South Sudan Photo Essay

The following is a small selection of images I took during our time with the UN in the South Sudan Adjumani Refugee Camp. More photos can be seen here

This South Sudanese mother to be takes a moment to rest in the Maternity Health Clinic in Adjumani. After fleeing the war in her home country, this mother faces an uncertain future for herself and her baby. 

These children are holding their parents place in line for water at the Registration area for South Sudanese refugees

Waiting. At Adjumani Refugee Registration Camp

Each registered refugee family is given a 30x30ft plot of land to start their new life. They can choose to live here for the rest of their lives or to find accomodation elsewhere. The landscape is challenging and the tools provided minimal but resillience is a characteristic the Sudanese know all to well

100 people sleep inside these tents every night

Waiting for water can be an all day exercise 

Each day thousands of South Sudanese people line up their buckets/paint pails and bowls for food supplies

Adjumani Refugee Camp Transistion Centre

This mother and her children rest inside a tent provided by the UN

Children have an extraordinary ability to bring a smile despite unspeakable hardship

This South Sudanese girl is resting inside one of the UN tents provided to her and 99 others for sleeping each night

This South Sudanese grandma is standing on her 30x30ft plot of land. There is no men to build her home for her.

Adjumani Refugee Transistion Centre

Adjumani Refugee Transistion Centre

Tim and Carl from Tutapona are taken around the South Sudan refugee camp in Adjumani

A young South Sudanese refugee takes a moment outside the health centre in Adjumani

A slight Sudan change of plan

In the last week, Hels and I have been with some of the 36,000 South Sudanese Refugees currently pouring over the border into Uganda. It’s been an eye-opening experience as we see first-hand the realities of life for these victims of war.

It all started when a friend of ours who works for the UN invited us up to Adjumani on the border of South Sudan   Our drive north from Kampala towards South Sudan was along atrocious roads- it took us 10 hours to travel 448kms.  Every few minutes we passed isolated communities made up of half a dozen round mud huts with straw roofs.  Many of these villages were the sites of IDP camps from the days of Uganda’s civil war.  The people living out there are very poor.  The only connection with the outside world is the odd MTN (local mobile phone network) sign and an occasional rusty bodaboda (motorcycle).  Red dust covers everything and it’s extremely hot.  It is into this landscape the South Sudanese are fleeing. 

South Sudan, Africa’s newest nation is now the setting for Africa’s latest war.  The fighting is mostly between the two biggest tribal groups, the Dinka and Nuer who are each backing their political leaders.  For a good article with a more in-depth explanation of the causes of the conflict go here.

The fighting started just before Christmas and since then, there have been about 10,000 killed, mostly civilians.  Half a million more have been displaced.  Of the displaced some have left the borders of South Sudan where they’re being intercepted by the Ugandan army and UNHCR workers.  They are then put on trucks and sent to the registration centre outside the town of Adjumani.  We were told that 36,000 people have arrived there since Dec 16^th and hundreds more are arriving daily.  We felt so privileged to see the entire process live in action before us- from when a refugee arrives, to being registered, to the transition centre and finally the camp where they will live. Helen did a number of interviews on radio about it and you can listen to one of them here.  

On arrival we came across a mass of tents lining one side of the road and crowds of people sitting under trees.  We climbed an incomplete two storey, brick building to get a view of the surrounding countryside and the people living there.  A crowd of children followed us upstairs.  From this elevation we could see hundreds more tents, close packed, stretching back from the road.  We found out that these were the illegal refugees, people who had fled across the border but had not registered themselves with the UNHCR.  They’re still provided with tents and some basic facilities but cannot be processed and moved on until they’ve registered.  These asylum seekers were mostly sitting in any shade available.  All the while we were there the crowd of children around us grew.  For many of them we were the first white people they’d seen. 

Next we drove a few minutes up the road to the registration centre.  This area looked like a scene straight out of ‘Blood Diamond’.  Orderly lines of big UNHCR white tents are surrounded by tall barbed wire fences.  The one permanent building in the enclosure had a printed list of names stuck to a door of the refugees who have been granted a plot of land on which to settle.  A crowd of people were anxiously checking this list on a daily basis.  There are some basic facilities, but both toilets and water remain in short supply.  This shortage means that there are fears of a cholera outbreak when it next rains.  Wooden fences have been erected around food preparation areas to keep people out while men stirred barrel sized pots of rice over coal fires.   We looked inside some of the ‘100 person tents’ and saw no mattresses, just tarpaulins lining the parched ground.

We left the registration centre for the 

place the refugees are being settled ten kilometres down the road.  Formed on the 3^rd of January this is the newest refugee settlement in Uganda. To date 16,000 South Sudanese have been moved here.  Once this settlement is full they’ll start another one.  Each refugee family is given a plot of land (30ftx30ft) and some basic equipment such as gardening tools and plastic for roofing.  Then they are left to start a new life, permanently if they want to.  Again the quality of the land looked fairly terrible.  The vegetation has been burned off.  For now food is being supplied for these people too but the idea is that through time the quantity will diminish as the new community starts growing crops.  While we were visiting some of the women were complaining that they didn’t know how to build a house and had no men to help them.  There are very few men.  We had it explained to us that many of the men accompanied their families to the Ugandan border before leaving them to go back and protect their houses or to fight. The vast majority of these refugees are women and children.  Sadly, I don’t know how many of these families will be re-united. 

A few things stood out to me as I processed all of this:

Firstly I was struck by the idea that the refugees have nothing to do, especially before they are settled.  We saw them sitting in their tents or under trees, waiting.  Some were playing cards, some were cooking food on charcoal fires but most were doing very little.  I think boredom must be one of the hardest things for these people.  Some will be waiting like this for some months, maybe longer. The heat is intense, the land scorched and the people uncertain for what the future holds.

We were very impressed by the work being done by the aid agencies up there and the UN.  Refugees only started arriving a month ago and already many of them have been processed and moved to permanent refugee settlements.  A massive number of tents have been brought in and set up.  Food stations and water pumps are more or less keeping up with the demand- no small task.  The general feeling was one of relative calm not desperation or chaos. 

So what does all this mean for us and the organisation we work for?  At present Tutapona has a team delivering the trauma rehabilitation program in the region around Gulu to those who were traumatised by Uganda’s civil war, but not yet to these new refugees. After a lot of prayer and careful consideration - Helen and I are moving up to live in Adjumani in one weeks’ time. We’ll be based there until the end of February and are tasked with working with the Office of the Prime Minister, the settlement commander and the UN to set up Tutapona and get our program off the ground. We can’t wait!

One week in - by Tim Manson

We finally touched down in Kampala a week ago. It feels like it’s been a long time in the planning so it’s great to be back. Despite three years having passed since our first taste of life in Uganda, it is very familiar. The culture shock is not quite the same second time around but there is still some mental adjustment needed on our part. One of the biggest areas is the way we look at time. At home we would service a car around work hours. After dropping it off in the morning we would take a courtesy car to work before collecting our car at the end of the day. All up the disruption to our usual routine might be little more than half an hour.

Carl (the director of Tutapona) purchased a car for Tutapona which Helen and I will be using for the year. I’m quite excited about it. It’s a former UN Toyota Land Cruiser that seats 9 with a 4.2l diesel engine. It’s the no-frills version. No central locking, electric windows or aircon. The glove box is made of steel- because apparently plastic just doesn’t cut it. It is the manliest car I’ve ever driven (and remember I drive a Wingroad in NZ). Before we start using it Carl decided to get the vehicle serviced. Here’s how it has played out:

Step 1- Carl calls his mechanic Godfrey first thing in the morning yesterday. His phone is off

Step 2- We drive to the mechanic’s shop. The boys there tell us: “Godfrey is not here.”

Step 3- Carl texts Godfrey

Step 4- Two hours pass

Step 5- Around the middle of the day we link up and Godfrey arranges to get the car

Step 6- Godfrey arrives at the house later in the day and takes the car

Step 7- We wait… maybe one day, maybe three

This fairly simple job really was quite the process over here. One small example of the way things work. A phrase we're getting used to hearing is- “It will take some time.”

The flip side of this of course is that people are much more relational than we’re used to. On the weekend Hels and I went back to the village we worked at in 2010. Many of the kids were still there so we spent the day catching up. One of the boys I know well informed me that last time I was here he had failed to take a game of chess off me but “if you have time I can show you I have improved some.” True to his word he made quite short work of me. Another boy commented that I am looking smaller than last time. “If you join us for a game of rugby, I will knock you.” Trash-talk Ugandan style.

 In short, we love being here. Carl and Julie have looked after us amazingly well. We’ve got underway with our Tutapona work and the more we learn, the more passionate we’re becoming about this organisation. Next week we’ll head off to northern Uganda and see the trauma rehabilitation work in action. More on that soon.

Tim

Wipe Away their Tears

A few months ago I was in Sri Lanka with TEAR Fund gathering images and stories for our upcoming Summer Campaign. I took our incredible film company, Exposure with me and they made this beautiful 4 minute film. Here is a quick blog on my reflections during our time there.

With its sunny skies, swaying coconut trees and luscious palms it’s easy to see Sri Lanka for what it looks like - beautiful beaches, fertile surrounds and soaring temperatures. But beneath the surface one finds a land recovering from a 25-year civil war that has left an indelible mark upon its people. My first briefing was with our programmes officer who plonked a map on the table, followed by a land mine. That was a conversation starter.

The civil war, fought between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and the government troops, took the lives of over 70,000 people and displaced more than 280,000*. The LTTE were fighting to establish a separate state in the north.

On August 22, we headed into the north of Sri Lanka with TEAR Fund’s partner, World Concern. We handed over our passports at the check point and after the security procedures were complete, made the 1.5 hour trip into what was the centre of the war zone a mere four years earlier. As I looked out the car window with land mine fields, burnt-out buildings, and bullet holes filling every blink; my heart sank. How had I missed this?

 We arrived at the home of a farmer and his family. Outside their house there was a massive hole about four metres in circumference in the ground. He told us it was from a bombshell. The trees in front of his home were riddled with bullet holes and his former home was a pile of rubble. He told me, “My wife and I were forced to flee our home due to the war, 11 days after our first child was born. I took everything I could physically carry. Both my mother in-law and my brother died. Because we had little food to eat, my wife was unable to breastfeed our daughter. I had to take out a loan of US $100 and give a pint of my blood to buy 400gms of milk powder. We moved 25 times before we finally settled at the refugee camp. I saw shell attacks and plenty of bombing and thought I would die.  When we were told we could finally re-settle, I couldn’t even get to the road to reach my land. Even though our situation is improving, I still believe I will never have a good future. My only hope is my children’s future. I do not feel safe. I wish I could leave.” 

Later that day we drove through the place where the majority of the war was concentrated. As you look out the window all you can see is houses, libraries, orphanages, businesses and buildings that are nothing but a taunting reminder of the aftermath of a war that ended in 2009. Bullet holes still riddle everything from concrete to palm trees. Abandoned ruins line the streets. The silence and stillness as people carry out their lives amidst this backdrop, palatable and haunting. It was as if they were frightened to see who or what was passing by.

We finished our day in silence. Standing on the beach where the war was reported to have come to its bloody end. Digging my toes into the warm sand and watching the sunset felt surreal. Here it was widely reported by international press that over 20,000 people lost their lives in a ‘safe zone’.* I can’t even begin to describe how I felt driving away in my air-conditioned car to the safety of my motel an hour and a half away from the war zone these resilient people call home.

For these people, I have no deeply satisfying answers. I can’t see justice on the horizon for them. But I can see the first ray of hope. Justice is God’s and he promises this life is not the end. When I came home I was so deeply moved by the time I spent in Sri Lanka that I spent hours ‘debriefing’ with my husband. You know it’s an important conversation when your 6’1 hunter gatherer of a man has tears running down his cheeks. Of course, that set me off.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the scene in the Book of Esther where Mordecai is outside the gates of the palace pleading for Queen Esther to save her people. We too could have been the ones outside the gate. This ‘accident of latitude’ means we could have been the ones born into war, raped for profit or starving.

This Christmas, TEAR Fund is doing all we can for these people. Our campaign, Wipe Away their Tears is our opportunity to declare God’s promise in Revelations 21: “He’ll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone.” May your kingdom come.

*"LTTE defeated; Sri Lanka liberated from terror".Ministry of Defence. 18 May 2009. Retrieved 18 May 2009.
* "Slaughter in Sri Lanka". London: The Times. 29 May 2009. Retrieved 29 May 2009.

Long may the adventure continue...

It is with great excitement that I write tonight. Tim and I are moving back to live in Uganda! This time we’re going for a year and we’ll be living in a town called Mbarara about four hours South West of the capital Kampala. We’ll be volunteering with our friends Carl and Julie Gaede and their newly formed organisation, Tutapona  Karl and Julie Gaede are both trained psychologists that felt God’s calling on their lives to work with those most traumatized by war and violence.  While the UN and World Food Program are taking care of the immediate needs for many refugees and former child soldiers, Karl and Julie set up a not for profit organisation called Tutapona that provides trauma rehabilitation services to victims of rape, mutilation, abduction, former child soldiers, and anyone affected by the horror of war. We think they’re awesome and so we’re going to join them on January 7^th.  

 

Tutapona trains local Ugandans to deliver their trauma rehabilitation program and they’ve just been given permission by the Ugandan government and UNHCR to work in every refugee camp in the country. Their next program is set to open in the largest refugee camp in central Africa, Nakivale, Uganda. This camp has been serving displaced people for decades. It’s home to 70,000 refugees from upwards of 10 African countries, including Congo, Rwanda, Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia.

With an opportunity that big, their organisation needs some serious man power to get to the next level. That’s where we come in.  Many of you will know that we’ve recently settled into life here in New Zealand by purchasing our first home, securing stable, secure jobs that we adore, and building up relationships with our incredible friends and family after living overseas in Dubai and Africa. It sure didn’t seem like perfect timing to be making another international move. BUT, that’s just our human understanding. God’s thinking is much bigger, and always better than ours. The ways he has shown us that this is where we need to be blow us away - everyday. More on that later. Meanwhile, I made the decision to accept the role reluctantly as I LOVE my job at TEAR Fund (and that’s an understatement).  In the end our decision was made based on our strong sense that God was calling us back to Uganda to work for him, to help our friends out and to trust him to take care of the details.   

Tim will be doing teacher training with the guys who have been delivering the programme and may be involved in some delivery as well. I will be helping them with their marketing and communication needs as well as staying connected to everything we do at TEAR Fund through a contracting capacity. On the ground and in the field experience is priceless and only helps us become better at our jobs, more empathetic to the cause and more passionate about why we do what we do. Both of our jobs have ever so graciously given us this time as a sabbatical and we are so grateful! We’ll be back in November ready to start back at our jobs and excited for the next season.

There was a quote I mulled over a lot before I sat down with Tim to give him my verdict on his grand decision to move our lives again. Mother Teresa said, “Love has a hem to her garment that reaches the very dust. It sweeps the streets and the lanes and because it can it must.” For me it was simple. Because I can, I must.  We can’t wait to get stuck in.

We’ll be blogging about our time in Uganda right here on this blog and would love you to join us! Feel free to comment and ask questions, we love hearing from you!

Long may the adventure continue,

Love Helen and Tim xo

 

 

 

 

Our favourite quote...

Kolkutta, India

Our favourite quote at the moment has to be from Mr. Theodore Roosevelt.. "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."