Rain and Conflict

It rained hard last night much of the night and drizzled into the morning. These are some of the things here that are impacted by rain. Nearly half of the students were absent. Some of them walk 90 minutes or more to get to school. It is not good to do that in the rain. The roads are terrible on a good day but after a rain...so the trip to school and back on a boda boda was challenging. I could exhale when we finally arrived back at Pan Dor.

The landing strip at the airport in Rumbek is dirt so most planes did not fly today. We visited a farm and gardens at a local school this evening so my sandals are a tiny bit muddy! This is the rainy season so this happens often!

We are conducting a health education assessment with the students. It takes time as we are doing this one-on-one. When we ask what are the health concerns of the community nearly everyone lists "conflict, tribal fighting, hostility" as the #1 concern. Violence against girls has been an issue in South Sudan for many years but this violence is against young men. Some of them who live in the villages around town walk to town in the evening and sleep there so no one will come to their home in the village and take them to kill them. We have members of the competing tribes in our school but I do not believe there will be any problems. Not everyone is involved in this, just a few, much like gangs and such in the States.

I know some of you have been hearing about the conflict here so I wanted you to hear more from a very local viewpoint. Please know that I have never felt in danger here - well maybe on the boda boda! I have important meetings this weekend with community leaders. Please be in prayer for those. In case you didn't know, my luggage arrived on Wednesday.