The layoffs, the pregnancy and the chaos that ensued

Hola my dear friends. I know its been two weeks and ya'll must have been very sad that I didn't write anything but it wasn't due to lack of events happening, it was actually because too much was happening. So fasten your seat belts for a very interesting thousand or so word entry.
So in the past weeks, Steffen the former Op Manager has left, Fred my deputy, his contract is not going to be renewed for next year, the compound manager Chol was also let go (he warned me that if I don't pay him the monthly health benefits that I had already paid him for the month again, I would be very sorry) and Mike the assistant compound manager is in jail for allegedly impregnating a 15-16 year old girl.
So essentially I am as Kasis (my favorite Isuzu truck driver) says 5 in 1 these days. This means that I am supposed to somehow get the compound day to day stuff taken care of, make sure that the millions of dollars of inventory is accounted for, do payroll, load the trucks with bamboo sticks etc etc, and oh yeah do my own job as well :)
Lets begin with the layoff story of Chol. Chol is this hot headed yet very respectful (well most of the time) local Rumbek Dinka (Dinka's the biggest tribe in South Sudan and Dinkas are known to be very short tempered people). Chol has had problems with other staff in the past and been responsible for creating some uncomfortable scenes over the years. Last year I heard he locked the Op Manager out of the compound just because he got into an argument with him and well he's the local guy and so the Operation Manager was not allowed back into his own compound until the police was called. And two week ago when Steffen sat with him to tell him about an incident from the past, he told Steffen to "shuttup". I talked to Steffen afterwards and Steffen was like "yeah, don't worry about it, it went really well, at least he didn't lock us up in our own compound again".
So my task was to tell Chol that we could not renew his contract and that he had to give up all of his stuff and leave the compound. We were going to pay him through the month and thats was going to be it. Now managers and HR people think they have a tough job doing that back in the US, imagine being in South Sudan having to do deal with this. Anyways, Chol was pretty cooperative until I paid him the remainder of what we owed him. At that point he's like i'm 50 USD short, "you didn't pay me the medical money for this month". I told him, "Chol you took out that money as an advance, which means that you can't have it again. It's medical allowance, it has to be once a month". But that somehow wasn't registering through to him. He kept on saying "you, you watchout, gimi my money, give it now and gimi a recommendation letter". Well personally it was just ticking me off, but I kept on telling myself that it wasn't about me and that I should deal with this situation in a calm, collected manner. So instead of getting beaten up in front of my staff, I took him in the room on the side and told him that I will pay him the 50 USD but he will have to leave right away without a recommendation letter. Well luckily that did get through to him and he told me to call him when the letter was done.
"Call him", I should call him when his recommendation letter is written. A letter that I dont' want to write by the way. Its a letter that recommends you if you done a good job, for cryin out loud. You can't demand it. Well that's what it should be right, not in South Sudan. It seems like people are entitled to everything here, and its not just the people, its every living creature.
The dogs, the sheep, the cows, especially the cows. Nothing, I mean nothing will move out of your way on the road. The sheep just sit right in the middle of the road sometimes, the mama sheep feeding the baby sheep, in the middle of the road, wallahi, I'm not kidding.
And God forbid if you hit a goat, well it'll be over 200 SDG = 80 USD. If you hit a cow, well you better be ready to shell out some serious dow. A good bull is going for around 500 USD here. I'm thinking of getting in the bull business myself. The Dinka's love to adorn the shaped horns of the bulls with ornaments.
So moving on the other interesting thing of the last two weeks. Mike my assistant compound manager is in jail. His crime you ask? Well a very common one here in the Dinka world. There are two things that you don't mess with a Dinka on. Yeah you guessed em, their cows and their women. Off course this is East Africa so people have many a wives, but its not uncommon for men to sleep with the wives of other men. And everything is kosher unless you are caught. That is what my friends happened to poor Mike.
Sitting on a friday evening having dinner with his family, a pickup full of police officers/SPLA - army people came to his house, picked him up, beat the crap out of him and threw him in jail. Usually how this process works is that if you elope with someones wife, you have to pay the family 7 cows or whatever the judge decides. Now if she gets pregnant well its more cows. And if its rape well then its even more cows and also jail time.
Now I went and met Mike in prison, he was his usual extremely quiet self. He showed me his beating wounds which I promptly reported to the visiting UNMIS (UN mission in Sudan) inspectors who were luckily in the jail at that time. They told me that they can't do shit anyway but they will report it to their seniors. Now Mike claims that this is all horse shit, they're doing this because he's a Choibet Dinka and not an Agar Dinka and hence they're giving him a hard time and all. His decision is on the six of this month, hope it goes well cause I do not want to layoff another kid right now.
to be contd

The Work and the Inspiration

A lot of you have asked about what is it that I really do, okay so not a lot, but some of you have indeed asked and today I will try to answer that question and also state some of the more important things.

For those of you who don't know, I work for this organization called "The Carter Center". It has "Peace Programs", that primarily deal with conflict resolution, election observation, that kinda stuff, and "Health Programs" that are geared to eradicating and mitigating certain diseases. The biggest health program is the "Guinea Worm" program, which is as the name suggests aimed at eradicating guinea worm from the world.

Guinea Worm is a very painful disease where worms that enter your body have to be physically removed by a trained health officer and then preventative steps such as providing access to clean water, not washing or bathing in contaminated water, and purifying the existing contaminated water sources with chemicals need to be taken to eventually eradicate the disease. The disease which was even feared by the pharaohs way back in the day (only the second disease ever to be eradicated - I think small pox being the first) is making its last stand in South Sudan where it is extremely hard to track it. You guys can go nuts and read everything on this link.

So my job is to provide the operational and logistical support needed in South West Sudan to help eradicate the disease. The Rumbek base where I am the Operations Manager, (I like my title, its pretty fancy right :) ) services 10 - 14 substations west of the Nile in South Sudan. Substations comprise of a Technical Advisor, usually a young ex-pat with a Master's in Public Health who reports on outbreaks and trains local community workers and volunteers on how to fight guinea worm. So millions of dollars worth of medical supplies and equiptment, along with trucks and motorcycles are here at my compound in Rumbek and are passed on to the sub-stations around the endemic villages where the actual fighting the disease is taking place - and all of this is managed by yes, you got it, yours truely :).

So we get requests here everyday for something or the other, vehicles breaking down, generators needed, solar panels needed, pipe filter running out, personnel issues, management issues, you name it, and they have to be taken care of by the Rumbek office or if we can't take care of it then the head quarters in Juba Sudan will send us what we need and we'll pass it on, and if they don't have it then it comes in from Nairobi. Obviously there's a lot more to it and I don't want to bore you with the nitty gritty of why this is soo hard to do but lemi just say that there are no paved roads in South Sudan and it is the BIGGEST SWAMP in the world - so half the year (rainy season) you have tremendous problems in moving anything.

A friend of mine asked me what would otherwise be a logical question. Why was I so distraught over forgetting my $40 dollar Swiss army knife and couldn't just buy another one? Well to give you folks a clearer picture, a substation needed 10 meters of rope yesterday and the price of 50 meters of rope (shitty rope i might add) in the local market was almost US $70, so you can imagine that a swiss army knife at this rate would be no less that US $200 dollars if availible.

There's a few semi decent restaurants in town, where most of the WFP (world food programme) pilots and other NGO people go to eat and drink, and a normal meal and drinks there for 2 people costs around US $50 - $60. So its like paying $50 to dine at a place no better than Waffle house or maybe IHOP. In short, the age old problem of pricing because of the laws of Supply and Demand has never been more evident to me than in Sudan.

Well now that I've kinda explained a little bit of the stuff that I will be doing, (I'm sure I'll add more as I get to know more) lets move on to the more important stuff. This past week I've been trying to figure out how the records are kept, where everything is? how to track it? how the finances are working? what personnel issues can arise? how to better manage the place etc etc, which by the way by graduate degree was all about - (MPA) and I used to think when the heck is this going to ever help me? Well it will now, and I guess I should have paid some attention to what the old men were talking to us about in class - little did I know.

So when you have all of these things on your mind you sometimes tend to loose track of what it is that you are really doing here, but every now and then something amazing comes up and you realise that your life here doesn't merely comprise of waking up, walking over to a metal container (office, pic on right), making sure all the sub-stations are functioning well, eat and then go to bed. That my friends is where Dunya comes in (pictured below)

She is who we call the gift of God to the Carter Center, Rumbek. She is very very tiny, I honestly don't even know how old she is and her mother passed away recently. Ayesha, the assistant cook/cleaning lady is her step sister who now looks after her. With Ayesha's salary there is no way she can afford to raise Dunya and that is where I guess I come in. So if I accomplish nothing in my two years here (which is to help eradicate guinea worm from Sudan) I will atleast be happy that God gave me the oppertunity to witness that little girls smile every morning and maybe, just maybe be able to make her life a little better.

If anyone wants me to give something to Dunya on their behalf, I would love too - ya'll can just put money in my account or we can figure out something - she obviously needs all the baby stuff milk and clothes etc.

A few interesting facts:

- So we don't have a fridge, (not enough power) but I was taught how to make a local fridge, pictured here. The way it works is that we wrap some bandages around the Nalgene bottle you see there and then put water in it. At night before we sleep we wet the bottle from the outside as well. During the day its like 100 degree but at night its pretty pleasant and the wind is blowing. The wind blowing causes the bandaged up bottle to cool and when I wake up for fajr I have nice cool 1000ml of water.

- The bathroom is open air, and there is obviously no shower. But lemi tell you, taking a cold shower under the stars after a game of soccer with the staff, is something that I cannot put in words. The sky over here seems so much starier (don't know if that is a word). And pouring water over yourself while looking up to a billion stars - priceless

- The staff and I have started playing soccer on the compound after work. It's been good for bonding with my staff. I seem to have gained their trust and respect, at least for now. Which reminds me that most of them DO NOT have any cleats for soccer or shoes for that matter so if anyone is interested in donating cleats or money for them, they can be shipped to Nairobi or bought from there and then brought into Rumbek when our trucks start moving to and from Nairobi in November.

Okay well this has been longer than what I intended it to be and still I haven't covered everything that I wanted to. I'll put up albums online but its very hard to do it from here as the internet seems to have a mind of its own. Sometimes it works and at other times it chooses not to.

Until next week, Kwaheri.

Hole in the Ground and Wireless Internet - The journey to Africa begins, again

It's been a while since I last wrote anything. I mean I did have to write tons of papers the last 2 years being in grad school and all but I didn't do much blog writing. But luckily for all you (total of five) people out there wanting to know what I'll be doing in the coming months and years, I'll be writing routinely so that hopefully ya'll can live in Rumbek, Sudan without actually living there or travel all over Eastern Africa vicariously through me.
Leaving Atlanta airport I was only hoping that I didn't leave anything important behind, (and I can't seem to find my swiss army knife, so yes I guess my fear wasn't unwarranted) the sometimes crazy but unbelievable rewarding life of living from room to room with your life in 2 bags and a carry on hadn't quite sunk in yet.
And why would it. Africa is supposed to be so exotic, how could there be any problem. Even I who has lived and worked in the vush and had faced the cumbersome seemingly insignificant day to day problems like lack of clean water, heat, mosquitoes, etc etc was all geared up to go there and help eradicate disease and suffering from South Sudan. Little did I know that those day to day things were going to come and bite me in the behind pretty soon.
From Atlanta I flew to Dubai. It was a 13 hours flight, I got a good 5 hour sleep. I stayed at the Dubai airport for 6 hours before I boarded the Kenyan Airlines flight to Nairobi. As soon as I entered the plane it hit me, Ah! that pungent smell of body odor. We think desi's have a problem, desi's got nothin on a native African when it comes to BO. Don't get me wrong I'm not one of those "omg I can't breathe here, I need to get out" kinda person but still it requires some getting used to. Even before the plane took off there had been 3 arguments in the near by seats over luggage and there was no hostess in sight to mediate anything. I don't blame them though, its not like anyone was listening to them anyway. But everything bad about the quality of the plane from the earphone jacks not working to the thing shaking like its wings would fall off at 30,000 feet was forgotten once lunch was served and I heard the hostess say "It is all halal". Ah!! music to my ears.
So a note to myself and everyone, if you want good service, a nice plane but bland food, travel North West, but if you are looking for some good African cooking fly Kenya Airways.
After landing in Nairobi, I got in line to go through customs and heard my name being announced on the PA system. Not again, I thought, not this early, the police interrogations (see this posting for details, Perks of having a Pakistani Passport) already? But no, it was just them telling me that my work permit for South Sudan was ready and I needed to pick it up before my flight to Juba.
In the waiting lounge to go to Juba I made a few friends from the UN Security team before we all got on what seemed like a 30 seater plane and landed in the Juba International Airport, Sudan an hour and a half later. From the airplane, Juba looked liked any other East African place; red surface, a few trees, roof tops made of aluminum sheets, very little paved roads and some slum like neighborhoods.
When I said international airport, please don't bring the thought of JFK or even some small airsptrip in some small town back in the US. It was more like a Flea Market in South Georgia. Our luggage was being tossed out of a tractor trailer and on to a very dusty pavement where we had to grab our belongings from and run them to a counter where airplane officials would inspect them by opening everyone's bags, so no belt, none of those fancy machines that go beep, just humans. On second thought, the machines were there, people just went around them.
After about two hours of waiting on the pavement outside the airport door my ride Mr Jacob finally arrived to come pick me up. Apparently there was confusion over what time I was going to come. Kinda fitting though, the new Operations Manager not picked up from the airport due to lack of operations management, made me feel that I was needed. :)
The compound here is pretty big, there is a big garage where the vehicles are fixed, small offices on one side and the dinning hall, bathrooms and living rooms on the other side.
This is a staging area for me as I am flying to Rumbek on Friday, on a UN plane (thats the only means of transport in and out of there as you can't go by road- i mean you can but its pretty impossible) where I will be stationed.
Oh, the most interesting observations of the day before I forget as it is getting really late,
I heard a worker of the compound - a native Sudanese, enjoy a "Chinese", yes a Chinese song blasting over the radio. I am interested to find out now how much chinese influence is prevalent in the region. There is wireless satellite internet all over the compound and solar panels power half its lights, but on the flip side there is no clean running water and one has to squat over a "hole in the ground" to take a dump (pretty common still in rural areas all over Africa). Yes people, "a hole in the ground" - see picture. Some of the extreme and bizarre discrepancies only to be found in Africa.
Signing off, will write more soon, I've taken Larium for Malaria tonight and its supposed to give vivid dreams and can cause hallucinations, lets see what happens tomorrow, God knows my dreams are almost real already.