, maybe 15 year old boys together with much older inmates. It’s difficult not to wonder what this implies. We go on walking, by now more and more people have noticed the two foreigners who are walking around the courtyard of Rumbek prison. I notice one man who is struggling to drag himself towards us. He is limping and making tiny steps. As he gets closer I realize his legs and ankles are tied with a big chain. A little farther on I see 2 men who are chained together around their knees (!). I am amazed by the way they do exactly the same steps in order to move. I start feeling puzzled. I discretely ask Johnson why the legs of the first man are chained. He answers me that such is the punishment for those who have commited murder. And then he explains to me that those two guys who are now chained together once were fighting on two opposite sides. For a moment I am speechless. Some strange flash backs from high school literature course pop up in my head. Dante’s Divine Comedy, and the terrible punishments of the 'Inferno' (for the Italian readership: il contrappasso*). But here in Rumbek this is not literature and these two men are real and they're facing me, right now.

We go on shaking hands and answering the usual questions for about 5 minutes, until we see people running and starting to shout. In a corner of the big courtyard some of them are fighting. I see some hands punching, some stones are even starting to fly around, dozens of inmates flocking to the spot where somebody is being beaten up. Not even a minute later the guards start entering the courtyard. They have whips (!), sticks, and guns obviously. Johnson tells me and Marco to leave. ‘Time is not good, come back another time’. We look down and quickly proceed to the gate.


(...)

Me and my Italian fellow are still a bit ‘shaken’ by this unexpected development. In my head now I have the images of that day in June during the riot at the Ministry of Education. Like that day I am amazed (scared) by how rapidly situations can change here and, even when there is no apparent sign, you can find yourself in the midst of great troubles.

Inmates in Rumbek prison's female wing

However as we both still feel like continuing our visit we ask permission to visit the women’s wing of the prison. The guard has no objections and – as he seems more ‘relaxed’ that the previous one – I dare asking him to take some pictures. And he nodds his head telling me that it’s ok. The first thing I see while entering the gate is a bunch of 40-50 bowls containing sorgum flour soup that has just been cooked. Later somebody explains to me that is the food for the male inmates to whom the women prepare food everyday. A group of 20-30 of them is sitting outside. Some of them have very young babies that they are still breastfeeding. Most of them have been caught fighting, commiting adulter, or have murdered. They look at me, the guard explains to them I am visiting and encourages me to ‘tell them something’. I have no clue what to tell them as I am already trying to ‘digest’ a bunch of very mixed feelings and sensations. I have to improvise, I wasn't prepared for this. I explain to them I am working in Rumbek for a few months, that we are building a vocational school where hopefully soon their kids, brothers, relatives will be able to learn a job. They seem interested, the even clap their hands. I sit down, look around. There are a lot more babies than what I saw at the beginning. Some inmates are still cooking sorghum in big pots, then they pour it in those bowls lined up in the courtyard (see photos). All around I notice several vultures flying around, some of them land on this sort of 'open' kitchen. They are huge, ugly, and look voracious. All of a sudden I feel that the look of those huge and scary-looking birds in that very place is about to make me feel sick. I grind my teeth, try to look elsewhere.



Our time is almost up, the inmates need to go bring the food to the men. They line up very neatly and proceed to the other wing of the prison as they cross the gate. With Marco we look at this strange scene from the outside. The car and the people we came with are waiting for us however we decide it’s better to walk. We both need a bit of time to 'digest' what we’ve just seen and the swimming pool party which as every Sunday afternoon is taking place in my compound, right across from my appartment, is not the best place to do so.


Female prisoners bring food to the men

* In the first part ('Inferno', the Hell) of 'The Divine Comedy', the Italian author Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) explains the concept of 'contrappasso' as a type of punishment directly related to the sin that the souls of the Hell committed during their lifetime.

The blog therapy

I am sitting on a sofa with my faithful Mac, sipping my evening mint tisane from an Ikea blue mug while I listen to Air’s Walkie Talkie album. The A/C is on and these halogen lamps make a very cosy atmosphere. I am thinking that right now I could be pretty much anywhere…somewhere in England or in a nicely furbished apartment of the French countryside. Instead I am in Rumbek, South Sudan. Yes, I am back to Rumbek after quite a long break (5 weeks) spent traveling all across Italy from Trieste to Catania (with many stops in between).
I am looking at the pics of the month I got to spend in Europe. Paris and some quite nostalgic dejà vus, some very sweet (and romantic) Roman sunsets under the pine trees of Villa Borghese, the blue sea of Sicily, the white marble of San Giorgio Maggiore basilica in the Venetian lagoon. There is a certain kind of ‘melancholy’ tonight although even more that melancholic I still feel ‘spaced out’ and I have hard time convincing myself of where I am right now.

This time coming back to Rumbek has not been easy. At all. And, although I was expecting it, I couldn’t have guessed it would be so tough. It’s been already 3 weeks that I am back here but I’ve struggled a lot to re-adjust myself to this place.

I can already imagine the puzzled expression of many of you who by now will be confusedly wondering what am I doing on a comfy sofa typing with the lights and even the A/C on. Indeed quite a few things have changed since I left Rumbek in June. I am no longer living under a iron-sheet roof room without electricity, with no furniture and with one latrine shared with 10 people. Our generous government decided to offer us a top-class accommodation in Rumbek’s top compound for expats. We have a first class apartment, full boarding, full optionals (electricity 24/7), swimming pool, and an almost first-world office (if it wasn’t for the creepy insects that get in at night). Outside in the parking lot all you can see are the shining white UN land cruisers and the only locals who are around are security guards, movers, or cleaners.

For sure my difficult re-adjustment has had something to do with my new lifestyle in this ‘golden cage’ surrounded by electric wired fence all around. Many days I get to spend long time sitting behind my desk in the office and taking full advantage of the permanent internet connection (well at least this time to do my work I don’t have to line up to use a computer in a stinky cybercafe, what the hell!).

(…)

Spending so many hours in front of a computer, I start wondering if I am turning into an ‘office animal’ again, in other words my previous life that made the ‘crazy’ Sudan plan start. This morning my sense of ‘claustrophobia’ is worse than in the past days. So, before I get another anxiety attack like yesterday afternoon, I decide to take a look at the world beyond the fence. I ask Ata, the driver, to take me for a little tour by car. Outside of the car windows Rumbek is drowning in the mud. We are at the peak of the rainy season. It rains almost everyday for 2-3 hours. And I have never seen such a huge amount of water falling in such a little time. There are ponds everywhere and some bright green tall herbs sprouting everywhere. Rumbek looks very different from the dry, red soil, dusty and burning hot landscape I remember.
Some naked kids are inside one of these ponds, by the main road. They are bent on their knees and moving their hands and they seem to search for something in this muddy and stinky water. Five minutes later I see some other kids filling up two cookings pots with that water. I feel a ‘knot’ at the top of my stomach. This is the place I left a month ago. Rumbek is welcoming you back, Gaetano.

It happens pretty much to all of us to ask ourself ‘what are we doing here?’. And it did happen to me before in several moments of my life. But when it happens to you while you are sitting in a crappy car and praying that also this time you will not get stuck in the water or annoyed by some drunk soldier who are insistently asking you to give them a ride somewhere then…it’s a bit different. And what is even harder is to explain to yourself why all of a sudden you seem to have no clue of what you are doing and looking for in muddy South Sudan.


Stormy days in Rumbek...


After having spent a couple of miserable days asking myself these questions I decide it’s about time I go talk to somebody. Maybe someone who has seen me here before…perhaps this person might help me remember who I was, what I was doing, what was I searching for. Actually it’s like I have an amnesia. I need something or somebody who can ‘switch’ something on inside my head and help me connecting the dots.
I decide to go see Orla, my friend Irish sister with whom I spent 3 weeks in the midst of the bush, in May. Orla is a ‘tough’ girl, I am sure she will challenge me if I need it. I need it – and she happens to be the right person in the right place and time. Her blue eyes get me off the wall. ‘Here it’s not about what you do, it’s about how this crazy place changes you. It’s not about your job, it’s about doing something with yourself. This is your golden opportunity, don’t loose it’. Few words are enough to make me realize that it was worthed coming back to Sudan even just for the amazing people I have come across here. Sometimes I call it my ‘Rumbek family’ and that must not be by accident. While chatting I confess to Orla that a few days ago I was thinking about quitting the mission, packing my things and back to Europe. ‘Don’t try to leave or I come and get you off that f***ng plane!’ Yes, in crazy South Sudan some sisters even say swear words. Thank God.
I tell the driver to go back to the compound without me. Today I feel like walking. I am thinking of Orla’s words and I feel I need to get my shoes muddy again, to shake the hands of all these kids who are running after me, to feel the dust sticking on my face. I need to refind the ‘real’ Rumbek and see what changed in the past month.

Back home I suddenly remember I had asked Massimo, an Italian doctor who works near Rumbek to come see me for a check up. Besides my mind it looks like this round also my body has had hard time re-adjusting to South Sudan. Some still unknown bacteria have been enjoying life in my intestine for the past 10 days and I ask Massimo to take a look at me. He gives me some strong antibiotics to try to get rid of these bacteria which are seemingly feeling very confortable in my intestine. I probably need some tests but here in Rumbek the health facilities are non existing. He says if I am not well I will have to fly to Nairobi for a serious screening. Now I start wondering if I will have to take that plane to Nairobi for real.

A scary day in Rumbek








(these photos were taken in the Ministry of Education 24 hours after the events)


I must say I really didn’t expect I would experience anything particularly exciting – let alone frightening – in these few (4) days left before my departure to Europe. This morning I was supposed to meet with the Director General of the Ministry of Education for the State of Lakes. I have just sat down with him when all of a sudden his body guards break in the room together with a woman who is shouting something in local (dinka) language. From the reaction of the Director and from the cries of the people in the hallway I realize that something is about to happen. I see people running hectically all over the place and I see the Director General and the Minister running through a backdoor into a courtyard where a government car with armed people is awaiting them. The woman who earlier was shouting in the corridor is now next to the car and waving at me until I understand she is asking me to get on the car. I am about to enter the car when somebody from inside shuts the door and the car runs away passing completely through the bamboo fence. I look at the woman to ask her what should I do and where should I go and I realize she’s panicking even more than me and runs away. I am left alone in a place I don’t know with people running all over the place as to run away from something. As I start running away from the building of the Ministry I realize what is happening around me. A crowd of angry students is throwing stones against the building of the Ministry of Education and trying (successfully) to break in the building and get hold of the staff. I see the students throwing stones and immediately after policemen and soldiers shooting in the air to calm down the situation. I am panicking and I am stuck in the middle of the road not really knowing what should I do. The idea of calling the UN emergency number crosses my mind but half a second later a wave of panic shakes my stomach. I’ve just remembered that since this morning my Thuraya (satellite) phone has not been working – I was supposed to bring it to repair in the afternoon. This means that I am cut off from all communication with the rest of my team and with the UN people – thanks to several smart minds in our Government who never took seriously my repeated requests to get VHF radio handsets and not just satellite phones (just like all the other international agencies) which aren’t always reliable.


A guy is looking at me in this state of confusion, he tries to reassure me. He explains to me that students are upset at government who for the past six months has not been paying teachers their salary, causing frequent disruption of classes. Yet I am still freaking out as all the shooting has even increased so he offers to walk with me to a ‘safe place’. After a 10 minutes walking across the tukuls I find myself in a small house, perhaps 15 square meters filled with bunk beds. There must be at least 6, maybe 8. There is a group of people looking at me as I approach their house – for sure they must be wondering what is this terrified-looking ‘kawagia’ is looking for here. We start a conversation…they are quite friendly, some of them are laughing…for them I am definitely an unexpected guest. I am impressed by their attitude towards the demonstration and the shooting. They look somewhat ‘blasés’ and just wait for the mess to cool down to resume whatever they were doing before. But they also sound very concerned about this big issue of unpaid teachers and how it will affect the education for this first generation of students who are being raised in the (supposedly) peaceful New Sudan. It turns out that they are teachers from all over the state who happen to take part in a training course being held in Rumbek. Some of them come from Cueibet, the area where we are building our vocational school. I tell them about our crazy idea of creating from scratch a vocational training center in the middle of the bush where no UN agency or NGO is doing anything. They seem interested and ask me lots of questions. I realize the situation is becoming totally surrealistic – we are now chatting about the school project, somehow without even realizing it I take the camera out of my backpack and all of a sudden we are taking photos of this crazy moment, while all around us they keep shooting and it’s crazy how close it is. I even wonder whether one of those bullets may take a wrong trajectory and come towards us. I keep looking at my Thuraya phone, the screen is still blank…I can’t believe at this crazy coincidence – the first time in the 3 months I spent here when I really need my satellite phone to work it does not and it even shows me a blank screen.


One and a half hour later the shooting seems over and one of the guys tells me that if I want he can walk me to the main road and from there I can find some UN car who could give me a ride home (I forgot to mention that since I had to rush away from the Ministry building I could not reach Ata, my driver who was parked on the side of the building where students where coming in. Later I will find out that some students stoned the car, beated him and stole his shoes…). I decide to walk with this guy, we pass through some parts of town I had never been before…I notice lots of soldiers (normally there are already a lot, but this time is really A LOT). I see strange looks on people faces. While I am about to take the road that leads to my compound I see a guy whom I had been watching the Champions League final some weeks before. He recognizes me and offers to drive me home with his motorbike, which I accept gladly. Outside the gate of my compound I find my boss who is visibly stressed. He has got his satellite phone in his hands and as he sees me arriving he starts shouting (in Italian and in a very angry way) “WHY THE HELL YOU DIDN’T ANSWER YOUR PHONE – I WAS REALLY WORRIED ABOUT YOU”. I shout louder than him and tell him that my phone is out of order and to leave me alone. I explain him the whole story, we both are relieved although exhausted by this scary experience. It's around 5 pm, we both skipped lunch but none of us is feeling like touching any food.

Rural life, (some) diplomacy, and parties...

This morning I got back from another trip in the bush. As usual quite a change from the life in Rumbek town and with many small but very meaningful events. Like for example the cherry tomato and spinach (brought by myself directly from Napoli!) seeded under my supervision 3 weeks ago (read previous posts) and which just sprouted in the school garden.



Who would have said Vesuvius cherry tomatoes can grow in South Sudan?


Anyway this time I badly needed some moments of tranquility and isolation after a very hectic last weekend, when I participated in a 3-day intensive training course on 'Civil-Military Coordination in Peace Operations' organized by UNOCHA (a Geneva-based UN agency in charge of coordinating all the humanitarian assistance). An interesting training for somebody like me who is very new to the field of humanitarian work but even more interesting for the loads of mini-toblerone chocolates brought by these people from Geneva as a part of the training course 'methodology' (debatable idea, I know, although having chocolate for the first time after almost 3 months is another pleasure I won’t forget easily). Swiss chocolate aside, I can say I had a pretty good briefing on civil-military coordination in peace operations, principles of humanitarian assistance, and met some interesting people (both civilian and peacekeepers) working in the hottest spots of Sudan.

Say CHEESE! - looks like we're back to the old seminar days... ;-)


Last Saturday, June 2nd, together with the Italian community we decided to celebrate 'Italy Day' - or the 'Republic Day' as it is officially called - in Rumbek. Well...not really much of a cultural program, the event consisted pretty much in a wild party at the compound not so far from the place we live. Lots of white wine mainly Chilean and Australian in the evening, a few (too many) vodka bottles in the night. Italian t-shirts distributed to the staff of the bar, a special music compilation created by myself, an handful of Italian stereotypes for expat-party use, and...not a single photo of the party available for this blog as the photographer has been for most of the night not in the conditions for taking them... :-)

Shopping in Rumbek







Yesterday I went with my Italian friend Carlotta to check out, for the first time properly, Rumbek’s market. It was a very entertaining experience, with some scary moments such as when we passed by the butchers’ sector (take a careful look at the above pics to understand why). But the funny thing was that after more than 2 months I finally realized that many products I totally ignored are for sale here, although for incredibly expensive prices. Who would have said, for instance, that a pineapple here in the very hearth of Africa can cost 9 USD/piece, as much as in Tokyo’s fanciest department stores. Instead this seems to be the case here in South Sudan, where the land is incredibly fertile (I know it through first hand experience, as in the past two weeks in the school garden we have planted a whole bunch of yummy vegetables) but where nobody still plants anything (and here we could discuss the reasons for this but I won’t go into this now).

Something very impressive which deserves a few words is the unique currency system adopted here in South Sudan. Currently the Government of Sudan is replacing the old Sudanese currency, the dinar, with the new Sudanese Pound - as the dinar was seen as part of the 'arabisation' process imposed by the Kharthoum government. This would not seem such a complicated issue, if the predecessor of the dinar - the 'old' pound wasn't still being used, creating confusion between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ pound. In Rumbek the local government has been trying to get rid of the old pounds with many actions, including replacing the old banknotes with new ones and then setting the old ones on a huge fire in the main square of the city. Except that some people owning some of the old pounds keep showing up and sometimes this creates fights. But this is just one part of the story. In some areas of South Sudan, like the Lakes State (of which Rumbek is the capital) shops commonly accept Kenyan Shillings and US Dollars (provided that their date of issue is from 2003 on – I never understood why) and in some border areas even Ugandan Shillings. It is not difficult to imagine how complicated it is for local sellers to list prices in 3 currencies and for the customer to carry 3 different currencies in the wallet and trying not to be ripped off too much by the arbitrary exchange rates. Anyway, for those of you who are interested to read more about this you can find here an article published by Reuters some weeks ago.

Back to 'city' life...



I am sitting in the shadow of the huge mango tree which I face every morning when I step out of my room. It’s a very quiet Sunday, even more quiet than usual as my fellow Italian colleagues this weekend are not here. I am back to Rumbek after the past 3 weeks spent in the middle of the forest and strangely enough I have this feeling of being back to the ‘city’ – although I am not so sure Rumbek can be called such. I am thinking of these past 3 weeks and the ‘full emptiness’ of living far from the noise and from everything. Somehow I feel aware of the priviledge of starting and ending the day with the sun light, of waking up at 6,30 every morning and going to bed dead tired at 10 pm and to have the moon as the only light around me (besides the one of my Mac, obviously...), of going in the garden and pick the vegetables to cook dinner with, of not caring at all for the clothes to wear. I like recalling that strange and overwhelming sensation of walking alone across the endless field facing the camp and feeling a tiny part fallen almost by chance in totally new world.

This morning, while I was ordering some papers in my suitcase, I came across my return ticket to Nairobi-Paris-Rome. I've rationally realized that in nearly 2 weeks I will leave Rumbek and will refind Paris first, then Rome and Napoli. I wonder what of this place I will bring with me in Europe and above all in which mood will I return to Sudan in July. Here many thoughts and worries seem so distant and small that sometimes I'd wish to forget they even exist. In a way returning to Europe feels like being ‘charmed’ and falling again for many small things and feelings that here are missing. But at the same time there is also bit of fear of leaving this sort of timeless world in which I ended up almost by accident and to which sometimes it feels impossibile to belong.