October 2023 Rep Gathering in Juba

Our final evening of Rep gathering

Once a year, we look forward to gathering in person with all the MCC Representatives (Country Directors) from our region of East Africa and Sahel. Prior to COVID, we took turns visiting one another’s countries. In the past two years, people have been so drained by work and change that our Area Directors hosted us at a nice resort on the Kenyan coast, to give everyone a break as we held business meetings.

This year, we returned to our normal pattern and our meeting point was no tourist destination: we gathered in Juba, South Sudan. At the moment, it is one of the most challenging places in our region to live and work, though Tchad may be even harder. Perhaps it was good for us to get some perspective on the difficulties of living in Ethiopia. At least we have decent schools for kids and a more pleasant climate!

Wawa and daughter

We have always brought our kids with us to these regional meetings. Unfortunately, this year David’s school shifted the dates of their October break and David had school with mid-term exams during the whole week of the meetings. So, we had to leave him behind, staying at home together with Bereket. We called him a few times a day, just to make sure things were under control, but the two teenagers did well.

Meanwhile, Paul and I were astonished by the mental and emotional lightness of traveling as a couple without kids, and only two carry-on bags. It has been probably 10 years since we went away alone for more than a night. Since we live at the hub of the continent’s best airline, it was also super easy for us to take the direct flight to Juba. 

Traveling light

It was really great to see our colleagues again, many of whom we have known for many years. Anne Marie and Scott have been colleagues since 2014 when they took over as Reps for Rwanda/Burundi. Then they followed us east, currently as Reps for Kenya/Tanzania. We met the families of Fred and Betty (Kenyan, serving in Uganda) and Amos (Ugandan, serving in South Sudan) back in 2018 when the Tanzania program hosted regional meetings. Winifred and Samuel have been serving in Tchad for the past two years.  We also had a new colleague, an interim Representative for Burkina Faso, Cyprien, who comes from DR Congo originally. The regional Admin Assistant Kelly helped with a lot of logistics. Our Area Directors Wawa and Kristen were there with their four kids, who joined with Amos’ two kids to make a great kids’ team. We were sad that David was missing out on the solidarity. But several other families also decided to leave their kids behind – somehow, South Sudan is not the kind of place you bring your children to lightly.

From Left: Kelly, Cyprien, Kristen, Betty, King (partner staff) 
Rebecca, Scott, Amos, Semei (SS staff), Fr. James (Partner staff), Winifred, Paul, Wawa,
Alexa kneeling (SS staff), Fred, Samuel, Mama Gladys (partner staff) and Anne Marie

Kristen and some project participants at WEP

On our first morning, we visited the South Sudan MCC office and met all the staff members. They rent office space from the South Sudan Council of Churches, one of their longest-term partners. The head of the SSCC, Father James, gave us a picture of the many, many challenges facing the country and the ways that religious leaders are trying to help. One astonishing and chilling fact stuck with me: police are given guns for law enforcement and then are paid the equivalent of $3-6 a month—on some months. Yes, you read that right. It’s not hard to imagine what might happen when you give a guy a gun and then underpay him. Another crazy fact – only 7% of the population has access to electricity. Basically, it’s just people who live in Juba, where there is a generator that produces power for the city. There is only one tarmac road in decent repair, heading to Uganda. There are no functional tarmac roads going to any other neighboring countries. Most of South Sudan is inaccessible by vehicle, and the remaining poor roads are guarded by various militias that demand bribes or they will just have you killed before the next checkpoint. The recent outbreak of war in Sudan has sent thousands of people fleeing back into South Sudan, making the humanitarian crisis there even worse. The government is having trouble moving forward on the provisions of the peace accord and people in Juba are very tense, fearing a return to ethnic violence.

Gloria

One major struggle is the huge number of orphans and vulnerable children who do not have any resources to get an education. The SSCC provides bursaries for a select number of children who would have no other way to study. We got to hear a very moving testimony from a young woman named Gloria, whose life completely changed when she was able to return to high school and then university. She now works for a mental health hotline run by SSCC.

The situation on the ground is very difficult. But we were fortunate enough to be staying in a very nice hotel – one of those reviewed by the UN security team and deemed to be secure enough, both for meetings and for staying overnight. Paul and I really enjoyed making use of the nice gym each morning. We had one chance to walk next door and use the pool. 

Mama Mary, a WEP participant

Otherwise, most of our time was spent in meetings with our colleagues. We had time to share updates from our contexts. We discussed a wide variety of issues relevant to our common work with MCC. We had time for biblical reflection and prayer. Being an MCC Rep, with most of us sharing our positions with our spouse, is a very unique kind of mission/development assignment and it's always refreshing to talk with other people who really understand the dynamics we are dealing with.

We enjoyed sharing part of the week with our International Program Director Rebecca, as well as Joyfrida from the security team and Melody, a peace coordinator. Paul and I actually hired Melody for a position in Burundi a long time ago and were delighted to spend a little time with her, now that she has come back to work with MCC.

During the week, we visited another development project, the Women’s Empowerment Program. At one point, this program served refugee women from South Sudan who were living in camps in Uganda, teaching them tailoring skills and giving them biblical and mindset training to help them have hope for their future. When refugees began to return to South Sudan in 2007, the Ugandan Program director got funding to follow them back to Juba. 

The WEP sewing classroom

Now they have places for about 30 women to receive intensive training over 9 months, and then some support to start their own businesses, including a sewing machine for each graduate. We heard about the program, went to visit a shop run by a group of graduates working together, and then returned for some testimonies and a final time to dance and celebrate together.

Amos and his amazing staff team also put together several interesting tourist outings for us. One evening we had a nice dinner at a restaurant right on the Nile. The first thing we all saw, gleaming white in the dark, was a half-submerged river steamer. Apparently, it had been there for many years, getting stuck at a time when the Nile was a no-man’s land and anyone on the river would get shot at. It was no one’s top priority to get that boat free and so there it sits to this day. 

Paul and the stuck steamer

Another day we were able to cruise on the Nile ourselves. It was lovely and adventurous to be out on the river and enjoy the fresh air – which feels so much more incredibly fresh compared to Addis. Well, that’s what you get with few cars and virtually no electricity! We even had snacks on board the boat as we chatted. And then as they turned the boat around, it began to rain. The staff shoo-ed us all down below as darkness fell and the rain became a torrent. It turned out to be a bit of a crazy adventure! We were glad the boat was equipped with a flood light and a guy keeping an eagle eye out in front of the boat.

Our Nile River cruise

On our final evening, we got special permission to enter the protected Mausoleum of John Garang, the Father of the Nation, who never got to see the day of actual independence. He died under suspicious circumstances returning from Uganda in a helicopter, a month before independence was declared. It is a quiet and somber memorial, and yet a beautiful place to visit in the sunset, with a curious pair of ostriches lurking around.

Melody, Mosleys and ostrich
at the mausoleum

All the rest of our colleagues are staying in South Sudan for the rest of the week, visiting camps and humanitarian distributions in remote areas, taking UN flights to get there, and sleeping in retrofitted containers. The adventure sounds fascinating, and we will miss the time to continue bonding with our fellow reps -- but David was waiting for us back at home and tomorrow morning, we are off for some RRL -- required renewal leave. More on that next time.

 

Bonus update: many of you know we were helping to raise funds for our housekeeper Yeshi to do the finishing work on her condominium so she can rent it out. Many thanks to all who contributed. Last Monday, we drove out to the condo to take a look and make estimates on the costs of the needed finishing work -- doors, windows, plaster, plumbing. Here are some photos to get an idea of how much needs to be done.

The Condo building -- Yeshi has a ground-floor apartment

Yeshi and her son Yebetz at the front doorway of her apartment

Paul and Mesfin on the balcony, discussing 
the minimum level of bars needed for security.

More bonus photos from the Rep gathering

Melody and Rebecca

Kelly, the Admin Assistant

Dancing at WEP

Sunken steamer seen from our boat

At WEP

Asosa Field Visit

October is rushing by, but we do have several trips planned and I wanted to squeeze these entries between them so we can report on each one. October is typically a month of travel for us. It is a time to check in on projects after being away for the summer. Education projects are usually in full swing with students back in school. Often we will have guests visiting from MCC or one of our back donors, CFGB to monitor projects or do trainings. 

Also after Meskel (a celebration of the discovery of the 'true cross') that happens in October, the long rainy season usually comes to an end. This makes doing field visits much easier, particularly when we are literally going out into muddy fields. Meskel itself is always an interesting event. All over town, huge bonfire pyres are constructed. Crowds of people gather like we would do in the US for a fireworks display. They wear white if they are Orthodox and bring candles to burn. They sing and pray, then when it gets dark, the huge pyres are lit and as they burn a huge metal cross is revealed in the fire. 

Rebecca and I usually walk down to the large field near our house to watch the event. We stayed for quite a while but left at dark. We did enjoy seeing the many candles burning among the thousands gathered in the crowd. It has a feeling of joy and unity but belies the real state of affairs here as the conflict in Amhara continues to rage, and people are generally feeling fairly pessimistic about the economy and prospects for peace anytime in the near future. 

One big way that these October field visits feel different this year, is that we are really forced to avoid the Amhara region, the heart of the country and the place where most of our biggest food security and WASH projects are located. At this time we cannot drive or fly into Amhara. Although the Bahir Dar airport is open in theory, the town has become a staging ground for Federal Forces, and we cannot really travel out of town if we to go there. All internet and cell phone service has been cut off there for over a month and we cannot even get in contact with our partners there.

Despite that, our work does go on, and in fact, there was a big training planned for last week in another region on the Northwest side of the country--Beneshangul Gumuz. The training was for our food security partners that receive funding from the Canadian Food Grains Bank to promote conservation (low tillage) agriculture. The facilitator, our good friend Neil from Tanzania was leading it and had chosen themes of water harvesting and appropriate mechanization for small-holder farmers. Several of our partners who were not trapped in Amhara were planning to attend, and it was being hosted by our partner Food for the Hungry. 

Mesfin our FS program manager was going, and I decided to join him for the 5-day workshop. It was my first time going to this part of Ethiopia, and I was not disappointed to find that once again, it was like coming into a new world. My last big field visit had been to Gambella which borders South Sudan, but the town of Asosa is quite close to the Sudan border (to the north), and it has a much larger Muslim population than other project areas where we work. 

The flight was short, but because many people are traveling by air in the country to avoid the insecurity of roads, the airport was quite crowded. We arrived on Monday afternoon and checked into the hotel. The weather here is a bit warmer than Addis but not like Gambella. It was still a bit rainy, and I was really struck by the amount of red mud everywhere. It is very red soil in this region. It also seemed quite lush, but the town itself was very run down and it struck me that this area has been economically depressed for a number of years. The other challenge is the prevalence of tsetse flies which are harmful to humans, but make livestock keeping nearly impossible. as sleeping sickness kills livestock as well. 

We were a group of about 20 all said, and we started 2 days of all-day meetings on Tuesday morning. It was good to hear about the work of different local NGOs and several shared about their success with certain water harvesting interventions. We are hoping that experience sharing can promote innovation in different projects. There were also a fair number of 'cautionary tales' where a 'silver bullet' approach was found not to work in all contexts. Building water catchment pools for instance only works if the soil has a fair amount of clay in it to prevent seepage. Plastic lining is a solution but comes at a prohibitive cost for most small-holder farmers. 

On the second day, we focused more on appropriate technology mechanization. The featured tool is a traditional 'maresha' (ox-drawn plow) but with a planter/seeder attachment that can perfectly space corn as it rips a very narrow seed trough in unplowed soil. Neil was the designer of this and it is particularly appropriate for farmers in Ethiopia who have been using the maresha for generations. (The challenge is to get them to only rip the soil one time when seeds are planted and not to turn the soil over in the whole field. Other innovations included hand-turned machines to shuck cassava and maize. 

On the third day we went out into the field to see the work of our partner Food for the Hungry. We started early because the project areas were quite far from the city over pretty rough roads. We had 3 landcruisers and went in a caravan to the sites. It was actually quite amazing to see the work on the ground. Numerous farmers were happy to show us comparative fields where corn cultivated under CA was twice the height of the field cultivated in the traditional way. 

I was particularly impressed by FH's promotion of cluster farming. Farmers in a community trained in CA cultivated land together and some communities had 12 or more continuous hectares of CA fields. It was the largest single land area I had ever seen using CA at once. The economy of scale meant that the community was food secure and had surplus food to sell at the market. In addition, communal farming really promoted social cohesion which was evident when we ate lunch together with the members of the community. They are a mix of Amhara settlers who belonged to the Orthodox faith, and Sudanese Muslims who had been there many years. We shared food with the community, an orthodox priest, a Muslim Iman, and many Pentes (protestants) as well. These are groups that do not get along in other places. 

I was most impressed by Wro Merima, the lead Agriculture Extension Officer in the govt. She was an energetic community motivator who had a ton of expertise on farming and facilitated much of our visit to the fields in the area. But when we all shared lunch, she joined the other women in serving food and coffee. I was struck by her leadership as well as her hospitality. I am sure that a male leader would not jump up to serve food at lunchtime. 

We left the community after lunch and went to another project site where the new maresha was being tested by some farmers. Whether this innovation will work in a region where no one can keep oxen remains an open question. The FH extension officers had hooked the maresha up to to 2 donkeys. They are quite a bit smaller than oxen but did manage to pull it. The maresha is still in the pilot phase here. The idea is that eventually, it will be a kind of social enterprise where a service provider will buy one and then rent his labor out to plow the fields of many neighbors, or maybe on a cluster farm. 

The danger of tsetse flies was evident as I watched the demonstration and was attacked by a few who tried to bite me while I watched. These are not like mosquitos, the second one bites you know it! It is very painful. 

We left the field in the late afternoon and had a debrief the next morning before returning to Addis on Friday afternoon. 

The field visit is probably enough of an update for this blog. We are trying to buy a car for our program these days, which is quite interesting, but will need another entry to do it justice. 

Cluster farm