I have a staff meeting with all the managers and supervisors on my team every Friday. We talk about everyone's activities, the project's activities, and strategize about upcoming events or issues. Sometimes, we get off topic, either before the meeting as we're waiting for everyone to arrive, or during.
We have talked about cows, and the Dinka tradition of dowries for wives, traditionally paid in cows to the father of the bride. We talked about the legal minimum of cows, about what happens if someone cannot pay, about eloping, and about women 'buying' men instead of the other way around. It was a general conversation filled with laughter and cultural sharing. They found our questions just as ridiculous as our answers, and we all had a good time learning from each other.
This past week, a discussion of opening the new malnutrition ward prompted a discussion of market state, after the economy collapsed in April of this year. My staff asked me why the US dollar was so strong, and why prices were rising so much. I'm just a logistician for a humanitarian aid organization, but all of a sudden, I was an ambassador from the developed world, asked to explain the current global financial state to my team.
Umm, you ask a very good question. It's a long answer.
I explained that South Sudan is a rich nation. It has oil, which is a very hot commodity. But they cannot get their oil to the market, since the existing pipeline dates from a unified Sudan, taking the oil from the south of the old nation through to Port Sudan, on the Red Sea. Now these days, the pipeline is through an aggressive neighboring country, who is sort-of-kind-of at war with South Sudan. The only way to get South Sudan's abundant oil to the market is to send it through Sudan's expensive-to-use pipeline. This is because Sudan is now a poor nation, with most of its oil reserves stripped away when South Sudan became independent. They're terrified of losing all of their income, so they jack up the prices on the use of the pipeline, since they've cornered the market as the only way to get oil out of the country. South Sudan doesn't even have a refinery in the country.
I draw a comparison. I tell my staff, you have so much sorghum in Aweil. You want to get your sorghum to Juba or to Kampala, and you take the Wau road. But Wau becomes a different country, and they're not friendly. All of a sudden, the road through Wau is very expensive. How do you get your sorghum (of which you have plenty but you cannot grind it so you can't eat it) to the markets in Juba and Kampala?
They say to take another road, so we discuss the Pipeline proposed through Kenya, to be built in 2016. The project was cancelled soon after it was announced.
I explain to them Bashir's position, the leader in Sudan. If I were him, I would be terrified of losing money, because then he doesn't have an army, then he doesn't have a presidency, and he's facing charges of war crimes from the international criminal court, so he doesn't want to be ousted or exiled. But he's just seen his whole country's oil revenue disappear in the last 4 years. Thank goodness he has that pipeline, but then all of a sudden Kenya will collaborate and build a pipeline from their side. This is not good.
So Bashir will do everything he can to prolong a destabilizing civil war in South Sudan, so no one can think about negotiating for a pipeline, even if it means significantly reducing both country's incomes as the oil production drops (oil fields are being fought over by both sides, which makes oil production hard; apparently workers don't like to extract oil while in the middle of a battlefield).
Everyone is nodding around the circle, and I ask them, because I honestly have no idea, what to do about the situation. What can they do, as intelligent and capable citizens of South Sudan.
They start telling me of how you can be arrested if you speak out against the government. How the press is not free. How you cannot enter into government unless appointed. I jot down quick sound bites. "You cannot go to the media. You will be arrested, and sometimes you will just die." The frankness of their discussion is unnerving.
"If you see a dog and they [the government] say cat, say 'OK, cat' and go on your way. Just go, or else they can arrest you."
"Let every family find a small place like that one and work hard and put some food inside. Then whatever happens, let it come. You will have your food and you will save your family. You cannot sleep. You must work and put something away."
I ask if one of them might not be able to change anything. What's the future? They say it's families. The children of those in charge will be in charge. There's nothing for them. I ask them, do they talk with the children of the leaders, so that when they are in charge things will change? This seems like the best option, but they explain to me that the children are being educated in other countries. In Nairobi or Kampala. The one benefit to the economic crisis, they tell me, is that the ministers cannot afford to keep their children in school in these other countries, so all the children are coming back to be educated in South Sudanese schools. My team explains that maybe the quality of the schooling will increase when the leaders' own children will rely on it.
The conversation turns to the intellectual class, and my team urges me to change my nationality. They say I could be in parliament here. They say, "Let you come to be in South Sudan. There are many women in government. The governor here before was a woman. There are 4 sitting heads of state in Africa who are women. You would get many cows." As dowry, since talk of a woman always seems to go back to her price. Another team member offers "You would get 100 cows maybe." This is outrageously high in Dinka culture. Someone else chimes in "200, even." Now I know they're joking, and we turn back to other things.
We continue the meeting talking about the details of the malnutrition ward we will open on Monday, and the possibility of another malaria ward to open soon.
We have talked about cows, and the Dinka tradition of dowries for wives, traditionally paid in cows to the father of the bride. We talked about the legal minimum of cows, about what happens if someone cannot pay, about eloping, and about women 'buying' men instead of the other way around. It was a general conversation filled with laughter and cultural sharing. They found our questions just as ridiculous as our answers, and we all had a good time learning from each other.
This past week, a discussion of opening the new malnutrition ward prompted a discussion of market state, after the economy collapsed in April of this year. My staff asked me why the US dollar was so strong, and why prices were rising so much. I'm just a logistician for a humanitarian aid organization, but all of a sudden, I was an ambassador from the developed world, asked to explain the current global financial state to my team.
Umm, you ask a very good question. It's a long answer.
I explained that South Sudan is a rich nation. It has oil, which is a very hot commodity. But they cannot get their oil to the market, since the existing pipeline dates from a unified Sudan, taking the oil from the south of the old nation through to Port Sudan, on the Red Sea. Now these days, the pipeline is through an aggressive neighboring country, who is sort-of-kind-of at war with South Sudan. The only way to get South Sudan's abundant oil to the market is to send it through Sudan's expensive-to-use pipeline. This is because Sudan is now a poor nation, with most of its oil reserves stripped away when South Sudan became independent. They're terrified of losing all of their income, so they jack up the prices on the use of the pipeline, since they've cornered the market as the only way to get oil out of the country. South Sudan doesn't even have a refinery in the country.
I draw a comparison. I tell my staff, you have so much sorghum in Aweil. You want to get your sorghum to Juba or to Kampala, and you take the Wau road. But Wau becomes a different country, and they're not friendly. All of a sudden, the road through Wau is very expensive. How do you get your sorghum (of which you have plenty but you cannot grind it so you can't eat it) to the markets in Juba and Kampala?
They say to take another road, so we discuss the Pipeline proposed through Kenya, to be built in 2016. The project was cancelled soon after it was announced.
I explain to them Bashir's position, the leader in Sudan. If I were him, I would be terrified of losing money, because then he doesn't have an army, then he doesn't have a presidency, and he's facing charges of war crimes from the international criminal court, so he doesn't want to be ousted or exiled. But he's just seen his whole country's oil revenue disappear in the last 4 years. Thank goodness he has that pipeline, but then all of a sudden Kenya will collaborate and build a pipeline from their side. This is not good.
So Bashir will do everything he can to prolong a destabilizing civil war in South Sudan, so no one can think about negotiating for a pipeline, even if it means significantly reducing both country's incomes as the oil production drops (oil fields are being fought over by both sides, which makes oil production hard; apparently workers don't like to extract oil while in the middle of a battlefield).
Everyone is nodding around the circle, and I ask them, because I honestly have no idea, what to do about the situation. What can they do, as intelligent and capable citizens of South Sudan.
They start telling me of how you can be arrested if you speak out against the government. How the press is not free. How you cannot enter into government unless appointed. I jot down quick sound bites. "You cannot go to the media. You will be arrested, and sometimes you will just die." The frankness of their discussion is unnerving.
"If you see a dog and they [the government] say cat, say 'OK, cat' and go on your way. Just go, or else they can arrest you."
"Let every family find a small place like that one and work hard and put some food inside. Then whatever happens, let it come. You will have your food and you will save your family. You cannot sleep. You must work and put something away."
I ask if one of them might not be able to change anything. What's the future? They say it's families. The children of those in charge will be in charge. There's nothing for them. I ask them, do they talk with the children of the leaders, so that when they are in charge things will change? This seems like the best option, but they explain to me that the children are being educated in other countries. In Nairobi or Kampala. The one benefit to the economic crisis, they tell me, is that the ministers cannot afford to keep their children in school in these other countries, so all the children are coming back to be educated in South Sudanese schools. My team explains that maybe the quality of the schooling will increase when the leaders' own children will rely on it.
The conversation turns to the intellectual class, and my team urges me to change my nationality. They say I could be in parliament here. They say, "Let you come to be in South Sudan. There are many women in government. The governor here before was a woman. There are 4 sitting heads of state in Africa who are women. You would get many cows." As dowry, since talk of a woman always seems to go back to her price. Another team member offers "You would get 100 cows maybe." This is outrageously high in Dinka culture. Someone else chimes in "200, even." Now I know they're joking, and we turn back to other things.
We continue the meeting talking about the details of the malnutrition ward we will open on Monday, and the possibility of another malaria ward to open soon.
