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Published: July 18th 2008
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There are 22km. of road separating Pagak from the closest Payam, Yekow.
Technically, even ‘walkable’. In reality, not advisable. Many soldiers, some of them kind of ‘nervous’, roam the area. Foreigners are only authorized to travel with local staff in official vehicles. And by UN regulations, no NGO staff should be out of the compound after 6:30 pm.
Reaching Yekow, only one of the six Payams in Maiwut County where CARE works, became a three-part adventure, with a happy ending, but also with the clear message that if I come back to do fieldwork here, I need to come in the dry season.
Two weeks have passed since I came here, and it has rained almost every night. The first night it didn’t , and with a scorching sun since early morning, I asked Benson, in charge of the office, if I could take the CARE mobile (a Land-Rover) to Yekow. Benson hesitated, but conceded. Boy-George came with me and Dwaich, the driver.
Almost two hours later, Boy-George and I arrived to the CARE compound, defeated, car-less, and covered in mud.
The road to Yekow, and the road to anywhere from here, is a nightmare. A
Una de las 'escuelas' de Yekow
Tener varias escuelas no es desarrollo..cuando las escuelas son arboles y tienes que acomodar a 500 ninos alrededor par auna clase. real treat for roller-coaster lovers. I remember (excited) a couple of times when our mighty Land Rover was going almost vertical in the mood.
The first attempt, we got stuck a few kilometers outside town. We tried to take the car out by using straw for traction, removing mud from around the tires, pushing and dropping a few pounds in the effort…nothing. Finally, with a little help of our friends in CARE, eight men were able to take the car out of the mud. One of those testosterone moments and an honest feeling of accomplishment….
We waited for the second attempt. The right time was on July 2nd, after three straight days without rain. It was now or never. The new head, Helen, concurred.
We finally made it to Yekow, not without a scare.
Yekow, as you can see, is isolated from the major routes of trade during the rainy season. The local authorities ‘think’ there are around 12,000 people in Yekow, distributed in five Bomas, and spread in a vast territory. Only two water boreholes provide water for this population.
I first visited the Health Unit. A new building, by far the newest in
El guardian del Centro de Salud...
Cuando le dije que queria tomarle una foto, se fue corriendo a su Tukul para cambiar su camiseta con huecos por una limpia. the whole town, the newest probably in the whole area, hinted a positive development story.
‘So, where is the health assistant?’
‘There is no one’, said the guard, an old man who went to change his t-shirt with holes for an old but clean one, to have his picture taken.
‘And the medicines?’
‘There are no medicines.’
Yekow inhabitants suffer from everything you can imagine. Malaria, conjunctivitis, cataracts, diarrhea, respiratory infections. A limited number of mosquito nets have been distributed around by Save the Children, prioritizing expecting mothers and women with little children.
Most of those little children showed the characteristic inflated bellies of undernourishment.
Speaking with the women’s association of Yekow, the only organized group in town, certainly more organized than the local government, I dared to ask the question I did not dared to ask to the women in Pagak yet, but that was bothering me for a few days.
‘If there are 12,000 people in Yekow (and who knows in Pagak), why are there only 30 women (in Pagak, 22) that are members of the local Women’s Association?’
The answer was not what I expected, but it was eye-opener one.
‘Sir, we formed the committee to ask the NGOs for help as a group’, the leader said. ‘When CARE gave us seeds last time, they were too little, even for our families. If we make the group larger, the seeds are not going to be enough for anyone’.
So, CARE, and all other NGOs working in the area, come here with a very limited help. The Women’s Association of Yekow, a legitimate stakeholder, requests seeds. CARE gives them some seeds. The Association distributes them to its members. But what about the other families?
Just a day before, at the CARE compound in Pagak, we started the Development Committee, with all local leaders invited to discuss about it. Now I understand that the representation of civil society in those groups is likely to be flawed, or at least incomplete. If the Committees in Pagak or Yekow are going to work, we need to expand representation, or that the current Women Association and other groups become really representatives of those they are supposed to represent. I imagine similar cases are to be found with the Youth and Farmers Associations in Pagak.
However, it is also true that there is
OK, ahora todos hagan la del karateca....
Dia en que repartimos libros para las escuelas de Yekow little incentive to increase membership, due to the piece-meal approach of NGOs, and ultimately of donors, in the area. I found a reflection of this when the deputy Payam Administrator told me that the town only meets for deliberation once in a while to make a big request to different NGOs, generally, food or seeds. Last one was on June15. No answer from any NGO yet.
In fact, due to the rainy season, we were the first ones there in a while.
I close this entry with pictures from Yekow’s main elementary school. No, I have not forgotten the pictures… that tree IS the school. There are 2,000 pupils in the whole Yekow area, usually divided in groups around trees across town. Even less materials than in Pagak: 10 books and 1 chair for each of five trees in the area. And the most amazing thing: materials for the school have been in Pagak for the past 3 months, and no one has picked them up. The materials are there just sitting. We offered to transport them, but I am kind of pissed about it. The community is waiting an NGO to do it. True, it is 22
km from Pagak to Yekow, but many locals do the walk during the week. Could not have them transport the materials, even if little by little, to the school?
Epilogue. The next day we departed from Pagak with the sixteen boxes full of books and stationary for the school in Yekow. Five minutes after leaving the CARE compound, a thunderstorm started. ‘What do you think, Boy-George?’ ‘Think we go back’ he replies.
Finally, a few days later, we were able to deliver the materials. Two drunk soldiers, one the local officer, both with rifles, stop us. The officer talks to me in Nuer, rather aggressively. I just smile.
‘What does he want?’ I ask Duony.
‘He wants some books’.
The school professor, who has been in Pagak waiting for us to take the books to Yekow for four days (therefore, four days of missed classes for some children), and who was riding on the back of the Rover, gave the officer a few books, and the soldiers continued their tortuous walk through the grass-covered road.
No idea what they will do with the books. Hope they get to read some of them.
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