New Sudan School of Health Sciences

I thought I knew a fair bit about the recent history of Sudan, particularly the South, where a brutal civil war was being fought for the last twenty years. I knew about the forced Arabization of the South by the North, the attempts at Islamicization of the Christian and animist populations, the racist policies that favored the northern Arab populations over the black African populations of the south, and the official or unofficial policies that permitted (or at least turned a blind eye to) the enslavement of southerners by northerners. I knew about the 1972 Addis Ababba Agreement which had given Sudan its last decade of peace until war broke out again in 1982, and the two million or more killed or displaced persons who were victims of this horrific conflict.

And yet, I was still somehow not prepared for what I have experienced here in South Sudan -- the extraordinarily primitive (for lack of a better word) conditions in which the people now live, and the lack of very basic infrastructure that I assumed even the most undeveloped places would have. Yei is now a city of about 100,000 people (many more than the very small dot on the map would suggest). But most of these people have recently arrived (or returned) from refugee camps on the Uganda side of the border. They are not all native to this area, which is Kakwa territory, but come from various parts of Sudan. During the civil war, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the army that supported it (SPLA) used Yei as a base, and many of the Dinka people who were prominent in the SPLM/A moved to this area. Because it is not far from the Ugandan border, and because it is in more of a jungle territory than the desert that is most of Sudan, it was considered to be a good outpost for rebel operations, both political and military.

So, when you walk around town today, you see Kakwa, Dinka, Nuer and other Sudanese, as well as more recent additions from Somalia, Congo, and other African countries -- as well as the UN peacekeepers from Russia, Bengladesh, and a variety of other countries. I'm told there are 1,000 Bengladeshi troops alone in the area. We saw them today driving road graders and doing some much needed road repairs. I hope the road to the airport is better by tomorrow!

Roads. As I mentioned before, all of Sudan (which is the largest country in Africa -- larger than the state of Texas) has only 13 miles of paved roads, all in the capital, far from here. Most of the people in this country do not know what a paved road looks like. Today on our trip to the NESEI school, which is about 13 miles and one hour by car from town where we are staying, was filled with some of the most brutalizing, body-pounding, nerve-wracking driving I have ever experienced. I did two round trips today, so four times down that 13 mile stretch. Only had to push the vehicle twice, I'm happy to say, and they were both after the driver kept digging us in deeper by thinking he could simply put on the gas more to get us out. Ay yay yay. Tomorrow a whole entourage of Americans is arriving and will make the same trip to the school -- including a bunch of first-timers from what I understand.

But we did make it to the school, and it is great now to have a visual image of the place I have been hearing about now for over a year. Like the rest of southern Sudan, it is (by our standards back home) quite primitive. There is a borehole (well), but it will be quite some time before they have running water anywhere but the manual pump itself. There is a generator for electricity, and there are plans in the future for perhaps a small dam on the river on the property to generate some hydro-power, but that's going to take a while. The accomodation for the boarding students and the faculty and staff are very, very basic. The classrooms are generous in size, but right now just cement floors and bare walls. The first students are arriving on Sunday from various places around South Sudan.

It would be easy for an American to look at what's happening here and ask, "so what's the big deal?" The big deal is that this is the first secondary school in all of South Sudan. Until now, anyone who got a shot at education had to go all the way either to Khartoum, the capital of the north, or to Uganda, Kenya or some other country. Many of the Lost Boys, of course, ended up finishing their education in the United States, and it is in part their desire to bring the gift they received back home that has created the New Sudan Education Initiative (NESEI). The school in Yei is the first of what they hope will be twenty new secondary schools by 2015. This first school will be the New Sudan School of Health Sciences, and will focus on preparing its students for careers in health care. One of the other "big deals" at this school is that it has a farm where most of their own food will be grown. Many of the crops have already been planted, and they are already working on plans to grow not only much of the food for consumption here, but also for sale in the local markets to help generate income for the school.

It was a lot of fun being at the site today. The workers come from Kenya and Uganda mostly. And yes, Martin, bumped into somebody he knew here, too, just as he has every single place we've traveled to. There is quite a crew working, some building buildings, some planting and tending crops, others cooking and serving food. The first group of students to attend will arrive on Sunday, and they will all be girls who will undergo a "transition" semester to get them on level before regular school begins.

The backpacks we sent from Christ Church were scheduled to arrive at the airport today, and will probably be released through Customs (that same shack that Martin and I went through at the airport, I'm sure) tomorrow. I actually brought a couple with me from Andover, however, that arrived after the others had been boxed up and shipped, so I presented one of them today to the new young math and science teacher who just arrived from Uganda a week ago. He moved into a tent on site at the school today, and was thrilled to receive his new backpack.

I'm here to see a new secondary school open, but I have to say that the littlest children are the ones really stealing my heart. They are adorable, and they just smile and come right up to me on the street. Everybody shakes hands with you in Sudan, including the children.

Two days here is very brief. But I will carry some indelible memories with me when I leave tomorrow. I hope I'll be able to come back in the future and know that this school and the incredible people who are making it happen were part of the transformation of war-torn Sudan into a country that built peace through education. I really believe it can happen.

Martin and I will leave Yei to fly back to Entebbe, Uganda tomorrow sometime. Martin has been called back to Dadaab, the refugee camp on the border of Kenya and Somalia, where they have received 5,000 new people just since he left a little over a week ago. A crisis is underway there and they need him. He has to be back by Sunday evening at the latest. So, I may be going to Congo by myself, where I'll meet up with a friend of his who will show me around for a couple of days. We've had some incredible times together. He wants us to write a book together -- a book about Africa for an American audience. If I were ever going to do such a thing, he's the guy I would want to do it with.