BoppWeBlog

We made it back from Sudan last night and are now back at the Mayfield Guest House in Nairobi. I intend to write in detail about the trip but in this post will just give an overview. We flew in increasing smaller planes till we reached the village of Werkok, Sudan. Before going into Sudan we stopped at Loki, Kenya. This is where almost all flights for relief to Sudan are staged. There is also a UN compound there.

Upon arriving in Werkok, we were greeted by everyone from the local village area. We got off the plane, and had people all around us, shaking hands, etc. The kids were dressed in rags, very dirty, and had as many flies as phisically possible landing and crawling on them. Something I would get used to very quickly.

Things were as primative as they could be. We had a couple of tukels (pronounced tookle, and is what they call their mud hut homes), and a few tents. The team there at the hospital has started to construct cement tukles which were just made of concrete instead of mud. Toilets were ‘long-drops’ or ’short-drops’. Simply a hole, that is either a few feet where flies and maggots are all around you, or the luxourious long-drop where seperates the fecal matter from you by maybe 10 meters. All water needs to be pumped by hand. And it is very very difficult. Showers are just using maybe a gallon of water, and a dipper. You use water very carefully when it takes a while to get in blazing heat.

We constantly drank water. But never went to the bathroom, I imagine it all came out via perspiration. The water was always warm, sometimes hot, even after pulling out of the well from several hundred feet below the ground.

The ground is made up of this black clay. The people call it black cotton. As far as we could tell, it was good for absolutely nothing. It was EXTREMELY hard to dig in. It was like concrete. Yet when it crumbled it was like powder. Maybe if you put water on it, then it would soften, but as I mentioned water is a rare commodity.

Meals were primarily lentils and rice. If I see them again it will be too soon. Though when we got there, I was thinking this stuff is pretty good. We did have some variety in what we ate. Some things very good.

We got to know the people well. And upon leaving I missed them already.

There is a ton more to share, so hopefully I will write more details about this part of the trip.