My Personal National Geographic: Part 1

In my travels around South Sudan I have gotten to attend a number of celebrations (and I recently got to fly in a chopper!)

The celebrations are truly amazing .  It starts with the sacrifice of a bull, which can be a bit gross and then all the important people jump over the bleeding cow. 

The State Governor jumping over the sacrificed bull

Next they are crowned with wreaths that are usually made from Christmas tree tinsel (the tinsel must come from China).  The celebrations are always elaborate, particularly in the villages with tribal dances, speeches, music, and singing.  Sometimes it can feel like a clash of civilizations as there will be men sitting there with spears, war paint, and giant feathers on their heads, while women will be wearing animal hides and beads.  In one village they told the people that we were coming so the women donned western bras and shower caps in addition to their traditional outfits.  

Usually the ceremony goes on for hours and afterwards we sit down for a communal meal of boiled goat and ugali that you eat with your hands.  I haven’t mastered how to eat gravy with my hands. 

One of the communities was called 'Hakuma Mafi', which in Arabic means ‘place of no government’ and it was notorious for cattle raiding and violence.  The valley situated between the Ioming, Chalamini and Ilieu villages located on neighboring hillsides was the scene of frequent conflict over access to water and grazing rights. 

The hillside - look closely you can see the tukuls (huts)

Our projects concentrated on bringing together village elders, the chiefs, local government, religious leaders and community members to talk and find local solutions to their security issues.  They decided that a police post was needed in the valley between the three villages to stop the conflict and cattle-raiding.  So we got the money from Canada, built a police posts as well as a borehole (place to get water), and trained new police officers.  

The community has been revitalize and at a recent ceremony of the police post where hundreds of members of the neighboring villages attended and there was talk of setting up a market, the Village Chief stated “‘Today we will call our land Hakuma Fi, a place of government, we are proud of this.  Since the police post has been built not one has died on this ground.”  I couldn’t help but think, wow, what a cool job that I have the opportunity to witness something that I could imagine reading in National Geographic.

My apologies that the photo quality is bad but the internet is very slow!