Basic English will suffice to say...

it is hot! As in over 100 degrees in the shade. Fortunately it is not humid, despite the Nile being a mile away. I’m in Medair’s compound in Payuer, a small community of 600 located on a post-flood stage swamp of the Nile River. By compound I mean half a football field, surrounded with a grass thatched fence, inhabited currently by six Medair staff. We have a pit latrine (one of six in the community), an outdoor bathing shelter (not a shower unless you consider dumping a cup of luke-warm water on you a shower), a cooking tukel (Arabic word for grass hut), office tukel, food storage tukel, dining tukel, guard’s tukel, and a medical supply tukel. Compared to the rest of the community we inhabit palacial grounds.

Medair has been on site for almost three years now. Due to Payuer’s proximity to Khartoum, the area has witnessed the atrocities of Sudan’s 21 year civil war in a powerful way. Local farms are still hidden in nearby forests that are three to six hour walks from here. Creating a sense of normality will take some time, in the meantime, food shortages, lack of safe drinking water, and poor nutrition and health predominate. Medair supports three Primary Health Care Units (PHCUs) in the area. These are staffed by Community Health Workers, Traditional Birth Attendants, Female Assistants, and Medical Assistants. In June a Therapeutic Feeding Centre was established to meet a nutrition emergency.

I have been trying to get into South Sudan for about 6 months now. Exposure to the field is an important element to understanding Medair’s activities. I came to Payuer (pronounced Pie-you-air) to assist with a community workshop led by our capacity building team. We met for three days with about 35 community representatives to discuss community agreements, whereby they promise to assist with ongoing development activities (i.e. supporting the local health care staff, pump mechanics, etc). To fully elaborate on the dynamics of this meeting is a separate topic…suffice it to say it was an eye opening cultural experience.

Back in the compound, life consists of working 6.5 days a week. Sunday afternoon affords the leisure of a nap in the hammock or reading a few chapters of a good book (actually any book on ground will do). After devotions at 8:00, work begins at 8:30. The nutritionist will visit the TFC, the nurse walks 15 minutes to the PHCU and tend to patients there, and the logistician does all the behind the scenes work like overseeing the filling of the 5,000 litre collapsible tank used to treat local water to make it safe for TFC patients, or repairing a door on a tukel, coordinating the cargo for the next flight, or taking inventory of medical supplies. Medair also hires two local women who provide clean water for us, do laundry, prepare lunch and dinner, and do dishes. Two guards supposedly provided security, but we all had our doubts.

Overall it was good to experience to see Medair in action and catch a glimpse of a nation that is slowly recovering from 21 years of civil war. The road ahead for South Sudan will be long and diffcult, but not impossible.