BoppWeBlog

The purpose of our trip to Werkok, Sudan was to continue the work on a new hospital. Keep in mind a hospital to them is nothing more than a metal, pole barn type structure. Anything that isn’t a mud hut(tukle) is quite impressive.

The work completed so far was basically the metal structure, and most of the cement work. Concrete is a rare commodity in Southern Sudan. No components of concrete are found in South Sudan, with the exception of some sand, which is still an hours drive away from where we are, and requires ‘mining’ the sand out of the ground along the Nile river. Gravel, Lime, and other parts of concrete need to be shipped into the area. There are very few roads, and the roads are terrible. Gravel is the closest at about 200 miles away. But costs over $5,000 to have it shipped to our location. And all of these parts need to be mixed the old fashion way. With a hoe, and a wheelbarrow. It makes for very slow work. Putting concrete together for anchoring a post is one thing, but when you need to create the floor of a 90 x 30 foot building, a foot thick, it makes for a lot of work. Of course the gravel, sand, and lime are all dumped in different locations, so there is a lot of wheelbarrowing from one location to another, all being done in 110 plus degree temperature. Luckily we aquired an old cement mixer that aided in the concrete creation process.

Other than pouring concrete we also moved things. Object that were donated to the hospital. Large objects. Now while these things are a blessing to the hospital, it also is a bit of a burden since many things are not needed, and they were donated prior to the completion of the hospital structure. Basically there is no room for this stuff. And there is no garbage collection to throw it away. So as patients are treated in the half built building it was our job to shuffle this equipment from one spot to another. This was unfortunately very time consuming.

While the actual structure of the hospital is being built, some work is being done in the shipping containers that supplies were delivered in. This actually worked quite well, and one container was turned into a O.R. Using shipping containers as buildings must be a popular thing to do in this part of the world. Many other places we visited used shipping containers. Like the airport in Lokiochoggio, Kenya.

Once supplies arrive the next phase will be to put up interior walls using actual wallboard. Along with this wiring will be done for electricity.

I’ve attached a few photos of the hospital building

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.