Tok Ku Rou

Back in May I posted about boys playing mancala. I have heard the Dinka here call it "awet," but I have been doing a little research online and found that it is also called "tok ku rou." This literally means "one and two," which conveys the idea of counting. Very appropriate, since this game is based on much counting and calculation.

There's a big tree near our radio compound where there are several awet "boards" dug into the sand and they get good use. One day earlier this month as I approached the tree I saw two men playing. They graciously let me take pictures and video.

Each player owns two rows and only plays in those rows, but tries to capture counters from his opponent's side. The Dinka in our area use four rows of 10 holes, although it seems that 12 or 13 holes are more common.

                                                       

Interestingly, I found a striking picture on the net of a Dinka man playing this game sometime between 1947 and 1951.

Herd 'a Cows

Starting last month, as the grass was drying up and everything getting brown, herdsmen began taking their cattle down south of us to an area where there is more grass. A few weeks ago while driving to the Dokkul church I "ran into" a herd of cows. I saw them ahead of me, stretching across the road and down both sides of it (where there are side roads that we often drive on because they are less bumpy than the actual road).

So, as is often the case here, there was no choice but to drive through the herd. (By the way, the arch-like structure you can see in the distance is a bridge; and yes, they had to close ranks and go over it, which I unfortunately didn't get to see.)

I managed to take some video while driving through the cows, which was a little tricky. I actually tapped one of the cows on the behind with the front of the truck--no harm done, though; he sauntered away as if nothing had happened.

Parot Church

Here are a few photos of a service last month at our local church (courtesy of visitor Dale Ward).

Some of the children's choir as they come in singing

See the "kawajas" (white people)? They're my teammate Daniel and I

Patriotic Moment

Last Sunday I went to our partner church in the village of Dokkul with the two deacons from the Parot church, who are members of the women's health group that I teach. After the service, the deacons did some health teaching with the whole church. One of the two topics they taught about was the importance of handwashing for disease prevention.



I got a kick out of the this t-shirt that one of the Dokkul deacons was wearing. Very appropriate given my nationality and the topic being taught!

It's always heartwarming to see a Canadian flag, particularly out here in the middle of nowhere, when it's completely unexpected!

One of the Parot deacons, Aluel, on the left, helped count the offering with the Dokkul deacon in the pink t-shirt.

Our Village Well

My friend Alual on her way to the well

Getting water is a daily chore for most women and many girls in our village.

Fortunately they don't have to walk a long distance or haul up a bucket on a rope or scoop dirty water out of a pond, like women in many places in Africa. Our village has a borehole that my colleagues had drilled by a group called Living Water when they began living here six years ago. The borehole provides clean water that literally is a source of life for our neighbours and us.

There are women at the well throughout the day and sometimes at night, too. It's a gathering place where they visit and catch up on news as they wait their turn at the handpump. Sometimes there's quite a line-up and it takes an hour or two before women get their turn.

Parot well, at a "down" time--at peak times there are many more women and jerrycans than this.

The video below gives an idea of the sounds at the well and the action of the handpump.

Blending In

No matter where I am in the world I'm always impressed by the diversity of God's creation. One of the things that fascinates me here is the great variety of insects.  Here's one of my favourites, the stick bug.

Stick bugs belong to the order of insects called Phasmida and you can read more about them here.

          




They're not exactly the most cute and cuddly of creatures, but they are quite exquisitely made to do what they're supposed to do: look like sticks!

New Reader

On my porch one recent afternoon:

Abuk, age 6, with her foot in a tin of water to soak an infected sore,

being read to by

Akuem, age 9, who will soon finish her first year of school and has just learned to read.


What a joy!

One Day

Below are some pictures I took on September 13, when the rainy season green-ness and wet-ness were at their peak. I took the first four pictures while walking to and from the market in nearby Wanyjok, and the next three during a drive to the town of Akuem, about 15 km south of us.

Chewing Bel

One of the most popular activities around here during the past weeks has been chewing chunks of sorghum stalks, which are called "bel" in Dinka. This probably doesn't sound too appetizing, so let me explain.

People cut down a length of sorghum stalk, tear off the outer husk with their teeth and then bite off chunks of the tender inner cane, which is somewhat sweet and juicy. After chewing it until all the sweetness is gone, they spit out and throw away the fibers that are left. The boy on the left in the video below will show you how it's done.

 

Chewing bel is a way to calm hunger pangs during the weeks before the sorghum is ripe, and even once people have enough to eat, bel makes a nice snack.

Lunch Out at Deng's

There are quite a few restaurants in nearby Wanyjok market. I don't go out to eat very often, but we had visitors recently and I went out for lunch with them and my teammate Vince. We ate at Deng's, one of the best places in the market. It's quite spacious and clean. The blue buckets on the tables are like water pitchers, with a common cup that everyone at the table drinks from.

Guest Boni, teammate Vince and me

On the menu, two things: split pea sauce and chunks of beef, served with pieces of fresh bread. There are no utensils, you break off pieces of the bread and use them to scoop up the sauce and meat. A bowl of the split pea sauce with a few pieces of bread costs $1; the meat costs a little more.

Cattle Compound

The Dinka people love cattle and they roam around freely in our village during the day. However, at night they return to their "base." One family has a small herd that spend the night in an enclosure they've built next to their huts. 

Smoke repels flies that bother the cattle, so fires are kept burning all night.

In the Dinka language there are very precise names for all the various combinations of colours of cattle. (By the way, in the top centre of the photo below you can see a girl at the pump handle of the village well.)

Sorghum seeds for next year hanging from a post.

This is one of the women from the house with the cows. What do you think she's working with? Mud? No, actually it's cow dung. Yes. She's breaking it up into small chunks to use as fertilizer for the fields. The family will use some of it and also sell some. It's quite a valuable resource.

Health Teaching in Action

Well, I just accidentally deleted a post I published a few weeks ago about health teaching done at church by women from the health group I teach. But that's okay, I'm reposting a new and improved version with not only pictures but also a short video. :-)

The pix and video show part of a demonstration of how to apply a hot compress to help treat a wound or boil. The health group teaches after the worship service is over. A few dozen women and lots of kids usually stay for the teaching.

If the video is taking too long to load, you can also see it on You Tube.

Drying Okra

People in our village are busy harvesting and processing various crops, including okra. This is one of the most often-used ingredients in the "kadang" (sauce) eaten with the main food staple. Okra is highly valued for its slimy-ness, and it also serves to thicken the sauce.

This photo shows how okra is grown. Each piece of the vegetable forms upright on the end of a stalk.

Much okra is consumed fresh, but if the harvest is good (as it is this year), women also dry it to be used in future months. The okra is cut up and put out to dry on pieces of plastic or tarp; or if these are not available, they put it directly on the ground, on a hard surface that they make by putting water on the sand, smoothing it out and leaving it to dry--this helps reduce the amount of sand in the final product.

Freshly cut pieces of okra.




Once the okra is dry, it is pounded into a powder, which mixes well into sauces.

Photo below: Okra in various stages of dehydration; the driest pieces are on the top left.

Sorghum Splendour

Walking among the sorghum fields here reminds me of the song "Oh What a Beautiful Morning" from the musical Oklahoma!, where it says "the corn is as high as an elephant's eye, and it looks like it's growing way up to the sky!"

We don't have leaves changing colour this time of year but we do have some fall colours--the ripening heads of sorghum:

People cut some of the best of the first ripe heads of sorghum and tie them up to dry in their compound, high in a tree or on a post. They will be used for seeds next year.

Green Galore

I got back to Parot last week after a month of R&R. What a delight to see how green and lush everything had become during my absence. Rains have been plentiful, crops are flourishing and we're rejoicing in this answer to prayer.

Here are some pictures of the contrast between the dry season and now:

Dry season view (taken late March) from front of my house towards the Wards' house

Current view towards Wards' house

Dry season view back of house

Current view back of house

Outdoor Kitchen

Yesterday when I went by my friend Adut's house, she was cooking under a tree outside her hut. (By the way, you can see in the photo that we've had rain this past month and crops are growing well. :-)  )

Adut doesn't have a separate cooking hut, she just has one hut. Sometimes she cooks inside, sometimes outside.

The basic equipment Dinka women need for cooking is all very portable: three stones on which to set a pot; a pot or two; a stirring stick; and a mortar and pestle.

Yesterday Adut was making a sauce. She had some pieces of dried sardine simmering to get all nice and mushy. 

She was pounding peanuts in a mortar to make a paste that she would add to the sauce.

She said she was also going to add some chopped up leaves from one of the plants in her garden and some salt.

After making the sauce, Adut would make "kuin" to eat it with. 

Monkey Business

When many people think of Africa, one thing that comes to mind is wild animals. We really don't have many of those where I live, but we do have one kind: monkeys. One morning recently I spotted movement in one of the big trees in my backyard. I realized it was monkeys eating the fruit that the tree produces this time of year--the same fruit that I wrote about kids climbing trees to pick.

I shot some video from my kitchen window looking out at the tree, and then I went outside to be closer. What fun to watch their antics. And a real treat to see a mama with her little one clinging to her belly. After they'd had their fill, they dropped down one by one, scrambled over our fence and scampered off to find their next meal.

Harmful Hands

This billboard in Aweil Town highlights the violence against women that is common and unfortunately all too well accepted in this culture. It is considered normal for a man to beat his wife.

One of the exacerbating factors is alcohol. My village is close to a market town where there are countless bars as well as stores selling beer and other kinds of liquor. Men come home drunk and are quick to become angry and violent with their wives and sometimes their children too.

I’ve become friends with a neighbour whose husband is like this, and there are many others in our village. In addition to physical violence, these men harm their families by drinking away whatever money they have and not providing food and other basic necessities.

Who knows how much good a billboard can do, but I was encouraged to see that this situation is being addressed. What I do know will transform these men is God’s grace giving them a new heart and the power to change. May hands that harm become hands that cherish and protect, comfort and provide.

High Climbers

One of my recent discoveries is that many girls here are amazing tree climbers. I'll be out walking and hear someone greeting me. Sometimes it takes me a few seconds to figure out where the greeting is coming from--up in a tree!

The girls in the tree above were picking a small grape-like fruit. I tried one and didn't think it had much taste, but it's very popular among kids.