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.

Multi-Purpose Hut

A Dinka home usually includes several huts: a sleeping hut or two, a stable, a raised storage hut and a cooking hut. If there's no cooking hut the women often cook in the stable. Sometimes it also serves as an extra bedroom and a workroom.

My friend Anon (pronounced "an-own") has one of these multi-purpose stables. The video below shows the inside of it. Anon is doing some cooking.  Her neighbor Awek is making flour from rice she pounded several times in a big wooden mortar. A few of Anon's children are there, very excited, particularly at the end when their baby goats are being filmed. You'll see a few beds in the stable, as it is also used for sleeping.

One of my favourite things about Dinka huts is the beams on the inside of the roof. The way they are joined together and the pattern they make is quite the work of art. You'll get a glimpse of this in the video.

I don't have a picture of the outside of the hut but it's very similar to the one below.

Clay School

One of the pastimes that Dinka children, particularly boys, enjoy is making small figurines and objects with clay. No plasticine or play dough available, but clay abounds. I've often seen boys making clay cows (cows are the main source of wealth and prestige in Dinka culture). There's a large tree near our radio station under which a group of boys often plays. One day they had a whole battlefield set up, with clay soldiers, tanks, airplanes, guns, etc. Unfortunately I didn't have time that day to take pictures. The other day I did--they were making a model of a teacher training school located nearby.

Overview of the school (which was still a work in progress). The room on the bottom right contains mattresses. Teachers from the area come and stay at this school for one or two week training courses.

Classroom. Those are books on the tables.

Teachers relaxing

Bowls, cups & other dishes in kitchen

Latrines (can't forget that!)

Teacher arriving on a motorcycle

Rain!

We had two good downpours last week--the first of this new rainy season. (The last rainy season ended in October.) What a treat to see big rainclouds like the ones in the photos below. And to see the parched earth refreshed and soaking in the much needed liquid.

Health Group

A week ago today was the second meeting of a group of church women who want to see great things happen in our village, not only on the spiritual level but on the physical level as well. They call themselves the "Akut Pial Guop" or Health Group, and they are eager to learn and to share what they learn with others. One of the biggest challenges they face in daily life as women and mothers is sickness. They want to be better equipped to meet this challenge and see the health of their families and that of the whole community improve.

At our first meeting, they said that the most common health problems that their children have are diarrhea and vomiting. Statistics confirm this: one of the main causes of death in young children here is dehydration caused by diarrhea and vomiting. So our second meeting focused on how to prepare and give oral rehydration solution (ORS) in order to prevent dehydration.

Before we got into the actual preparation of ORS, I demonstrated how to wash hands thoroughly and each of the ladies washed her hands.

I don't have any pictures of the rest of the meeting, but we had a great time making and tasting ORS. They left with a practical skill that we hope will save many lives.

And did I mention that these women are eager to share what they've learned with others? Well, the next day at church, after the worship service, a few of the Health Group women showed the whole congregation how to make ORS and explained how to use it!

Love That Smell!

Well, we currently have a dead cow rotting next to our compound. Sheesh! Last week it stood by our fence for a few days. It had obviously strayed from its herd. It seems it was sick because by Friday it had died.

The house on the right is that of my teammates the Wards, who fortunately are not there right now. My house is a little further away (the roof is on the upper left side of the picture). The level of stench reaching me depends on the way the wind is blowing. I'm grateful that it's often been away from my house. And I'm also grateful that I don't have an overly sensitive sense of smell!

Mancala: Dinka Boys' Version

When I went to visit a friend recently I found one of her sons and a friend of his playing mancala. They had dug four rows of ten holes (technically known as "pits"--see below) in the sand and were using seeds from a tree as playing pieces.

According to a website I read on mancala, it is widely considered to be the oldest board game in the world and is known by dozens of different names.

For the uninitiated, let me explain a little about the game. It is played with rows of pits, either carved into a board or dug into the ground. Game boards typically have two or four rows. Some versions use pebbles while others use seeds as the playing pieces. The exact rules vary as much as the names. The number of pebbles used and pits per row also vary greatly. The essence of the game is to capture as many pieces as possible from your adversary.

I wasn't able to figure out the rules by which these boys were playing, but I only watched them for a few minutes. Here's a little video footage I took.