Mid-December musings

The absolute best case scenario in Jamam is that the new site that UNHCR have chosen is cleared of UXO and declared safe for refugees to resettle. They will then start demarcating the site into plots, blocks and communities into which to organise people. They’re talking about establishing a temporary ‘holding area’ in the new site before demarcation is complete, to ‘put’ refugees trucked/bussed in from Al Fuj (which will occur once the site has been cleared) and moved from the Jamam site.

But what really worries me is that UNHCR don’t seem to have a ‘Plan B’ – in the worst case scenario where the new site is found to contain too many dangerous UXOs to clear, or is unsuitable for any other reason. Where are they going to put all these people if this happens? A huge area around us was a battlefield during the war, so the chances of finding UXOs in the new site are high. MineTech can come in and clear them all but this will take some time. In the meantime the situation for people continues to get worse.

If there is significant delay from NPA/UNHCR, or the assessment is found to be unfavourable, then we will look at providing remote access to water from outside the new site to minimise the public health risk to the current refugees. However this also carries a risk – if the area from where we provide water has not been assessed by a mine action organisation, and also contains UXO, then people are at risk.

So, what’s the plan from here? 

We have a borehole in our compound that we can hook up to a water yard and tap stand outside the fence for them to access. We’re doing a pump test to determine the borehole yield so we know how much water we have to play with. We’ve spoken with the host community (Jamam town) to confirm that they will share their water sources with the community – in return for us rehabilitating their two non-operational boreholes and repairing the one with a water yard and diesel pump.

We have asked MineTech to come and clear the site for the tap stand to be placed, and also the route that the refugees use when collecting water from the tap stand, the haffir and boreholes in Jamam town. It’s also important that this is done because Oxfam staff, when going into the current refugee site to liaise with the community, need a safe route free from UXO. We’re also getting them to double check our compound! Nothing like working in an old battlefield...

What I’m still not clear about is how soon refugees will take to arrive once the site is cleared; UNHCR said they would begin moving refugees from Al Fuj immediately after this occurred, and also from the Jamam site. We also don’t know how long demarcation will take once the site is cleared and therefore how long refugees will be held in a ‘holding area’ in the new site.

I’m just crossing my fingers that NPA will successfully clear the new Jamam site of all UXO, UNHCR can get in there ASAP to set things up, and then we can then start drilling testing to determine water availability. They can then direct us where the boreholes should be placed; and people will be able to start being trucked from the border – and possibly even moved from the existing site next to us. I still don’t think they’ll move, though if there are food distributions, medical assistance, safe water and some of their own people in the new camp, maybe they will.

In any case, we’ve still got a lot of work to do just to provide emergency water for the refugees camped on our doorstep. But at least its something we can get in there and do, and see results quickly. We just need everyone else to play their part, and hopefully we can help these people – which is what we’re here for.

I departed Jamam yesterday with a mix of emotions – firstly, a heavy heart that I was leaving and that I wasn’t going to be involved in activities until my next visit, that things were progressing and I wasn’t part of it, and that a number of my colleagues were sacrificing their Christmases to stay and work. But on the other hand, I felt some relief to be getting out of there. I was exhausted after only 6 days there; the 6 hour bumpy journey to reach Jamam, the 4 hour return journey from Bounj, the long hot days in the sun, daily team meetings at 6pm and again at 8am the next day, the continual ups and downs and frustrations of not knowing what’s going on, together with a limited diet and sleeping in tents all combine to make Jamam a very tiring place to be. 

And lastly, I had Christmas to look forward to.

Doing some digging

We spent today in focus group discussions with the refugee leaders and separate women’s and mens’ sessions to find out their situation and needs. We first met with the refugee Chiefs and sub-Chiefs (who all brought their own personal bodyguards!) and then spoke to about 60 women in a big group (it started small but then grew too big, but everyone wanted to participate). My Arabic wasn't the best to begin with, and it's no better now, but we got some good info.

What we learned in terms of water was that the refugees are accessing a haffir (a big pond built for cattle) for their drinking water, which is incredibly dirty and muddy, green from algae and quickly drying up due to hot weather. Another twist in the saga is that a passing nomadic Arab tribe, the Felata, are paying the host community to access the haffir for their cows. So they’ve added extra competition to a rapidly dwindling resource. Basically, the refugees are drinking contaminated water and its giving everyone diarrhoea. It's a terrible situation.

To compound the problem, the water issue is difficult. The host community has three boreholes (handpumps), two of which are broken/dismantled, and they therefore don't have enough for themselves. So naturally they don’t want to share it.

But the issue is of their own making. The Jamam community has refused to repair their boreholes over the last few months, even though we’ve trained pump mechanics and given them tools to do it. There is a feud about payment of the mechanics by the community – the Chief himself even told people not to collect money because Oxfam should come and fix it for them. The other borehole, which has a water yard and a pump attached to it, is also not operating.  The oil company PetroDar donated fuel for the community to use in the pump, who subsequently sold half of it, and when it ran out they refused to buy more. Plus they won’t even repair small parts of the pump, like the filter, which is currently the only other hindrance to use of this system. So much for long-term sustainability of water points! This community is really stubborn. So of course they are willing to share their water. It means someone comes to fix the boreholes for them. 

As for food, people don’t have the money nor the means to find it – there isn’t much around for the host community as it is. There is a real lack of food here in this little centre. As for a clinic – i don’t know what will happen with this, but someone (hint hint, MSF) needs to either set up something here, or visit regularly with a mobile clinic. I’m hoping they can send some medical expertise in soon because there are some very sick people here.

We had a Commissioner’s representative for the refugees come into our compound today, yelling and screaming about why Oxfam doesn’t repatriate critically ill people to the clinic in Doro. I think we should, but it would start a landslide of desperate people at our door, which we can’t sustain. So when we put him onto our Thuraya sat phone to the Commissioner in Doro, a car arrived within 2 hours to ferry the sick people to the clinic. Thank goodness.

Security is also an issue for them. There is a SPLA military barracks not far away, and there are soldiers moving up and down past the refugee camp and our compound. We also have ongoing security concerns about these guys because they’re always drunk when returning to their barracks from town, and they bother the refugee communities by making lots of noise and entering their houses uninvited in the evenings. The military police have to round them up every night.

As for progress in Doro, frustrations abound there too. Our drilling rig has hit rock at 24m in the first attempt, and at 22m on the second, and is now out of temporary casings to undertake further drilling. We are trying to mobilise resources to begin drilling a third site, in a completely new area that will hopefully yield water. The problem with this is that until its activities in Doro are completed, our drilling rig will be further delayed from reaching Jamam. In the meantime we're trying to get the parts to fix another one in our compound, but it seems like we don't have the complete kit to do it.

So things are slowly coming together, at least in terms of understanding the needs of the Jamam community and what we can do about it. We must finish providing water to people in Doro first with the drilling rig, but in the meantime we need to provide water as quickly as possible to these people in Jamam.

An (angry) update on the situation

I’m especially annoyed tonight because we’ve discovered that UNHCR have completely panicked. They suddenly realised (despite having been informed some time ago) that there is unexploded ordinance (UXO – or bullet casings, remnants of other ammunition, bombs etc) on the site that the Jamam refugees have settled. “Why didn’t you tell us?!” – indignantly. We did. We had. They didn’t listen.

The authorities have claimed the site to be safe, and it is the best site for miles around because it doesn’t get flooded during the rainy season – but there have been some minor incidences of people being injured due to UXO being set off by the host community burning grass, or refugees making fire. It’s a bit scary, considering our compound is right next door. Where the refugees have settled used to be a military barracks, which is why the UXO is there, and the broader area was a battleground during the war.

We already knew about the presence of UXO, and had informed UNHCR of the reported accidents when they happened. MineTech, a mine clearance organisation, had even come to the site and cleared it of any surface UXO they could find (they found 45 items). The problem is that UXO can be under the ground and may be set off by people unknowingly walking on it, or by setting fire to the grass which makes it explode, or by digging – even kids discovering curious metallic objects is dangerous, because they can trigger them to explode if they play with them or hit them with other objects. 

So this is the reason UNHCR are dithering about establishing the site in Jamam. They’ve had to work out what to do now that they don’t believe they should set up a camp on a site with UXO. Fair enough. But why didn’t they tell us earlier? Why don’t they get MineTech to come and clear the UXO from around people’s homes?  

What they have decided is to move people to a new site, about 1km up the road from our compound.  They have marked it out, got permission from the authorities to use it, and are currently organising for NPA to come in and assess it, given that it may also have UXO on it. More delays while they assess and clear the site.  Plus this site floods during the rainy season. Nice. Why not put suffering people into a place that will turn into a swamp in a few months’ time?

Regardless of a new site, I don’t actually believe that the refugees already in Jamam will want to move. They have been running from the bombing for four months. They are already weak from lack of food and water, and sickness such as diarrhoea. They continue to become weaker and weaker from continued lack of food & water and ongoing sickness due to drinking contaminated water. I completely don’t blame them if they don’t want to move.

Anyway, there are 4,000 people sitting outside our compound with nothing, and we aren’t doing anything to assist them – and neither is anyone else – because everyone is only just starting to get their shit together in Doro. It seems that the people in Jamam have been largely ignored – because they are not in an official refugee camp.

The key reason the Jamam refugees are being ignored is because UNHCR have stated that they will provide no assistance to them. Distributing food, providing water or medical assistance would encourage them to stay in their current location, which is unsafe due to the presence of UXOs, and UNHCR do not want to be held responsible should any accidents occur on the site. They’ve also advised that we shouldn’t provide any assistance to the refugees either.

But how can we sit by and watch people suffer when we have the means to assist them? Risk or no risk to the organisation, these people really need help. So, regardless of what UNHCR advise, we are still going to provide emergency water to them. They are people in a dire situation. We have to assist.

Frustration Frustration Frustration!

We visited the camp in Doro today – the first one I’ve ever been to. An old waystation marks the entrance to the camp, where UNHCR, when they eventually turn up again, will resume registering new arrivals. The MSF clinic is also near the entrance. In the meantime, hundreds of people have amassed outside, hoping that someone will come and take them in. Jerry cans stretch for almost one hundred metres from the two nearby boreholes and women report waiting for up to six hours just to get water. It does look however like WFP will soon start distributing food, as there were workers unloading sacks of sorghum from UN trucks into their warehouses at the old waystation, and the Oxfam drilling team was on the ground and preparing to sink the first borehole.

The camp is a hot, dry, dusty place with a lot of people wandering around with nothing to do. I should point out that it’s the men and children that seem to be wandering around; the women are working hard, all day, as usual, mostly on their way to collect water. People have really set up makeshift homes with whatever they were able to carry or find locally. Interestingly, the main tribe of people there had thrown together ramshackle homes that really did look temporary, but the small group of resettled Maban people were more organised, having built proper homes with wood and grass, and even constructed bathing shelters for themselves.

We had gone to meet with the community about future hygiene promotion sessions and to establish who the community volunteers were, but our plans were spoiled by immunisations of refugees by the medical personnel. The first disappointment soon grew into frustration as more and more plans were sidetracked for various reasons over the next few days. We spent a lot of time moving up and down between Jamam and Doro, meeting with authorities, missing chances to meet with other organisations and finding out very little information. When you’ve seen people suffering in a place like Doro, and hardly anything is happening on the ground, it’s difficult to deal with.

So I’ve been getting more and more frustrated with the whole thing, mainly because we are in such an information limbo and cannot seem to make any concrete decisions about a way forward. 

What I’m also finding difficult, and confusing, is that I’m here to assist with our longer-term Public Health activities. We are still doing them, but our attention has been diverted due to this emergency. We have an Emergency Preparedness and Response (EP&R) team that is mobilised for these kinds of situations, so they are co-ordinating everything; but they are also borrowing our PH staff to assist. I’d not been involved in the discussions on the response prior to arriving, so my knowledge is pretty basic – but I’m here, and I want to help, even though it’s not really my role – and there is already a PHP leader within the EP&R team. 

But I would really like to get involved in this; because I find it interesting, because I want to learn and most importantly I’d like to be part of the response. I may just have to find a way to get involved during my short week here and skive off from my long-term program responsibilities for a couple of days... just for a few days before I leave for Malakal again. It’s too much of a good opportunity to give up.

Back to Jamam ... and smack bang in the middle of an emergency response

So, the bombing in the border region of Blue Nile (Sudan) and Upper Nile (South Sudan) states continues, which means that thousands of people are getting the hell out of there. Understandably. And coming here.

Bounj, the capital of Maban county where we are implementing Public Health and Livelihoods programs, is the destination to which these people are fleeing. They come with almost nothing; whatever they could grab at the time, whatever they can carry – plus their children, their old people, their sick and disabled people.

So when they arrive, they need the basics. They need clean water, sanitation, shelter and food. And unfortunately for them, because the humanitarian response is typically slow, they don’t get a lot of these things for some time. When you run away from your home with nothing but the clothes on your back, setting up a new ‘home’ in the open bush with no facilities and nothing to support you – perhaps not even anything to cut wood with to build a rickety shelter  – means that your situation is, to put it bluntly, F$CKED. To then not receive any help from anyone for weeks, maybe months, is even worse. Especially when these agencies (us included) are all in country and are supposed to be experts at responses like this.

Oxfam’s cause wasn’t helped by the mother of all f$ck-ups that was the decision to completely evacuate all of our staff from Jamam when the bombings first started. It meant that before we could send anyone back in to respond to the refugees, we had to send a regional security team to assess the situation and then mobilise everyone that had been sent ‘on leave’ from Juba. It involved about 3 weeks of downtime, and then a mad rush to organise charter planes and vehicle movement plans once we got the go-ahead to go back in. And it took quite a while to get everyone here.

In the meantime, while we were running away, the refugees were coming, and other organisations were moving to where we’d come from, coming to assist people that needed it. We looked bloody stupid.

So now we have to redeem ourselves. And now that I’m here, and have been briefed on the situation, I know that we have a good opportunity to do just that; mainly because of the complete dog’s breakfast of a situation on the ground. IOM (a UN-affiliated agency), UNHCR (the UN refugee agency, as their advertising so proudly states), GOAL (an Irish NGO) and Medecins Sans Frontier (MSF) are on the ground. But nothing has been done. Everyone’s confused about what UNHCR and IOM are doing because they’ve stated they’ll basically lead this response, but have subsequently disappeared off the face of the earth. So when we want to come in and support the response with our own activities, we find no-one here to update us on the situation, or share what they’re doing. So we have to try and ‘coordinate’ our response with very little information, and work out what role we should play. 

In essence, UNHCR have set up a camp in Doro, a town just outside Bounj, to cater for around 35,000 Sudanese refugees and South Sudanese Internally Displaced People (IDPs) fleeing fighting in Blue Nile State. That’s a LOT. Sure, it’s not Dadaab camp in Kenya, but it’s a big number of arrivals to respond to.

But right next to our compound, people have also arrived. The local authorities allowed them to settle here, and they have already built new houses out of local materials and even started digging their own latrines. UNHCR had apparently planned to officially set up (ie demarcate land and organise people) an official camp next to us, and start registering arrivals. Apparently it’s going to cater for 45,000 people. Four thousand are already here.

UNHCR have informed us that in the next few weeks, they are going to start sending people in buses and trucks from a town on the border call Al Fuj to Jamam, where there are around 35,000 people trying to get away from the bombing & fighting.

So, right on our doorstep we are going to have a refugee camp. And we are the only agency within cooee of here. Bounj, where the major response and all the NGOs are, is only about 65km away, but it’s a two hour journey on a shite road. So, Oxfam, it’s time to pull up your socks and do something about the situation in your own backyard. We are a WASH organisation after all, so we need to take the lead on water, sanitation and hygiene promotion.

Food – well, normally this is the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) responsibility and we can really only advocate for them to assist. It really depends on how organised they are (and at this stage I’m not holding my breath). Medical assistance – this is MSF’s game. Unfortunately everyone is focused on Doro at the moment. Sanitation seems to be covered by MSF, who is building 25 public latrines, and IOM has pledged to build 3,000 household latrines (lofty ambitions – and an interesting choice for a refugee camp).

Everyone also seems to think that as well as doing WASH in Doro, that we’ll take complete responsibility for Jamam – because it’s right next door; which is fine by us, as long as we’re supported in the areas in which we don’t have the expertise.

So, it seems that the plan is this. In terms of responding in Doro, we will initially assist with water and hygiene promotion, and then when the other organisations come on-line, scale back things there and focus purely on Jamam. While they don’t seem to be anywhere in sight, UNHCR should be registering newly arrived refugees and allocating them places to ‘live’; MSF have set up a clinic; GOAL are planning on hygiene promotion; IOM/MSF are building toilets and WFP is distributing food. 

In the absence of any reliable information or people to meet with, we’ve decided to focus on what we do best –WASH. We plan to undertake hygiene promotion activities in the camp initially, because its needed, it’s something we can do with very few resources, and GOAL aren’t on the ground yet. Even though it’s not a ‘tangible’ activity – as in it doesn’t involve building anything  - hygiene promotion is an essential activity in a crowded environment like a refugee camp. People are living in unhygienic conditions; they’re having to shit and throw their rubbish near their homes, and don’t have the water – nor the habit – to wash their hands. It’s the perfect environment for cholera, typhoid, and most commonly, diarrhoea. An uncommon and trivial problem for the majority of us, diarrhoea kills more children around the world every year than any other disease. Compound this problem by sticking a whole bunch of people into a small area with no facilities, and voila! You have a major problem. But it’s so simple to prevent! Can you imagine?

When it comes to water, we are the only ones with a drilling rig, so it’s essential that we put it to good use. We already have a technical team on the ground in Doro to drill two new boreholes, and rehabilitate three others. We’ll build water yards (which are basically large rainwater tanks on platforms where water is pumped) and attach tap stands to the tanks so that multiple people can take water. 

The team is ready to start drilling – as soon as UNHCR get their shit together and organise the camp properly. We’d done some initial community consultation and mapping to determine where the new boreholes should be drilled. But then we got word that UNHCR, despite their absence in the last week, were on their way back to demarcate the existing refugees, who had set up in the demarcated camp area, into more orderly sectors. This then affects the work we’d done on siting the boreholes in the most appropriate and equitable places to meet demand. Hopefully we don’t have to move them, but if the new camp layout means the boreholes aren’t in the right place, we’ll do the process again and make sure that the locations don’t cause conflict amongst the refugees.

Once this is done, we plan to move our rig to Jamam and drill two new boreholes in the Jamam camp to cater for those arriving soon.

All these plans could change however, depending on what information we can glean from other organisations, and especially if UNHCR emerge somewhere, and hopefully soon.  

So tomorrow is the key. We are sending a team to Bounj try and find out what is going on with UNHCR. We’ll try and meet with GOAL, suss out their plans, find out who their already-identified community volunteers are, and start involving them in Hygiene Promotion activities in the camp. GOAL have said they can have staff on the ground to do this within a week, but so far nothing has happened in this department – so we want to support the volunteers until GOAL can effectively do it. Then we’ll focus on Jamam.  GOAL have also said that they can’t get an emergency response team on the ground until about a month’s time, so in the meantime it’s up to us. The timing of Christmas doesn’t help our plans either.

We’ll do a reccie of the land around our compound, and talk to the refugee community, to determine the water and sanitation situation and needs of the people there, so we can target and plan our response for them.

We also have a barge on its way down the Nile with supplies of timber, pipes, hygiene promotion materials, plastic sheeting, submersible pumps, generators, you name it. 23 tonnes of materials and equipment for us to provide emergency water and shelter, build emergency pit latrines and bathing shelters, and carry out hygiene promotion activities. By the time it arrives, hopefully we’ll have a much better idea of where we should use these materials.

So, lots to do! Let’s see what happens tomorrow.

Time out

Given the "in limbo" status of everyone from Upper Nile, I figured it was as good a time as any to get out on my R&R. So, I booked myself on a flight to Kampala for a week's break. I didn't really feel like I deserved it yet, having only been here for 2 months, nor did I feel tired enough to need a break, but that's what we're allowed and in hindsight, it was a timely break.

I spent a few days in Kampala, checking out old Kampala again. I'd returned to my favourite guesthouse, Tuhende Safari Lodge, which was close to everything and allowed me to stroll into new Kampala and look around there too. On my previous visits I hadn't spent any time there, and my perception of Uganda's capital took a turn for the better within the new part of the city and it's modern shopping centres, wide, tree-lined and less chaotic streets, green parks, business people on their way to meetings, and general orderliness.What was a bit unnerving though was the presence of the military police, who were strategically located around new and old Kampala in case of further flare ups of violence. Just prior to my visit there had been protests throughout the city due to ongoing power shortages and black outs.

Despite this, I was certainly getting into relaxed mode due to the presence of my friend Rachael and her partner T, who were also spending a week of R&R in Kampala. They invited me to spend time with them in the Kampala Serena Hotel, which is one of Kampala's biggest 5-star hotels. Nothing like a bit of luxury in a chaotic city! They were even kind enough to shout me a night's accommodation there. Sitting by the pool, sipping G&Ts, leisurely breakfasts and lazing around were activities I hadn't anticipated, but they were certainly welcome! It was nice to have a splash of normality again after being in the field.

I also spent some time with my friend Dutch, a Ugandan I'd met on my last visit, and he showed me around his neighbourhood and took me down to one of the urban 'beaches' on the bank of Lake Victoria. The lake is certainly a playground for those in Kampala who are able to afford the time off - and the good life. The best beaches are said to be in Entebbe, an hour south west of Kampala, the site of the airport and botanic gardens, but I had a destination in mind, in the opposite direction - Jinja.

World-renowned source of the Nile, the town of Jinja straddles Lake Victoria, and is home to a number of huge dams and hydro-electric power plants that supply a majority of Uganda's electricity. While there I checked out the latest addition to the collection, a brand new dam downstream of Jinja town that has caused flooding of upstream areas, moving of people, and submergence of popular natural attractions such as the Bujagali Falls. The upside of all of this environmental vandalism is that the dam and its electrical infrastructure is meant to provide a solution to the power shortages Uganda regularly experiences... if they don't sell off all the power to Kenya, that is. To my knowledge this is one of the main reasons they're experiencing power shortages in the first place.

After a couple of relaxing days by the river in Jinja I headed back to Kampala via the Mabira Forest Reserve, a protected area of beautiful secondary rainforest straddling the Jinja-Kampala road, and spent a few hours wandering around the muddy tracks of the forest, trying to spot the red-tailed colobus monkeys eluding me in the canopy above.

It had been a short week, but I realised afterwards that it was definitely needed. I returned to Juba feeling rather relaxed ... and keen to catch up with the crew again in Rumbek. Oh, and do some work too.

How not to be evacuated

On the third day in Bounj, while eating lunch, we heard and saw a small white plane flying over us. Everyone turned their attention to it, and there was much uneasy discussion about the aircraft – and one work we regularly heard was ‘antonov’. This type of aircraft is well known to people in this border region, as it is used by the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) – and rightly so, they are scared of them. There have been ongoing reports of unrest on the border with Sudan, and in the early morning we had heard the faint but clear, thudding sounds of bombs exploding. The Sudanese President Al-Bashir had also reportedly entered South Sudan unannounced to celebrate Eid ul-Fitri, the end of Ramadan, with some of his troops, a very provocative political move. So we knew that the security situation on the border was changing, and quickly. 

But what we didn’t expect was that around half an hour after sighting the plane, we would again hear the sounds of bombs exploding. The antonov we had seen had dropped them off into the distance somewhere, and we could see and feel a change in the atmosphere of the normally relaxed and bustling environment of Bounj. People were still going about their daily business, but they had worried looks on their faces and the hustle and bustle had reduced to quiet comings and goings.

We carried out our activities as usual for the remainder of the day, and returned to our base. Early the next morning, while I was deep in slumber, others in our camp were awake and hearing more bombings from as early as 4am. They continued until 6am.

Our program manager called us together for an early morning meeting – an unusual occurrence in Jamam – and quietly informed us that the decision had been made to evacuate the entire compound and return to Malakal, via Melut. The safety of Oxfam staff was paramount and therefore it was important that we get away now. We were instructed to gather our things, put them into the Landcruiser, and be ready to go within the hour.

Now when I think of an evacuation, images are conjured up in my mind of frantic rushing around, hurriedly gathering what you can, stuffing it into your bag and running for the car which then cruises off into the horizon, wheels spinning. But this was a more reserved, composed gathering of belongings and setting off on the bumpy road to Melut.

I also found it quite peculiar that we were being evacuated in this scenario. Sure, the shit was hitting the fan on the Blue Nile (Sudan) – Upper Nile (South Sudan) border, but that was 40km away from Bounj. There were soldiers moving up and down past our compound every day, to and from town, but there was no immediate threat to our staff. I guess the antonov could easily start bombing Bounj, or any of the villages around it in which we we work, but that would be another provocative move; or the frontline could be pushed back to Bounj, if SAF took over South Sudanese territory, and therefore put us in a war zone. The only other reason I could think of was that the road from Jamam to Bounj and on to the border was the only road in – and out. So, if this road was blocked for any reason, we would be trapped between the frontline and the road blockage.

From my point of view, it would have been wiser to remain in the Jamam base – avoiding travel and activities in Bounj – and assess the situation over a few days. Then we could monitor whether the bombing continued and determine whether to stay or go. It seemed like a very hasty decision to me. 

Regardless, the decision had been made, and we set off toward Melut, one group of us in the Landcruiser and the other in the ute. An hour down the road we saw a strange sight – a couple of trucks, sitting side by side on the road. When we reached them we realised that it wasn’t just two – it was around ten trucks, lined up behind each other (the trucks go marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah) and completely blocking the road. On closer inspection we realised that one truck at the very front was stuck in a mud hole, and another next to it was also stuck – clearly as a result of trying to get around the first one. The other trucks had simply been lined up behind them, and their drivers had abandoned the vehicles.

This was a problem for us because it meant we couldn’t pass them and continue on our way to Melut. Our options were to either drive through the swamp – the road was surrounded by water – or turn back. The former was chosen given the situation with trying to leave (!) so we spent the next 2 hours trying to fill in the swamp and the deep tyre tracks of others who had attempted to drive around the trucks, even cutting down trees for our vehicles to drive over. Eventually, we managed to get out and continue on our way. Phew!

 

The remainder of the trip is a bit of a blur – lots of bumpy travel on dry, dusty roads; passing burned areas of bush;  our approaching Landcruiser disturbing large flocks of black storks and herons camping out in the road; open plains and big sky; dusty villages; military checkpoints. And oil fields.  Lots of oil fields. 

This part of South Sudan is one of the biggest producers of oil, and there are many signs pointing the way to the next oil field. Every now and then a towering drilling rig slowly passed us by. Oil is South Sudan’s biggest income generator, but it sends its black gold to the north via pipelines that were built before separation, and the dividends are supposed to be split 50/50 between the South and the North. But this money seems to just evaporate, and never reach the people on the ground. I don’t know how much of it even reaches the Government of South Sudan. I do know that a lot of the profits stay with the oil companies. The North continues to try and cause trouble, charging the South a ‘transit fee’ of around $7 per barrel for the ‘privilege’ of this oil flow to the waiting ships in Port Sudan. Robbery I tell you.

More locally, the oil company has tried to get the community on side by providing large roadside water containers, and trucking water to them each day. They truck it as far as Jamam, which is some distance on bumpy roads. Only problem is, it’s undermining our efforts to provide a sustainable water source for people, that communities take ownership of operating and maintaining – when the oil company provides the water for free, and it’s convenient, they aren’t interested in managing hand pumps. Especially when they break down and require repair. Providing free water is another way of hindering long-term development for South Sudanese people, and increasing the reliance on hand outs.

We stayed overnight in an NGO compound in Melut, and waited for the EP&R team from Renk to arrive. They too were being evacuated after fighting in the vicinity; Renk is the main transit point into South Sudan for returnees, and another scene of recent fighting between SPLA (South) and SAF (North) troops. 

After two nights there we carried on for the remaining five hour drive to Malakal. From there, a number of key staff stayed in order to be more quickly and easily returned to Jamam, and the rest of us were sent to Juba. Our staff were sent on 2 weeks of leave while things subsided and a security assessment could be done by an Oxfam team from Nairobi.

Given the time needed for the security assessment (about a week), the ‘forced leave’ for staff, plus the pure logistics of moving a bunch of staff from Juba to Malakal and back to Jamam, it means further delays in getting staff back on the ground and working again.

What effectively came out of all of this was that Oxfam looked pretty stupid. While we were being evacuated from Upper Nile, refugees began pouring in from the border regions, running from the fighting. At the first sign of any trouble, we were abandoning the very people we were supposed to be helping. And we were passing NGOs coming to their aid – IOM, MSF, GOAL ... they were all doing the opposite of what we were doing.

As I suspected, it was a complete knee-jerk reaction, contrary to the recommended actions outlined in the security guidelines (effectively labelling the situation a Level 5 – the highest level in which you pull everyone out – when it should really have only been a level 2 or 3), a point well noted by the security assessment team from Nairobi. Our actions were even reported by the BBC.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15708945. 

In Renk, it was the same story. Sure, there were some isolated incidences of gunfire and fighting, but it was not enough to warrant an evacuation. All in all it made our senior management – the people that made the decisions – look like clowns. How could they not know the security procedures? I understand that they were acting in the best interest of their staff, but it was really ignorant and ill-informed. I just hope that in future they’ve knowledged up on the proper procedures, and act accordingly.

After only 6 days in Jamam, I didn’t feel like I’d grasped much of what was going on – nor had a chance to really get to know what Public Health activities we are doing. Grrrrr!

Life in Jamam

The Jamam compound is little more than a few rows of tents and two solid buildings – one being the office, the other the kitchen/eating area. We also have a nice car graveyard - a result of the effects the tough roads have on our vehicles, and the fact that we can't get parts or mechanics here in the field - and that the procurement process for these parts seems to take FOREVER.

People sit around under the big Niem tree and chew the fat after work, or relax under the leaning, shabby thatched shelter on the bed frame for a midday nap.

Evenings involve sharing dinner around the TV, everyone eating while slipping into a zombie-like state, but periodically swatting at the persistent insects that drop down from the fluoro globes onto you. People eventually get sick of the little f&ckers and retire to their tents. It’s always an early night in Jamam – mostly due to the insects I think!

I found it all a bit sleepy and relaxed, with a much slower work pace, even more than in Rumbek. Arriving on the weekend didn’t help to change my initial impressions, when activity levels were much lower than normal! But it helped to get to know the rhythm of the place, get to know everyone a little, and find out what Jamam is all about. I’d already been in South Sudan for about a month and it really was time for me to get up here to see how things work.

The town itself isn’t much to write home about (but I’ll do it anyway). Like Malakal, there is plenty of work to do on public health. The sanitation situation in this place is dire, and from initial impressions and discussions with the team, the locals aren’t too fussed about it. The market seemed insignificant, with a couple of shisha cafes and a cluster of lonely shops selling the usual dry goods. The town does have a school, and even a small clinic, but apart from that there really are no attractions in Jamam – and subsequently no reasons to go there ... except for the odd walk after work.

There are no fresh vegetables or fruit in Jamam; all any fresh food we happen to get, depending on staff buying it on their own initiative, comes from Bounj - the capital of Maban county. Subsequently our diet consists of a lot of beans, rice and lentils, and sometimes the odd dish of goat and chicken if we’re lucky. Nothing at all green. The only vegetable I was lucky to have while there was the humble pumpkin. Yum!

It was good to see some of my colleagues again after only meeting them once during the Public Health forum in Juba when I first arrived. I also met the rest of the Public Health team and, true to form, promptly forgot all their names. I realised what an uphill battle it is to work in Maban and Longechuk counties, our two areas of Public Health activities, due to a number of factors such as inaccessibility due to flooding, terrible roads (meaning our staff can apparently only travel on foot), stubborn communities expecting Oxfam to do everything and the overwhelming remoteness and sparse coverage of villages. Particularly in Longechuk, another 6 hour drive away where our staff are permanently based and trusted to carry out their activities, being brought back to base once a month to report and to get paid (!), I was unable to grasp whether it was really worth operating in such places. The flip side to this is that communities out here need just as much, if not more, assistance than most.

We travelled to Bounj, which is only about 65km away but takes around 2 hours to reach, for three consecutive days, for various reasons including meetings with the local authorities, inspections of water points and generally getting to know the program. The town is a bustling little place, with a busy market (selling vegetables and even fruit – guavas, woohoo!), garages, a mosque and a few eateries scattered around. It’s also the home to the Commissioner  and a number of other important government offices with which we need to liaise.

Travelling to Bounj was my first opportunity to see the scenery of ‘inland’ Upper Nile. The tall, yellow hibiscus-like flowers opening in the morning sun amongst the scrubby bush were a beautiful start. The other thing that made me VERY excited was the presence of baobab trees. I didn’t know they grew in South Sudan, and Maban was the first place I’d seen them. Particularly in Bounj they are huge, and loaded with plenty of reniala (the fuzzy fruit – well, that’s the Malagasy word for it anyway!).

But what amazed me most was the bird life. Much of the Upper Nile countryside is still under water due to rains from the highlands of Ethiopia that flow into South Sudan; this year the rains were unusually heavy and the water had stayed around a lot longer than usual, making many areas even more inaccessible. But this also meant other positive things; more fish around, and subsequently loads of people on the roadside in their little mud-moulded fishing platforms, fish drying in the sun; and plenty of birds, also there for what I imagine is the same reason. My bird book certainly got a workout; herons, cranes, egrets, storks, ducks, geese, kingfishers, hornbills, bee eaters, rollers, weavers and even pelicans. There was a huge variety of birds of prey, the most prolific being the black kites that owned the airspace, but there were also plenty of kestrels, eagles and buzzards in the equation.

The other, less natural activity that brought the birds was the burning of the grassland by the locals. Annually at this time of year, the local people burn the grass in order to encourage new growth for their livestock to eat. The flames leap high as they devour the grass and singe the trees, and throw up plenty of insects for the wheeling, diving kites to catch with precision mid-air.

I don’t know what this widescale burning means for other wildlife, but I can’t imagine they benefit from South Sudan’s scorched-earth policy so much. The only characters I could see seemed to enjoy the charred remains of Upper Nile’s grassland were the maribu storks and black storks that stood around in groups, seemingly gossiping about us as we passed in our Landcruiser.

The only regular physical activity that I witnessed in Jamam involved sudden bursts of frenzied activity to chase and hurl stones at the visiting pigs. The little buggers sneak their way into our compound through the flimsy bamboo fence that marks the boundary in order to muck about in our rubbish bins and generally cause trouble. They’re the dirties looking animals I've ever seen – the pigs in Upper Nile frustrate me on a regular basis because they are EVERYWHERE (even in the eateries in Bounj) and, like all animals in South Sudan, are not fenced or controlled in any way. That said, the frantic pig chase is still is one of the most amusing things about being in Jamam, and never ceases to make me laugh!

So, bringing a volleyball to Jamam upped the tempo a bit and got everyone laughing. We rigged up a dodgy net and poles just outside the front gate and, to the bemusement of the locals and passing soldiers, carried out a nightly game once it was cool enough to be active. It was a really good way to get to know everyone and I was super glad I’d brought it – and planned to bring a net on my next visit.

6 months in a leaky boat? Something like that...

After a few weeks in Rumbek, it’s time for me to travel to our other field base. Jamam is a small town in the county of Maban and the state of Upper Nile, the upper-most state in the north-east of the country. Upper Nile is almost completely surrounded by Sudan, with a small part shared with Ethiopia. Oxfam has a parallel public health program in Upper Nile, which we operate in two counties, Maban and Longechuk. We also have an Emergency Food Security and Livelihoods program in the capital of Upper Nile, Malakal, which is about an hour from Juba, with a small supporting public health promotion program. So I’d planned to spend a day or so in the Oxfam office to assist our Public Health Promoter with his upcoming PH campaign for Malakal, and then travel to Jamam to get a handle on our activities there.

Getting to Jamam is quite an effort. The first leg of the journey involves flying to Malakal (about 90 minutes). Then, due to the condition of the road during the rainy season (which is now over, but the ultra-sticky mud isn’t!), we take a boat up the Nile to a town called Melut. This can take anywhere from 5 to 7 hours, depending on what and who is in our little dinghy, and the fact that its motor is pretty small. Thank goodness we’re travelling downstream. Once in Melut, a Landcruiser drives us for five hours to reach our base in Jamam. Makes me tired just thinking about it.

So, with all this in front of me I headed to Malakal, prepared for a long journey. Funnily enough we flew via Rumbek, where I’d come from to go to Juba for a meeting. It seemed strange to not be getting off the plane when we touched down on the familiar red-earth runway. The initial views of Malakal are beautiful – an emerald green snake of water-lily-studded wetlands and swamp that parallels the Nile leads you to a well organised grid-of-a-city, the dry, scrubby landscape stretching away to the horizon behind it. Logically, I was expecting Malakal to be quite a large, bustling city – given it’s the state capital – and in South Sudanese terms, I guess it is. The airport gives it that impression, being quite large and the only other city in South Sudan with actual tarmac. But the place is much less crowded; in fact there were hardly any people there – Juba airport had been a madhouse when I’d left it that morning. Just getting into the front door, fighting my way through the crush of people, was a nightmare.

But what surprised me most was the condition of the roads. If you ever want to learn to drive a Landcruiser, Malakal is a 4WD track waiting to welcome you. The roads in this town are ridiculous. The rainy season wreaks havoc on them, and I was definitely happy that I hadn’t arrived during it. The place would have been more frog ponds than roads. The complete mess of the thoroughfares makes me wonder how the taxis in Malakal – predominantly small hatchbacks – manage to get around without getting lost in the gigantic holes!

To add to this, the sanitation in Malakal is pretty ordinary. The drainage is non-existent (the clay soils makes it very difficult), and in the rainy season I can imagine the incidence of malaria being very high, with water sitting around in all the drains on the roadsides. Waste management is definitely an issue that needs some addressing, as for many places in South Sudan; but in Malakal, it seemed more prevalent than anywhere I’d seen, even more than Juba. Seeing kids playing in the piles of rubbish all around town, and particularly in the market, made me feel both sad and angry. Sad/angry that the government hadn’t established a proper waste management service; and that parents were letting their children play in such a dirty and unsafe place. 

In the ‘definitely required’ category, the government of Upper Nile had started a road reconstruction program in Malakal when I arrived. Thank God, Allah, Buddha, whoever.  Hopefully they can get that done (record time would be nice ... though nothing is done ‘on time’ here), and then address another important issue – public health! Our Public Health program certainly has a challenge ahead of it in this town.

When we reached Malakal port, I quickly discovered how dwarfed our little boat was by the barges around it – and the size of the river onto which we were about to cast it.

Plus this thing needed to be replaced – it was NOT in good condition! The fact that we were seven people plus luggage meant that we were packed in like sardines, and I was starting to dread the journey. But once I settled in, got used to the drone of the tiny motor, and had plastered myself in sunscreen, I started to enjoy it. The initial scenery was interesting, with abandoned boats adorned with pure white egrets, an oasis of palm trees and thatched-roofed villages slowly approaching us, and tall grass lining the banks.

 

Every now and then we’d pass small riverside villages or military camps, kids waving to us as we passed, or spot a stately African Fish Eagle perched in a tree.

It was the variety of bird life that kept me entertained on the journey. Tiny red weavers racing us (and easily winning) from their reedy homes; brilliant white egrets casually hanging out on mats of water hyacinth and in the trees; night herons and Goliath herons awkwardly winging their way away from our approaching boat, and all the while, Black Kites circling overhead, riding the thermals. My favourite birds were the brilliantly coloured Northern Carmine Bee-eaters that seemed to follow us on the route. It was really a twitterer’s dream to be sat in a boat for seven hours with nothing else to do than spot their avian friends. I was certainly appreciative of the small bird book I’d been given.

Some of our avian companions below...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even the five hour evening journey on the long, bumpy, dusty road revealed its own collection of avian night life. Lines of perfectly still black-headed herons, sitting roadside, emerged out of the darkness like ghosts and large-faced white owls flew at us from out of nowhere. But there were other night dwellers in the darkness around us. As we neared our destination, that familiar smell of fish permeated the vehicle, and there were a lot of people on the road, together with square white shapes alongside us, illuminated by the Landcruiser’s bright lights. I soon realised that they were the mosquito nets of local families camping out on the roadside, in order to catch the mudfish that proliferate in the flooded land around us. I felt rather sorry for them in this situation but was slightly comforted by the fact that they were at least protected from malaria, and able to make a living – at least for some of the year. Tough life.

And eventually we reached Jamam. 5 hours later and in a little bit of trouble for travelling at night (security and all that...), it was welcome to tent city! And a whole different working experience.