Village life

This blog is nearly a year overdue but little changes in the pattern of village life and I’d love to share a glimpse of it with you.

Deb off on an adventure!

Two days and nights with no family responsibilities/housework; time spent in the heart of a Mabaan community; time spent with my good friend Christiane and with people special to her; time away from the SIM compound… I’m not sure what I was most excited by/in need of as Christiane and I set off to Gasmallah on a Tuesday afternoon in late October 2009.

Christiane

Gasmallah is medium-sized village (1000 people?) one hour’s walk from Doro along the Sobat River. Christiane was staying there 4 days a week for her first year, in order to learn the Mabaan culture and language.

Views from Christiane's tent

Pastor James Huroon and his wife Ama treat her as one of their children and she has many good friends amongst the church family there.

Ama preparing coffee

The church folk all live together, eat together and worship together every evening. The village is a community where no-one is a stranger; individuals are known and cared for; decisions are made as a group; children are raised by the whole community (they call everyone by their first names, including their parents).
People are mostly subsistence farmers, there are few formal employment opportunities. Those who have completed secondary school are a small minority but they are there and some families have children now going through university in Khartoum, Juba, Malakal or overseas. UNICEF built a primary school in the village and it serves around 800 children. However it only has 3 or 4 teachers, all voluntary. Pastor James is one of these teachers and he is also the overseer of all the SIC (Sudan Interior Church) pastors in the county. Pastors in Sudan don’t receive a salary, nor do the voluntary teachers, so he also has to make time to tend his fields and so produce food for his family. He is an intelligent, funny and humble man and it is a privilege to know him.

Pastor James (wearing checked shirt) - the lady behind him is the wife of the chief in a neighbouring village

There is much sickness in the village and if you’re feeling really poorly then you have an hour’s walk to the clinic to look forward to! It is hoped that in the next few years SIM can open small Community Health Centres in villages such as Gasmallah, using Community Health Workers we have trained. They would have basic treatments at their disposal and would know when referral to the Doro ‘hospital’ is necessary.
The village has a borehole for water and is also by the river so it is fortunate in that respect. The children love to swim in the river and many people have to wade/swim across the river every day (to go to the market/clinic/visiting) because their village is on the other side and there is no bridge!

At the borehole
When Christiane and I went down to the river we found an elderly lady having a seizure on the river bank with a crowd of kids watching her. We were able to put her in the recovery position and with her until she came round and was OK to sit up. Twenty minutes later she was up and wading across the river back to her village! It is likely that this is not an unusual occurrence for her as she didn’t seem surprised or scared by it and the children said that she was a ‘funny lady’.
For the women, their day involves much physical labour – carrying water, sweeping, washing, working in the fields, gathering firewood – but they also enjoy sitting together and drinking tea and coffee – some things are the same wherever you are! Coffee beans are roasted on the fire and then pounded, along with root ginger, before being heaped into the traditional gourd coffee pot and boiled on the fire. The coffee is served in small cups/glasses which are at least half-full of sugar! As they sit, they chat, laugh and may make traditional Mabaan bead bracelets. Through Christiane they have been selling these to visiting SIM teams and this provides some much needed cash in the community.

Lydia making a bead bracelet

Falita serving coffee

Since this first visit I have been back to Gasmallah many times and each time their warm welcome and loving community refreshes and blesses me. They love to see Caleb and Bethanie too and the title picture on our blog shows us all on our way to visit to celebrate New Year’s Day together.