Update from "Those of the Sudan"

Today is the first day in a few months where I have nothing to do to the point where i'm finally writing something. Its 44 degree Celsius (111 F) in the shade and I have this fan in my office which is preventing me from dehydrating to death.
It's the middle of shipping season which means that the roads (gravel) in South Sudan are dry enough to have supplies shipped on them to the 16 sub-stations we have West of the Nile. All the food, construction supplies, fuel, car parts, UN food for training, you name it is shipped from Rumbek where the hub is to all over south west Sudan.
Working in a place like this you start questioning pretty much everything about life and nature, and inequality and well pretty much everything thing else that can be questioned. It bamboozles you when you see the things you see here and look at the calender to see the year 2010 written on it.
Most of the people living here in the South are at least 100 - 200 years behind the rest of the world. If you see a good house made of bricks with a water tank and lights, the first thing that comes to mind is the word "NGO" and the second "MINISTER".
Being a person of faith you get frustrated when you see people living in abject poverty, dying because of lack of basic facilities taken for granted elsewhere in the world. You try to do what you can, but you just keep facing one obstacle after another. You keep going and you keep getting hurt and it wears you down and you just hope you can keep going and not become cynical and turn into those people who you hated in the first place and were the reason why you come here. The people who are of the view that, "we are who we are because we deserve it. We live in a big house, have cold and hot water, have AC, a nice car, because we worked hard for it. Nothing is by chance" they say. "If you work hard enough you can achieve all that you want" is another one of their favorite lines. Well i can assure you, none of these people have been to South Sudan, or Haiti, or even the south side of Chicago.
Everyone on my compound, EVERYONE, works harder than I do. They work more, they eat less, they don't have a fan at night, they don't take antimalarial pills like me, they can't afford a thermos to keep their water cold. They work all day, but the combined salary of all my staff in Rumbek would be less than my salary. How f'd up is that for lack of a more appropriate word.
Yes, I know I know, I can state the reasons for this, their lack of education, no market structure, sixty years of civil war bla bla bla...... but the fact of the matter is that none of these can reasons can provide any comfort to the families whose kids die of malaria, typhoid, diarrhea, the heat, just simple every day things.
I'm not saying this because I'm ashamed of what I do or who I am and I want to run away into the jungle never to be seen again. I promised myself that I'll do something about and till the last useless breath is taken by me, I will keep trying! It probably won't change a thing, but I'll keep trying. I was taught by my faith that "saving the life of one person is like saving entire humanity" so, I will take it step by step, one person at a time and at least when its all said and done I can look up to the heavens and say, "well I did try, probably not as much as I could have, but you know I did".
One thing that I have learn't here, though which I'm sure all of us have heard from elders or read in books at some point in our lives, is that nothing except for the human relationships we make matter in life. That holds true more than anything when you come to a place like South Sudan. I once read this research that concluded that the majority of people on their death bed did not care about anything that they were leaving behind except for the human connections they had made in their lives. Not money, not cars, not their extravagant portfolios, nothin.g
I have people here that I haven't offered anything except for a few days worth of food, helped lessen their suffering temporarily, and greeted them with warmth, and in return they are willing to lay their lives for me. I say this with tears in my eyes but I would leave Sudan a content person because there is ntohing I have done for them yet I have been showered with so much love.
I remember when i was leaving town to go back to Pakistan and Minneapolis for the new year vacation, I walked out of my room and everyone wanted to see me off. We drove in multiple cars and everyone wanted to carry some little luggage of mine to the airstrip. How many people come to drop us to the airport when we are leaving our homes in the West? Maybe our closest friend or our wives and parents? And that is after you have spent years and years with them. Here, you have people who will show you so much love and ask NOTHING in return. And when you see such suffering for such amazing people it just breaks your heart and you don't know what to do except for looking up and yelling "WHY, why them with all the suffering and why not me, what is so much better about me"
Anyways, sorry about the mundane, depressing talk, and for all 10 of you who have decided to read on, on the bright side of things, I am supporting a few local business agricultural ventures, locally run NGO's, and bright local kids who want to go to university. Some of these ventures include girls' boarding schools run by wonderful missionaries who are overcoming tremendous obstacles to provide education to the local women.
I'm also supporting Sudanese kids who are trying to seek higher education in universities is East Africa as the educational structure in South Sudan is not good enough yet. I work with hundreds of Sudanese involved with the health programs and many of them are very bright kids who work with us as field officers and area supervisors, compound staff, etc and are unable to continue education after secondary school due to various problems at home.
I'm telling ya'll all of this because I know many of you have asked me on various occasions on how they can help. I'm in the process of starting a website dedicated to the people/groups that are being helped and also registering an NGO so that ya'll can be tax exempted as well, but that might take a bit. In the mean time if someone needs any details or wishes to help they can deposit money in my US accounts. I can provide you with the details upon request.

I'll leave you with a few "Only in Sudan" to lighten up the mood:

Only in Sudan - will MEN have plastic pink colored flowers on the handle of their bicycles for decoration. I repeat, MEN

Only in Sudan - will you see people driving their bicycles without any brakes and using their feet to stop themselves (true story)

Only in Sudan - will the same people be using different signatures each time they sign

Only in Sudan - are you LEGALLY required to turn on the hazard light of the care if going straight through a round-about (20 USD fine if you don't)

Only in Sudan - is it ILLEGAL to drive WITH sunglasses on