Life Down the Rutted Red Road

On Fire

Now is the time of karanga. The season where it does not rain for months, so that the dust in the air obscures the mountains and the heat shrivels the grass and leaves. It is also the season of fire, but not as in billboards with those arrows pointed to “very high fire risk” and news bulletins of out of control bush fires. Fire season as in “what shall we burn tonight?”

The other evening we decided to burn. There was a thick blanket of fallen teak leaves (most leaves at least the size of a large dinner plate) near the area where my three year old neighbour has a tyre-swing. Her mother does not like snakes. Snakes like fallen teak leaves.

Have matches, will burn. Bye bye snakes. Happy mother, happy child.

We swept the edges of the leaf carpet so that the leaves were close enough together to catch well, and so that the edge of the pile was demarcated so that, at least in theory, the fire would stop and not set the rest of the compound on fire. After using a match to catch the first leaves, we carried burning leaves to intervals along the carpet to create a row of fire. And soon there was a blaze around 20 metres long and at least 5 metres high. The heat pushed me back and turned my face red. The textured brown waves of leaves became a fine black dress on the ground. And then there were no more leaves to burn and the flames became glowing gold specks on the ground and then simply the aroma of smoke in the air.

Bye bye leaves. Bye bye snakes. Happy mother, happy child.

————

They said it was a bush fire. Maybe it was a burn off that got out of control. Maybe a charcoal stove that got overturned. I do not know. But, I know what her screams sound like as we take the dressings off her arms and legs and try and remove the burned dead skin.

They brought her to us wrapped in a sheet two days after the fire. By then another child had died from the burns. After two weeks of dressings and care I am sure she will live. Will she want to though?

Scarred skin. Arms that will not straighten. Haunted eyes.

————-

Flames mesmerise me. As long as they do not touch me. As long as they do not make me too hot. As long as their smoke does not slink into my lungs. As long as they stay contained within the boundaries I set for them.

I like comfortable, comforting fire.

I like a comfortable, comforting God that stays within the boundaries of my life that I set for him.

But he is an all-consuming fire.

Will I let his fire purify me, to chase away the evil that lurks within, to nourish the ground so that new growth sprouts up? Or will I let it scar me and constrict me?

January 26, 2016
Things for which there is no medicine

Today, a little boy died. He had been sick for the last few days, but he and his family had been hiding in the bush due to fighting near their home. Finally yesterday, he was able to get to a health clinic. The health clinic referred him to us, along with his mother who was in early labour with her 9th child.

By the time he reached us his tongue was white with lack of blood, malaria parasites swarmed in his blood, his hands and feet were puffy due to malnourishment and he was gasping for breath. We gave him a couple of blood transfusions, our strongest antimalarials, oxygen and other fluids and treatment: everything we could possibly do.

But today he still died.

While he was dying, his mother lay in a bed in the adjoining ward. We performed a C-section on her early this morning as her baby was lying sideways. She lost a lot of blood but she and her new son should do okay. The relatives have not told her yet that her other son has died. They told us they are afraid her wound will break open if they tell her now.

The other day I heard the English word “impossible” translated into Juba Arabic as “something for which there is no medicine”.

There seems to be a lot of that around.

Our medicine was not strong enough for this little boy to live. And once his heart had stopped beating there was no medicine that could bring him back. There is no medicine that will stop this mother’s heart breaking, even if we can stop her abdomen from doing so. There is no medicine that can make the fighting stop and enable people to return to their homes and live life.

And I hate it.

I like nice tidy diagnoses for which you can give just the right medicine and then the patient is cured. I like being able to see an issue and be able to do exactly what is needed to resolve. I like happy endings where everything is tied up neatly together.

But, that is not our world. Our world is full of impossibilities; of pharmacies that do not have the right medicines for our particular ailments.

But, thankfully, this world where two year old boys die because they could not get to a clinic because of fighting between different tribes is not our only reality.

This world was created with limits, it was allowed to stay broken in need of medicine, so that we would long for the day when the broken will be gloriously repaired, so that we would seek out the medicine that we desperately need, so that we would marvel at the one for whom nothing is too difficult.

September 17, 2015
Beauty

The log had termite holes in it. But I sat on it anyway, hoping that the termites chose not to return for a few minutes. From that angle all I could see were fields growing our food, a cloud streaked sky, birds playing in a tree. The insect chatter drowned out the distant generator drone.

It was peaceful.

It was beautiful.

And yet, in a building only 100 metres away, I had held three dying or dead babies over the previous 48 hours. I had explained to their mothers that there was nothing more we could do. I had removed medical paraphernalia from their bodies and wrapped them in their cloths so the families could take them home to bury them.

And beauty seemed far away.

Brokenness reigned.

In this country there is so much pain and loss and hurt and hate and frustration and evil and sickness and death. Sometimes it makes me want to shake someone, or, if I truly be honest, shake my fist at God. At other times in seems easier to hide in some other fantasy world where war does not reign, where babies do not die, where I or another author can control the world and create that happy ending. And then there are the days I just want to give up: “If you want to destroy yourselves, go ahead…”

Yet, as I sat on that termite eaten log I thought about this beauty and this brokenness. And I realised how many times I had been sucked into the brokenness and the never-ending “battle” against it that I had not paused to look at beauty. Is it not just a frivolous thing anyway, this beauty? What are sunsets, birds swooping in the sky and wild-flowers in the grass compared to saving lives?

But, if I do not see the beauty, the brokenness wins. It becomes the only story of this place, of this country, of this world. But the Creator, when he banished Adam and Eve from the Garden, did not banish all beauty from the world. Instead he allowed it to co-exist. Allowed it to be slivers of his glory. To proclaim that this brokenness is not the end story. It is not the total picture.

One day beauty – and all that is good and true and wonderful – will win. It will be the story.

And so today and tomorrow and next tomorrow, between the dramas and the pain and the babies dying and the heartache of this place, I will try and search for beauty. To open my eyes to those slivers of glory. To pause to gaze at a sunrise. To sit on a termite eaten log and choose to delight.

August 7, 2015
Faithful

The last time I saw him he was pushing his walker with one hand and pulling a wooden trolley with Bibles on it with the other hand. A white bandage was taped to his age-spotted forehead, and a notice on his door proclaimed that he had been sick. It took a few of my increased decibels of “hellos” for him to notice me. Even then he barely paused from his task of stacking the Bibles in the cupboard at the end of the weekly rest-home service.

When he finished his task he looked rather bemused that I was still standing there. He did not recognise me. My statement of, “I’m the speaker from South Sudan who you support” was probably not loud enough for him to comprehend. But his hearing aids did enable him to gather something about Sudan. “Sudan. I have supported that place for many years”. And then I he went back to putting the wooden trolley into place.

When I had last visited him three years earlier, when age had restricted him to a rest home but not yet taken his cognition, he had mentioned that he had been supporting and praying for Sudan since before my parents were born. From his bedside cabinet he had pulled out newsletters he had received over the years and showed them to me. And hearing I was a newby in South Sudan, he had a couple of times a year put some support into my account.

A couple of weeks after my last visit I heard that he had died. A few minutes later I stood up and shared with a group about ‘my work’ in South Sudan.

And it made me think. For now I have the privilege of being in this country. Of using my youth, my energy, my skills to serve. And there is a certain glamour and excitement associated with it (though that can quickly rub off with all the unglamorous things). I get to send out newsletters, to write blog posts, and to be introduced as so and so.

But in the end the question is will I be faithful? On the days when people take advantage of me, when despite my efforts the babies still die, when I still do not understand the culture, when I watch a country destroy itself, will I be faithful? When I can no longer run but require a frame, when my hearing has faded and glasses no longer fix my eyesight, will I still be faithful?

Will one day I be found pushing a wooden trolley?

July 12, 2015
When I’m on leave

I know, I know. I’m starting off a blog about life in South Sudan by talking about life not in South Sudan. The life where you stand in the supermarket aisle trying to work out what to choose, instead of knowing exactly what you are going to have for lunch and dinner: beans and rice. Where you get to squeeze your nephews and read them a story instead of squinting your eyes at just the right angle so the pixels on skype align to something that resembles a face or maybe gloop. Where you get prodded by the doctor and have the plaque on your teeth scratched off by the dentist instead of living with I-hope-nothing-goes-wrong-because-there-is-no-one-in-the-country-who-can-fix-it. Or my preferred state of ignorant bliss.

Or you could make a new website.

Ta-da.

Now, I just actually have to try and keep it up to date. In the previous edition of my website, I did manage to post some things in 2012 and 2013 but sadly 2014 or 2015 did not make a show. I could use the excuse that I’ve been busy, saving lives and all that. There is a war on, you know. And I am in the bush in the middle of Africa.

I almost believe myself.

But, despite these obstacles and means of procrastination I’ll try again this time, because I want others to see and experience a little of what I do everyday – when I’m not on leave.

June 10, 2015