Too Cool or Tukuls

A refreshing breeze blew gently through the door of the Church. I was seated at Sunday mass just inside the door, positioned to take advantage of the air movement. This morning, I thought, was very mild and pleasant. It is never hard to claim my favourite spot near the door. Very few people arrive on time for mass – the Sudanese notion of time is very elastic - but by the end of mass, the Church is normally overflowing.

Well into this Eucharistic celebration, it suddenly occurred to me that the Church was not as full as usual and most of the congregation were men. ‘Where are the women and children?’ I whispered to Sr Betty who was next to me. ‘Too cool’ she suggested. The same day our guest for supper was Sudanese priest, Fr William. I asked him: ‘Where were all the women and children, today?’ ‘Tukuls’ he replied. ‘It will be like this from now until Christmas. They are busy repairing their tukuls.’

Life in Southern Sudan is seasonal. Everything has dried out after the rain and, with a wisdom learned down the ages, now is the time to garner grass, reeds, wood, sand, stones and clay – anything that helps with tukul reconstruction - home–making. Now many donkey-drawn carts are carrying bundles of collected branches, bamboo and grass, alongside other carts still bearing the precious drums of water on the back. By Christmas, all tukuls will be in full readiness to withstand the next wet season that inevitably begins in late April or May.

Here there is genuine, local knowledge about the cycle of nature: ‘When the winds begin to blow from the north, you know there will be no more rain’. Another stated expectation born from experience: ‘Today there are high clouds. So tomorrow will be windy’. How much more alert these people are to the cycles of nature than are those who live in big cities!

There was a new expatriate at Sunday mass. It is rare for any to be there other than those who are priests, brothers and sisters. After mass, Sr Ninet spoke to this ‘foreign’ man and discovered he was from Sri Lanka, only three days in the country, and very much missing his wife and ten year old son. She invited him back to our house for morning tea. Augustin, as he is called, is here for a six-month tour of duty as head of the NGO, (Non-Gov. Org.) World Vision, in Malakal. He told us World Vision employs 112 people in Malakal, of whom eleven are expatriates. Three are from Japan and the others apart from himself come from Kenya and Ethiopia.

A couple of days layer, Sr Ninet and I went to visit Augustin in his World Vision office. I was greatly impressed. To find this office, we drove up and down some very ‘rugged’ back streets. I say, ‘We drove.’ but at one stage Ninet went ahead on foot around the giant potholes and ditches in search of this office. We eventually found it. Although it is theoretically a through road, one end is rendered impassable by a huge open drainage ditch.

What was impressive about the World Vision Office? Was it a grand structure where projects are planned and the affairs of 112 employees are handled? No, it was impressive for its simplicity. No donor money wasted here! We sat on plastic chairs, brought out of offices to the bare concrete verandah, under a corrugated iron roof that shielded us from the direct rays of the sun. The offices themselves one would describe colloquially, as ‘not much better than a tin shed!’ The main storage room is a large tent. Other items such as tanks, drums, pipes and doors sit on bare earth. World Vision undertakes school construction and community building activities, especially in the areas of health and hygiene. It is also worth noting that World Vision perseveres with 101 Sudanese employees whereas many other groups bypass Sudanese because of a perceived ‘lack of a work ethic’ – which can be an unfortunate by-product of a sustained period of UN (United Nations) and NGO handouts.

Augustin joined us for the evening meal on Wednesday. Meeting him could be providential as we already have had some discussions elsewhere concerningpotential partnerships in the delivery of teacher training. Afterwards about 8:15pm, I drove Augustin back to his very modest hotel. This was a rare night-time glimpse of Malakal. There is a general curfew as from 10pm but the UN advises all expatriates to be inside and at home by 9pm. So we rarely venture out at night.

My impression had been that the people went to their tukuls after dark as most have no electricity. To my surprise, there were many people about, some sitting in groups under lights in front of shops and some walking, mostly in the same direction. I could see no obvious destination but then it dawned on me that they were not walking to any common event or place but more probably walking away from the shops and the lights where they had gathered to eat or talk.

Some roads seemed much busier than during the day – in some places almost transformed into pedestrian malls. The cool of the evening is utilised for social interaction. It had always seemed to me a little strange that the power generators are turned off during the day but operate from about 6:30pm to 5:00am. Maybe for security reasons I had thought. No doubt that is a factor but also the nightly power supply helps transform the end of hots days into pleasant evenings.

We ran out of water one evening this week – a break in our pipeline from our house to the Nile. We use river water for washing and sundry household purposes, but we boil it and filter it before using it for cooking. Each day we get a twenty-litre water bottle refilled with drinking water from the UN. If the supply runs low, I drive to the banks of the Nile where free, purified water flows from the taps of the French water-purification company, Solidarite/. All people bearing twenty-litre plastic cans or smaller are permitted to fill up there but not so the water vendors with their donkey-drawn carts. They take water directly from the Nile and sell their hundred litre load for 5 Sudanese pounds to people who need it. The seminarians buy two cartloads per day which costs them SDP 300 per month – about $120. There is an inadequate town supply that some are able to use, a dribble at a time.

Our house has normal toilets. Most people make do with ‘pit latrines’, large pits cemented over, each with a carefully designed opening at the top over which one can stand or squat. There is no flush system. It is an exercise in holding ones breath and hoping the basic operation can be completed before one is wafted away on the rising currents! I have decided I am too old and inflexible to utilise such conservation systems and do my strategic best to avoid them! They are commendable water savers –at an alternative environmental cost – but I think that is about their only virtue!

Regrettably, there is no systematic refuse disposal system. As a consequence, plastic bottles and other detritus litter the streets and drainage ditches. It is disturbing to see children playing among such debris, especially where slimy, green water fills some parts of the low-lying drains. Unfortunately, in this dusty, arid place, even stagnant water can be a magnet for children at play or washing. Such water also attracts snakes and scorpions, so adding to the hazard.

Yet around the tukuls, the earth is kept clear of all vegetation and the bare earth is swept meticulously clean. I think it is a safety measure learned from aeons of experience of this kind of subsistence living. Many tukuls have fences – probably to control the movements of sundry animals, domestic or wild, and to claim ownership. To purchase a tukul, and its compound, in Malakal, costs between SDP 15,000 and SDP 20,000 ($7,800), depending on location.