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.

The world of CLTS

Ah yes, another acronym. Welcome to the humanitarian world!

CLTS stands for Community-Led Total Sanitation.


It's been a stressful past week as we've had 36 people from 3 organisations and 4 government departments involved in CLTS training in Rumbek, and I was the lucky one to organise it all. It's basically been a week of running around dealing with logistical issues like cars, picking up people, meeting rooms, printing handouts, changing flights, paperwork for payment ... the list goes on It's been driving me mad, especially dealing with everyone's complaints and the trainer wanting to extend the training by another day which means changing all the bookings, having to fork out more money, doing all the requisition forms... blah blah blah. I've been so tired. So I'm just glad to have left, so that I don't have to do any more organising! But the paperwork trail will follow me unfortunately...


So, back to the subject at hand: CLTS. The approach was pioneered in 2000 by Dr. Kamal Kar (a development consultant from India) together with VERC (Village Education Resource Centre), a partner of WaterAid Bangladesh. It was piloted in Mosmoil, a village in the Rajshahi district of Bangladesh, whilst evaluating a traditionally subsidised sanitation program. 

Kar succeeded in persuading the local NGO to stop top-down (NGO to community) toilet construction through a subsidised approach (whereby the NGO contributes some of the materials/costs of latrine building, while the community plays their part through the contribution of small money, labour, materials etc). He advocated for a change in the usual institutional attitude, and the need to draw on intense local mobilisation and facilitation to enable villagers to analyse their sanitation and waste situation, and bring about collective decision-making to stop open defecation.


CLTS spread fast within Bangladesh where informal institutions and NGOs are key. Both Bangladeshi and international NGOs adopted the approach. The Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP) of the World Bank played an important role in enabling spread to neighbouring India and then subsequently to Indonesia and parts of Africa. Today CLTS is in more than 20 countries in Asia , Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.

CLTS is basically a no-subsidy approach - ie we don't provide anything except advice. We go to villages, mobilise the community, check out their sanitation/hygiene situation, map their villages on the ground using flour/ash/sawdust, and get them to take us around the village and show us all the places where people defecate (no-one has toilets so they just go in the bush).
 

The idea is that fear, shame and disgust are the tools to make people act. Without feeling embarrassed that they are all shitting around the village, and us shaming them into recognising that this is a really bad practice, they won't do anything about it. They always ask us to come and build latrines, health centres, pumps, schools etc but we go there with nothing and promise nothing. There is always the excuse that South Sudan is still recovering from war, but when we ask them if they want to continue to live like this, of course none of them do!

Most interesting is that we bring a big, steaming (or fly-infested) human turd that we find on the community walk, and put it in the middle of the circle where everyone can see it. They HATE it. Absolutely HATE IT.
Then we do some demonstrations (ie mixing shit with water and asking people to drink it) and putting a bowl of food next to the shit, to show the flies moving from one to the other. This show that they are basically eating and drinking their own shit (ie through not washing their hands, shit getting washed into rivers and then people drink the water, flies going from their shit to their food etc - all the basic ways that you get diarrhoea). GROSS but effective!

Once they see this they are all shocked, disgusted and angry, and agree that something should be done - and ask us to come and build latrines. But we put it back on them, and ask them what they can do - it's their problem, and they should take the initiative if they want to stop getting sick from poor hygiene. So we basically convince them to build their own toilets by digging their own pits (they have tools for digging in their fields) and making the latrine structure from local materials (bamboo, wood, plastic sheet, whatever they have). We also show them that a latrine doesn't have to be a solid structure made of bricks and cement. The end aim of the exercise is that communities declare themselves "open defecation free" by a certain date, which means everyone has their own functional latrine without any material input from us. We keep monitoring until this is achieved and then we celebrate with the community about it. It could be in 6 months time or longer, maybe shorter, depending on the enthusiasm of the community.

We now have 5 villages that we are working in in Rumbek that we need to visit regularly, to make sure their latrine construction progress is going well. It will be interesting to see from here what happens. We will also be implementing it in Upper Nile, so one of my activities there will be to plan it out.

So that's been an interesting exercise over the last few days.

... and just to add to this, I got some feedback from staff coming back to Upper Nile (where I am now - this place is in the middle of nowhere!) that a large number of people had already started digging their latrines (20 in one village, which was the highest, then 16, then 11), three days after they had agreed to participate in CLTS - which is a great start.

But the hard work is ahead of us. Bring on the challenge!