Killing Time (and Flies)

The thing is, when the generator is off, its difficult to get things done.



Yesterday was a slower day. We worked until our batteries died on our computers, and then we scattered. I went out and chatted with Abigail, our cook for a while. She was so interesting. It turns out she is a pharmacist by trade, but cant find work as one. She was working as a chemist in Kenya (getting paid $50 a week USD-can you believe that?) but you cant work and live there-there just isn't enough money. She said that Kenya is nice, and there is lots of food, but getting money is a huge problem, and the tribalism is awful. She told me she cant walk into a store if she is of a different tribe than the people that run it. Sudan is difficult in that she can find work, but not a place to live. I know she doesn't want to be working for the Diocese-considering her other jobs-not only as a pharmacist, but working for an American woman distributing drugs, or working for someone else going and visiting different dispensaries-and I wish I could help her find a better job.

After chatting with her I wandered off to do research. I am kind of freaking out about this. I am most of the way through June, and I haven't even finished my FIRST book. Of six (not counting the summer reader which is all about thermodynamics-ack) and the three essays are due on August 4th, and I barely have time to read because I'm doing so much work for the internship. What I'm really worried about is that the RFA will come out around the same time and I'll have to divide my time between the proposal and the essays. I think if that happens I will email them and ask if I can turn the essay question in a week late, but I hope it doesn't come to that because I don't want to work during my safari.

Anyway I was researching, and then George came in and said he was bored, so we sat on my bed under the mosquito net and played mad-libs, only to discover that we are awful at mad-libs. We got some fantastic phrases out of it-most of them highly immature-but for the most part it was just not funny. Plus i had the hiccups. I mean really.

We also took matters into our own hands and constructed fly swatters (you cant find them in the market. its ridiculous) We made them out of the cardboard from one of my notebooks and some bamboo sticks and the duct tape from our med kit. We are having a competition to see who can kill the most flies (I'm at five, George is at...he doesn't know...maybe five?) and we came up with phrases to say when we get a confirmed kill (mine is BANZI and George is JANGA). But of course, the second that we made these fly swatters, all the flies disappeared. I kid you not. Not a single fly came near us, and we were sitting outside, not even covered in bug spray. COME ON.

So we wandered off to try and find something else to do, failed miserably, did some more work, argued a bit, ate dinner (rice with sauce. yum) and ultimately, went to sleep.



Today was better. We walked into town-a really nice walk, especially in the morning (about 3/4 of a mile we think) and went to the Ministry of Health. We met with the Director of Medical Supply (Daniel), who had a list for us that we already had. Then we sauntered over to try and meet the Minister of Health herself since she was there that day, and had a grand old chat with her secretary Doris, who told us she would call us when the Minister was ready for us. So we wandered over to the EPI cold chain and met the Director of Primary Health for Eastern Equatoria State (Gabriel) who told me I could come to his office after lunch to get his list of all the medical facilities in the state. The cold chain people were less helpful, as their generator had died so they had no power, no computer, and no...well....cold chain. Ed arranged to go pick up the man and his desk top computer and drive them to the Diocese so we could steal his vaccination points with their longitude/latitude markers. From there we went to SSRRC and got the list of bomas and payams that Rex has continued to compile for us (he was out), and from there we walked to the Census-which gave us an entire list of every boma, payam and county compiled from the census data. Then we walked back to the Minister's office and had a meeting with her.

She is spectacular. She is a dynamo. I love her. Plus she smells good. She is this regal woman, very well dressed in bright greens and blacks, and her jewelry was gold and gorgeous. She was impeccably pulled together, and wasn't sweating at all (contrary to me, who looked like a drowned cat) and she sat in her office chair like it was a throne. She is excellent with eye contact, her office has this kind of glamour to it, despite (or perhaps because of) being in this decaying building. Her secretary brought us cold sodas and ice water, and she spent forever talking with us. She is one of those people who has mastered the ability to give their full attention to someone when she meets with them, and doesn't constantly worry or rush to get to the next appointment. She gave us a list of all the health facilities that she knew of and talked to us about the difficulties of verifying what was up and running since there wasn't transportation.

It was a really informational meeting.



Then we started to walk back for lunch. Ed wanted to call a taxi to drive us and we insisted that we walk (he needs his exercise) but he lucked out in that after walking about three feet, Father Andrew drove past and gave us a ride. Ed was pleased.

At lunch, I met Susan's guest. Susan works for the US Institute for Peace-shes a consultant from Kenya. She is working on compiling law information from the different areas. She had brought Chief Madelina with her. Madelina was chief of Imurok, behind the mountains of Lafon where the Lopeat live. She was just incredible. To begin with, female chiefs are extremely rare, and she has been the chief since 1980. But beyond that, she is the head of the council of chiefs, elected BY MALE CHIEFS, to lead it. This is INCREDIBLE guys. It gives me hope! Both the Minister of Health for the state, and the Head of the Council of Chiefs are WOMEN. And what is more, they got to their positions by being considered equal and elected by men. Anyway Ed was spectacular with her. He could speak enough of her language to communicate and we had a very multilingual lunch, pulling out every bit of every language we knew. We got so much information about population and set up and health and government. It was fantastic. And i spoke a bit of Arabic to her, and we all laughed at how bad I was. Oh well. (I was also sitting on a broken chair which was threatening to give out at any moment, which added a level of hilarity and uncertainty)

After lunch I caught a taxi with Susan and Chief Madelina to the courthouse, and from there I walked over to the Ministry of Health. I had my meeting with Gabriel, and promised to give him any additional information that we gained in our efforts. He was able to tell me how many PHCC and PHCU (units) were functional and how many weren't, but he couldn't tell me which ones were which. He also told me locations of antenatal clinics in all the counties. I tried to meet with Daniel and Doris but both of them weren't in their office so I walked back home.

It was a lovely walk. There was a nice breeze and everyone said hi to me. Some girl came up to me and asked me for money or biscuits (I told her I didn't have any, which was half true but damned if I'm giving up my biscuits-and in my defense she looked healthy and well-clothed. So there.) And another guy rode past on a motorcycle and shouted to me "HELLO MY WIFE! HELLO!!" which was cute. I had a great time. I got back sweaty (really really sweaty) and did some more work, and then sat outside and researched. As i was doing that OUR CAR CAME! YAY!

I have some misgivings about this car. Its been broken a lot, the driver apparently was incapable of getting it here in any kind of timely manner (three weeks. three freaking weeks from Uganda to Torit. I dont think so) and our driver doesnt speak the local lanugages at all. So we will see. But it was exciting because Mark was there (I love Mark, we met him in Nairobi and he is always smiling, plus I know he would take us on adventures because he took Miller-I just have to convince him to stay) and Grace, Bishop Paride's niece was very nice and Jerome, our driver, seems nice, if short. And young. Hes my age. And considering this car is an automatic, I might be a better driver than him.

Now its suppose to be dinner time but the generator keeps going off, leaving us in the dark. Not so fun. Hopefully I can post this soon.