CONCLUSION: FOR NOW

According to my parents, this is the first thing I should have done when I got back to the states (before such necessities as petting the dog/enjoying a really tall glass of pasteurized milk/taking a hot shower, etc) but clearly, its March and I'm only just now getting around to it. Conclusion: we have different priorities. Also I'm lazy, but that one has been on the table for a while. 

So. Conclusions!

To begin with, anyone who tells you that it is easy to transition from one place to another is a complete liar. Going home was initially so different that it didn't seem related to the trip at all. I fell right back into the same old routines (drinking lots of wine, sleeping all the time, being generally unhelpful around the house and buying tons of useless crap). To be fair, I was disproportionately offended by concepts such as vanity plates, customized credit cards ($200 dollar fee!) and gadgets like grapefruit sectioners (Who needs that? Its like a triangular stapler for fruit! Why?!) but it was still astonishingly easy to fall back into the habits of shopping indiscriminately.

Panic kicked in pretty quickly. I wont lie, the first roasted, succulent, incredibly engorged chicken I ate was pure heaven, but certain things (like wearing seat belts) just had to be relearned. Additionally, I realized that I didn't want to live in the US anymore. In Sudan, I felt encouraged (some could say shamed) into being the best version of myself, willing and ready to try and do everything for myself like everyone else around me. I wasn't always, but I at least felt compelled to try. I felt like I was capable of almost anything-clearly not true, and dangerously close to the illusions of grandeur suffered by so many historical (white, racist, condescending) people before me. But what I'm trying to get at is that, while in the US, I was always being told (or made to feel) like I couldn't do things (because I was a girl/a weakling/not coordinated enough/not athletic enough/not experienced enough, etc), in Sudan there was no one else to take up the slack, so I just did it myself. Interesting that I felt more free in Sudan, and somewhat indicative of the perils of going to a country where you are so outside the culture as to be off on the fringes and thus endowed with a completely irrational perception of freedom. Also highly isolating. Just being able to be independent in a country like that (because of race, money, privilege, etc) is unusual, and not at all the experience of anyone actually LIVING in Sudan. There is attendant guilt-i promise

Anyway the point is, I felt less restricted, and less self conscious in Sudan, and coming back to frenetic America was hard. The biggest factor in that was actually how much I missed everyone, and how much I missed the routine, the people, the place. The quick jump from Sudan to Kenya to home to college at least helped me compartmentalize the experience, so that I wasn't wallowing in a pool of self pity the whole time. However, the fact that I wanted to be back in Sudan so badly ultimately resulted in me feeling transient and completely unmoored from my surroundings at school. My room felt temporary, my classes felt like optional distractions, my friends felt distant. That took some work to get over.

I also discovered how much I hate talking about my experiences to most people. Primarily its because it feels spectacularly pretentious, but also because there aren't good words to describe it, particularly concise yet expressive words. Its one of those instances where if you can't describe it accurately, you don't really want to describe it at all. I was (and am) much more comfortable working on my Kahn Project (which I changed completely to be about disarmament and arms control policies in Southern Sudan) and expressing myself in writing than telling stories or having deep conversations about what I had lived through. The latter felt tired, boring and strangely condescending. 

My Kahn project was probably my life raft. It was a way for me to be connected to what I did over the summer, to think and synthesize experiences and information and keep one foot in the Sudan part of me (if you can call it that). It was also really interesting to see the new ways that I approached my education and my academic goals and objectives. Whereas before, graduating seemed important because people told me it was, now graduating was the means to the end of getting back to Sudan and being able to do more than just wander around in a broken down car, periodically making spread sheets and bickering in the kitchen over net distribution strategies. Additionally, the way I thought about the ideas being presented to me in my classes was really different from previous semesters, and gave me a whole bunch of insights that I would never have had otherwise (nonetheless, I mostly kept them to myself, because starting off any class observation with "When I was in Sudan..." is akin to saying "When I was in Bosnia, rescuing orphan children..." or "When I was in Uganda, single handedly saving the rare Silver-backed Gorilla..." and really, who wants to listen to that girl? NO ONE)

And then, "these economic times" hit with a vengeance, and I finally realized that getting back to Sudan this summer (the ultimate goal) was so clearly not even remotely possible, and I sank into a funk for a while and felt like a failure, and had a long drawn out fight with the Department of International Study, which included a fantastically rude exchange with the Dean of International Study (rude on her part not mine). And then! The goddess that is Stacie Hagenbaugh at the Career Development Office revealed to me the silver lining! I could work at arms control/conflict research institutes (abroad!) and develop the contacts and connections needed to make my dream of post-graduate research in Sudan up to the referendum a distinct possibility. Even more fantastic, this opened up the possibility of an Honors Thesis with actual solid research to back it up. So this plan, at least, has given me a purpose and a drive separate from my Kahn research and encouraged me to get out of my hole periodically to work towards something that could actually be successful and helpful.

And speaking of that, here is the real update part: The nets that we worked so so hard to get should be arriving at the end of this month. The first batch coming in are specifically aimed at Budi County, and may even potentially be able to be stored in Eastern Equatoria (rather than in Juba) depending on our ability to locate a 40ft container. This means that even though PSI didn't put out its Call for Proposal until September, and even though we didn't fully get an entire draft of an application written, and even though bureaucracy seemed to be winning, the whole point of the summer was actually successful. While originally it was thought that the nets wouldn't arrive until the next rainy season (2010) they are actually here in time for the 2009 rainy season, which is going to make such an incredible difference. This is a long way from being a huge success, but its small incremental progress that I wasn't even sure we would be able to make. It somewhat reaffirms my faith in ...trying, I guess. 

I've managed to keep in touch with a fair amount of people in Sudan considering that I lost pretty much everyone's email (sorry Mary and Grace!). As far as I know, Abby got married in December. Lucy is in Torit, but no longer working at the compound because she had to leave briefly to take care of her sick mother and by the time she came back the position was filled. Abby also no longer works at the compound, and neither does Beatrice, but I think that both of them are doing pretty well (I hope I hope I hope). Father Herald managed to come back and spend an extended amount of time in Torit, and hes currently living at the compound again. Father Vuni is a saint as always. Jerome may be able to meet up with Ed and Teddy in Rwanda in April (where they will be visiting my cousin (Ed's daughter) Elizabeth, who is teaching there for a year. Mark and Edith had their baby, a little boy named Edmond Odego. Margaret, the wonderful lady from Loki who gave me those beautiful dresses, is now working in Torit (though still simultaneously managing things in Loki-an incredible woman!) Sister Helen and the nuns in Isoke all seem to be doing well, though Sister Helen's brother recently died. This, pretty much, is what I know about the people I've been able to keep in touch with. 

So this is my update. Since everything I'm working towards now still deals with Sudan, I may keep this blog going with updates from this summer, though those will be considerably less interesting. I will however definitely keep it posted about the progress of the nets, medicines and health system strengthening systems, because there WILL be progress and that is probably one of the most exciting things that has ever happened to me. 

And then we headed to Nairobi...

When we got to Nairobi, our bags were already collected for us by some porters because we took so long getting through customs. Confession: I doubled back and gave Neesha my yellow fever immunization card so she could get through because she hadnt gotten vaccinated. And it worked perfectly! Who is comforted by that? Not me.

It was then that i discovered that the guys in Nimule who had paid me in "Ugandan shillings" had actually paid me in amusement park tokens and south african rands. The baggage handlers thought this was hilarious, because really how blind do you have to be not to notice that you are being paid in giant gold coins saying "TOKEN ADMITS ONE PER RIDE". Pretty blind.

We got in a cab (how we stuffed the luggage in the trunk i will never know) and headed to the Fairview Hotel-the incredibly swanky hotel that we first had drinks at in June. Its one of the nicest hotels in Nairobi, almost its own little island of landscaping, waterfalls and luxury. Neesha and I ran to our room, opened the door and almost fainted with shock and delight. We had pretty much forgotten that real beds, television sets, order in pizza and bathtubs existed. I had 100% forgotten about hot showers, and when i lept into the shower stall and hot water came out I almost died. The best part was that it had a negligable drain so water filled up the stall and soaked the grime out of my feet. After that, and one additional foot bath with Neesha, the two of us headed down to the patio. We ordered mixed fruit drinks and she bought tirramisue and I got ice cream! The woman working at the cafe couldnt understand my enthusiasm until I explained that in Sudan, they didnt have fresh dairy or refridgeration, let alone the capacity to have ice cream. She was astonished, which I found kind of amusing, living less than an hours plane ride away from it. 

George and Teddy showed up and we ended up getting a fresh pizza as well. We hung out in our rooms, tooled around at the gift store, watched the debate about the Paris Hilton/John McCain fiasco and then went to dinner where i had Chicken Schnitzle, just because our waiter called it "Chicken schnizzle" which i found endlessly amusing. Ed went and picked up Annie and Elizabeth, and I passed out in bed. 

And the next day started the safari!

And then we headed to Juba...

As irritating as this, Ed ended up being right on both counts. We got everyone packed away into the car with all the luggage (it wasn't comfortable, Neesha was practically on my lap, Teddy never uses a bag to hold his stuff and flails a lot and Moses and Ed somehow managed to squeeze up front in the seat I couldnt sit in with Lucy-go figure). And the Pajero broke. Granted, it made it to Juba before apparently falling apart on the road to Kampala but I felt bad for it (and Jerome) nonetheless. 

So Jerome stayed behind with the Pajero and we said goodbyes to everyone which was excrutiating. I held it together until I hugged Abby and then we both burst into tears. I was crying long after we left the town of Torit. In every bone of my body it felt wrong to be leaving. Beatrice had given me a picture of Innocent, so I looked at that to comfort myself. We got to Juba late, got to our rooms in Cafod (which is really nice as a place to stay-highly recommended to anyone going to Juba) and went to dinner at the sisters. It felt lonely without Jerome, Ed and George were sequestered at the end of the table, and Teddy and I drank two huge cartons of apple juice-which neither of us had realized was available in Sudan. 

I read part of Clive Cussler's Plague Ship (curtesey of Teddy) and took a shower which almost made me slip and break my neck, and went to sleep. Next morning I got up and started to work on my Kahn essays, while the team went out to meetings. 

Confession-I actually took a nap from 9 till noon, so oops me. And then, at lunch, the best surprise! Jerome drove to Juba and met us for lunch! After, he took me and Teddy out (ostensibly to drop me off at the hotel, but actually to fix the car-so no kahn essays in the afternoon either). Turns out the car was really broken (again) so we hung out in the car and read books entitled things like "In The Name Of Love!" outloud to each other. I met Jerome's friend who was really nice, and then we drove back to Cafod.

That night and into the next morning I finally wrote my kahn essays and got them sent out with the vague excuse of crappy internet connections and lack of generators-mostly true. 

We were suppose to go to a meeting before taking off for the airport but the meeting ultimately didnt happen so we just went straight to the airport. Emma and Jerome met us at the airport to say goodbyes. Some official wandered off with our passports for about an hour (a nerve wracking hour, let me tell you) and I sulked because I didnt want to be leaving. Typical. Jerome and Emma ran off without hugging us-apparently in Sudan "goodbyes" consist of shouting "Goodbye!" over your shoulder as you run off to your car. Neesha and I sat together on the plane, and I finally got to look out the window which was a beautiful sight let me tell you. 

Truth

I've left you hanging. Internet got very...shifty towards the end and then there was the safari which is not conducive to posting (or sleep incidentally) so now i'm back but not done with this blog. I've got a lot of posts coming up that just need to be tweaked a bit, so please keep reading (you get to hear about us being robbed of pampers wipes in a car full of bananas by a stupid, blue testicaled monkey!) and i'll update soon. 

And Ps. African withdrawal is a bitch.

Last Day

Ok fine. So I'm halfassing this Kahn thing. I wrote one really good one (on my original topic-so thats not actually all that impressive), one on disarmament (which is just confusing) and then....nothing! No third one. Not yet. I've decided that thanks to the wonders of time differences, I can actually get away with not sending the essays in until Tuesday morning at 7am. Total ah-ha! moment. (which still came too late to save me-as all of you can attest to-from my quasi-meltdown but I guess you cant have everything.)

Now, it is first thing in the morning and Ed wants to leave by noon and.....no one is packed. None of the computers are backed up and the DVDs he wanted to leave arent burned. Additionally, he has lost his mind, and thinks that we will be able to fit seven people and seven people's worth of luggage in a tiny, SUV model (rather than safari vehicle model-i'm sure theres actually terms differentiating these two but damned if i know them) Toyota Land Crusier. I'm all about Toyota. We know this. But Iga, Neesha, Ed, Moses (who is, by the way, a full grown man), Teddy, George, and me, in addition to eight thousand pounds of luggage (Teddy and Ed alone had six bags when they got here) are just not going to fit. Plus, I want Jerome to come with us to Juba. He's part of the team. He's suppose to come.
Ed is paranoid that if we take the Pajero (we fixed the breaks-mostly-but the booster is shot, and we just got our gas tank re-welded-kind of) it will literally fall apart in tiny pieces on the road. I pointed out that the Juba road is the only road that hasnt broken our car yet, and if the Pajero is going to make it to Uganda (incidentally in the same direction as Juba), it needs to be able to make it to Juba and back, as those are the best roads in EES. We may end up taking the other health land cruiser once Ed comes to his senses and realizes that we wont fit everything in the trunk of the car, but thats all pretty up in the air.

I got my skirts and everything back from Ken the tailor yesterday. He is a very good tailor, very professional and everything looks great. Unfortunately-not everything is exactly what we asked for. I, for example, am now the (not so) proud owner of a pair of exotic African print culottes. It was suppose to be a skirt. Never in my life have I uttered the words "I want to own exotic African culottes-especially if you can make them look like the bastard child of genie pants and bermuda shorts." But thats what I own. And to make matters infinately worse-they come up to my waist. So bad.
On the upside, I now own an entire skirt/shirt combo which I wasnt expecting either. And two simple skirts. You win some, you lose some, and I've decided to make friends with a tailor in Jersey who can hopefully....tweak...some of these oddities I am returning with.
I also bought Aliza what I thought was a scarf (oops!) and turned out to be a wrap skirt cloth. Its really nice though and she would look great in it, so I'm probably going to force it on her anyway. Along with a head scarf swatch as an incentive.
And then, I excrutiatingly overpaid for two tin cups (so Sudanese)-10 pounds instead of 1. This is why I hate Arabs. (just kidding) (kind of). And, at long last, I got my Lobalua Hills Bar tee shirt from Charles (and one for George) thanks to Jerome's ability to ask nicely. It smells like men's cologne and it is currently what I am wearing over an extremely not clean skirt since I havent showered since our entire bathroom decided to fall apart THE DAY BEFORE WE LEFT. We have a pool of stagnant water sitting in the shower basin, and the toilet seat fell off on Neesha (at least, thats what it sounded like at 6 in the morning).

I guess I should probably stop procrastinating now. More later.

Miserable

In all fairness, I suppose I should have seen this one coming from a mile away. Today is our last full day in Torit and I'm so depressed that I literally cant manage a simple smile. (This is a problem because I'm sloping around looking like my house just got burned down-worse actually! bad example. Moses' house got burned down and he looks great. maybe, sloping around looking like my husband of 15 years just left me the same day I lost my job-and I think I'm creating some concern)
I still havent written my Kahn essays. Well, ok. I wrote one-ish on disarmament, but it doesnt grab me, it doesnt make much sense, and it doesnt ask the right questions. I developed this horrible cough all night that offically woke me up at 5 am, so i cleared dishes from the night before and washed them and had a complete and total fiasco attempting to boil myself some water. But I suppose all of this deserves an explaination.
Last night, the Toposa came back. Bishop and his convoy drove into the compound at around 6:30 pm. We had bought two goats but hadnt started roasting them, Rex never showed up, and we suddenly realized we had to provide rooms for about 40 people. Lucy went to sleep (!) at ten and I had to wake her up to remind her that-unfortunately-she had a job to do and she damn well should be doing it. It was pouring rain. We got some food made for the "special guests" which they got to eat at a normal time, inside, with food and beer and soda, and then roasted goat and oogali for the Toposa which took until almost 9 to cook, and was not accompanied by sauce or anything remotely structured-not even plates. This made me seriously uncomfortable, but I was the only one I think. When the goat was finally ready, I went to ask Ed where plates were and he just kept telling me to bring them meat. Considering that the Toposa hadnt eaten anything and Ed had eaten the equivilent of an entire day's worth of meals, I was irritated by this. Mud was everywhere-to keep from falling i just kicked off my flip flops and walked around barefoot. I ended up being the hostess, which was exhuasting, and Jerome kept adding to the things I had to do by asking for favors like feeding the watchman or getting him a beer-while he just sat there! Doing nothing!
And then, just as we started coordinating rooms for everyone, the generator died and we were plunged into darkness.
Needless to say, I went to sleep cranky as hell, and bone tired, and cold and wet.
And then I woke up at five, coughing my lungs out with this horrible dry cough that has settled in my chest. I tried to boil water for tea because thats all I wanted, to soothe my throat. But first the gas wouldnt light, then it exploded, then I almost got lit on fire, then it wouldnt light again, then Lucy told me to just light the make shift stove with charcoal, which I couldnt get to stay lit, then Jerome showed up telling me I was useless because I couldnt boil water, and then I just got really pissed off and stayed that way. And then somehow it was decided that I was the person to come to with any problem, so requests started pouring in-give me a bag to transport this entire dead goat in, make me tea, get me bread, where is the peanut butter, have you asked Joseph for coffee?
So here I am. I am sick. I am stressed. I am depressed and miserable. I am angry. I am tired. I am hungry. I dont want to think about packing or work or leaving. I still need to pick some things up at the market. I dont want to smile or celebrate or say goodbye, or be social to anyone. I dont want to be asked what to do anymore. I dont want Ed to tell me to "stop selling myself short and just do it". I dont want to spend my last day here pissed off and sad, but I"m on the verge of tears and I dont know what to do with myself and I think i'm goin to stop working until lunch because I dont know what else to do.
Also I have a huge blister on my ankle that I thought was guinea worm (its not) but it hurts like hell anytime I put weight on it (i.e. all the time). It looks like a gunshot wound. Its that ugly.

No Time To Be Lazy

I'm feeling about ten thousand things right now and none of them are positive. I'll attempt to at least be constructive in my procrastination and make a list.

Reasons I Feel Cranky, Overwhelmed, Frustrated, Unhappy and Sulky:

1. Ed is back. I like Ed. I do. But I dont feel like I got enough time on my own in Sudan, without his looming presence taking over everything. He's a lot to compete with, a big cloud that obscures everything and everyone else in sight. He can speak enough of almost any language to tell jokes in them, he can put anyone at ease, he can ask irreverent questions, he can get things done, he can get people to do what he wants, and he disapproves of anything not related to work. Its as if I was getting to make Sudan mine and then he came back and took it back for himself. Thats ok, because I'll have next summer to reclaim Africa (following the legacy of my colonialist ancestors) for myself. But hes so stressed out about getting this proposal written and everything squared away for when we leave that he doesnt leave time for anything else to get done. I just dont think he understands that to us, this was our first experience with Sudan, and it meant more to us than work. We have other things to say goodbye to and other loose ends to tie than RFP work and population data.
2. Lucy. Lucy and I use to be very good friends. But either she has changed or I have, and now I spend more time being utterly irritated by her than wanting to be around her. This is not particularly PC of me, but I dont care. SHe is too preoccupied with money, and material things, and it seems like she will do anything to get it, and place blame on anyone else but herself. She keeps disappearing for long periods of time, taking with her the key to the office, so that when guests show up, not only can they not get into their rooms to rest and shower, but they have to eat dinner outside, sitting on the ground, with no utensiles, because all of the normal trappings for dinner are locked inside. And then Lucy just comes strutting back later going "oops! sorry!" which doesnt cut it. The reason the compound doesnt have a good reputation right now is because of her and that makes me really upset. There is suspicion that she might have been the one to steal my money, a claim which i cant assess the validity of at all with any kind of objectivity, but all I know is that the money we have already paid her for staying here hasnt materialized. Its not paying for food, its not going to the fathers. 500 USD disappeared and she keeps asking for more-money for laundry she did that came back wet and covered in mud, money for beers she gave us (5 pounds instead of 3 because "for me, its a business"), things she wants to buy and she'll pay me back. I just dont like it. I dont trust her. I dont want to be around her. And this morning, at seven am, both her and Ed started hassling me to figure out how much to pay her for laundry and I wanted to shout at them "Look! I have other things to be doing! Better thing! I'll pay you just GO AWAY".
3. Kahn Institute. I. Am. Screwed. The essays, all three of them, are due on Monday, the day we leave for Juba. Its 3:28 on Saturday and I dont have a single one written. And more problematically, I dont have an idea of what to write for any of them. Ed accused me of not being a serious student because I'm not passionate about anything, and maybe he is right. I've been trying to find something that gets me fired up, but I dont have anything. Maybe my senses are so heightened all the time here that there is no room for any more highs or lows. Or maybe I'm defective and will never find anything that can hold my interest for more than a month. I have no sense of urgency to get these essays finished but at the same time I'm panicking because I know I need to do them. I'm just so lost about it right now.
4. I dont want to leave Sudan. I dont want to go on Safari. If I could stay here instead, I would. I finally feel like I was begining to settle in, make a home and a family of people and friends. I had a routine started. I know people's names, and the names of their family members. I dont want to leave now, right when this is getting comfortable, and if it wasnt for Kahn Institute and the sense of duty I have bred into me to finish college, I wouldnt be going back. The fact that I have to makes me feel not only pathetically weak (not doing what I want, doing what I should. It lacks courage) but incredibly frustrated because I'm worried that not only will no one at home be able to understand the reality of everything here-I cant possibly describe it accurately for all that i try-and that I wont be able to settle for the busy, blaring, shuffled, extravagent life in the US. I'm moving back to a culture that doesnt value anything that I've learned to value here-time, and people and relationships and simplicity and so many other things-and I'm afraid I'll feel like a fish out of water, and be restless until I'm back.

I cant do more now. I'm reaching a crisis point with these essays. Maybe more later.