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.