Pool Party.

It is hot here. REALLY hot sometimes. On one scorcher in particular Matt and our friend Gavin decided a pool was a necessity. Combining their brain power and ingenuity they did indeed make us a “pool”.

Cleaning the giant crest tank.

They have it rigged so you climb up the ladder to our water storage tank and jump off the platform into the tank on the ground.

They are pretty pleased with themselves.

We invited some friends over for the weekend.

The pool is a huge success.

Thankful.

As homesteaders, ok field workers, our Thanksgiving resembled our forefathers a little more closely than usual. Gone were the tins of vegetables, cranberry sauce, and pureed pumpkin. We did manage to fly in a turkey and therefore forego introducing the Thanksgiving goat!

Pumpkin came into season just in time and Matt came home with several large GREEN pumpkins. I thought we might end up with a pie that belonged in a Dr. Seuss story.

Making the pies ended up being a pretty easy process:

1-Pumpkin

2-Steam

3-Puree (mash with a fork)

4-mix and bake

Not bad if I do say so myself…I was pleasantly surprised at how good steamed pumpkin tastes.

Matt’s mom and I started cooking the rest of the meal on Tuesday, peeling, boiling, steaming, and maxing out our cooking ingenuity:

What to use as a substitute for cranberry sauce? Apple sauce, of course (answered the guys).

How do you cook a 25-lb bird in a teeny-tiny oven? Stick it on some charcoal!

All in all we had a lot of fun—and judging by the happy smiles of the guys it tasted pretty good as well.

SUDAN: The Nuba Mountains - straddling the north-south divide

We received this email from the UN's Horn of Africa rep.--it offers a good perspective on Nuba's unique geopolitical situation.
__________________________________________________________________________________

KAUDA, 12 November 2009 (IRIN) - The Nuba Mountains, a former
frontline region in Sudan's north-south civil war remain tense, years
after the 2005 north-south peace agreement, local leaders and analysts
say.

Comprising some 48,000sqkm of green uplands and farmland, the area is
part of northern Sudan's Southern Kordofan State, but as during the
war, remains politically dominated by the southern-led Sudan People's
Liberation Movement (SPLM).

Tensions and mistrust have remained high between Sudan's north and
south - major political, ideological and religious differences are
unresolved - not least in the Nuba region.

"Security is a big problem, with violations and hostility between two
parties - the SPLM and the NCP [National Congress Party], and a lot of
conflict between tribes," said Kamal al-Nur, commissioner of
SPLM-controlled Heiban County in Southern Kordofan.

"We are concerned that violence will escalate as we come closer to
the elections - and in the period after the elections - to the
referendum," al-Nur added. General elections in Sudan are slated for
April 2010, before a southern independence referendum in 2011.

During the war, the Nuba population suffered aerial bombardment,
isolation, shortages, land expropriation and forced population
movements, according to international human rights groups.

The area is characterized by a mix of ethnic groups and coexistence
between Muslim, Christian and traditional believers.

"We fought for long years. for equality, for the right to live as we
want and not under the [Islamic] Sharia law of the north," said Younan
Albaround, the SPLM chairman in Kauda, the party's former headquarters
for Nuba during the war.

"Popular consultation"

Unlike Southern Sudan and the oil-rich region of Abyei which are due
to vote on independence and self-determination in 2011, the 2005 peace
deal only set out arrangements for interim power sharing and "popular
consultation" in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states.

Abyei, Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile are sometimes referred to as
Sudan's "three areas" - transitional and contested-zones straddling
the north-south political, military and cultural fault lines.

"Whilst the South and Abyei have clearly defined rights to an
independence referendum - guaranteed by the presence of the SPLA and
thus with the option of unilateral secession should the peace deal
fail to be fully implemented - the two `contested areas' are only
given the ill-defined concept of `popular consultation' on their
future status," said Peter Moszynski, a Sudan analyst who began
working in the Nuba region in 1981.

The SPLA's ranks in the Nuba mountains were largely filled by local
people, but those forces have officially pulled out of the region
under terms set down by the peace agreement, with only special joint
north-south units remaining.

Tensions have also risen following recent comments by senior Southern
Sudanese officials in favour of separation, including a speech by the
Southern president, Salva Kiir, that voting for unity would make
southerners "second class" citizens.

"The Nuba people fear the breakaway of the south because they will be
left as an isolated minority in the north - and will also be on the
frontline of any future north-south conflict," Moszynski said.

"There are huge concerns that the Nuba Mountains could return to
fighting," said Sudan analyst, John Ashworth. "They have no
referendums - but many ordinary people are not aware of that yet and
will be angry when it finally dawns on them. The `popular
consultation' is vague and probably meaningless."

A public opinion study by the Washington-based National Democratic
Institute (NDI) found people saw few positive outcomes for the future.

"Participants report that there is persistent, and potentially
explosive, conflict in Southern Kordofan," the March 2009 study
entitled Losing Hope noted.

In ethnic terms, the people of the Nuba Mountains usually identify
more closely with the "African" southerners than their northern Arab
neighbours.

"They describe the conflict as a fight over land and grazing rights.
The Nuba argue that Arabs are armed [while the Nuba are not], that
Arab traditional leaders are not neutral, and that the central
government is behind much of the violence," it added.

"Arab participants say that it is the Nuba who are the instigators,
and that they are responsible for the violence and theft in the
region."

Few, the study found, were optimistic for the future: "The scale of
the current conflict in Southern Kordofan is such that many
participants believe the state is close to a return to general,
state-wide war."

Similar sentiments were echoed by the International Crisis Group
(ICG) in October 2008, in a report on Southern Kordofan entitled The
Next Darfur?

"If the NCP, SPLM and international community fail to pay the
required attention to the divided region," the ICG warned, "their
inaction could come back to haunt them in a way that threatens the
stability of the already divided country."

END


______________________
John Ashworth
Regional Representative
IKV Pax Christi Horn of Africa Programme

Road Trip.

We recently had our first Nuba road trip. We are closing up shop in one area and the closing celebration was enough of an excuse to hit the road!

The crew.

You don’t really travel in Sudan without full realization that at some point you’ll get stuck. At some point you’ll need a wench or a tractor. Sure enough, we hit a soft spot, but thankfully Matt found a tractor just one field over and he volunteered to come give us a pull.

Travel in Nuba is slow-going…we drove for 4.5 hours until we reached the first city, about 40 miles from home. We only just received permission to travel in this area, so needless to say we were pretty psyched about going to the formerly off limits place. It is an actual city, with asphalt, grocery stores, buildings, and most importantly ice cream. We loaded ourselves down with coveted groceries such as green beans and happy cow cheese then realized we needed a place to stay. Not to worry though, this is Sudan and they know how to do hospitality. We stopped by a shop where our Sudanese logisticians frequently get supplies for our operations. This was the first time the owner of the shop had met any of us, but he didn’t hesitate to invite us (all 7 of us) to share a meal and spend the night. We showed up at his beautiful compound and were shocked by the spread his wife Mona had laid out for us. Sometimes you gamble big when you are eating in another culture…this time we came out on top! Mona, who is Egyptian, made a delicious supper, complete with an herbed cheese dip, cucumber-tomato salad, and perfectly roasted pigeon.

Yes, pigeon—don’t knock it ‘til you try it.

We woke up early the next morning to drive another 40 miles (which took another 4 hours).

The views were beautiful.

A Market

Village Tukuls

We also drove by quite a few de-mining operations, a sobering reminder of the bitter fighting during the war that is still felt today.

We finally made it to our desitnation and had a lot of fun with the community as they celebrated the completion of 29 church buildings—29 churches that were destroyed by the Government during the war and are now restored and vibrant—these people know how to rejoice!

The lynchpin of the trip was when the church leaders asked Matt to sing a solo impromptu.

This is what he came up with:

Oh, there you are...

There are no addresses or western style direction-giving devices, ie signs, road markers, etc. here. When you want to go somewhere you'll get verbal instructions, such as "Go to the big manga tree by the river, turn towards the mountains, keep going for 10 minutes (which might actually be anywhere from 10 minutes to one hour), stop at the tukul with the brown goat and the red tree." We are doing our best to adapt to this style of navigation.

We have struggled to find a map that shows where we live, that happens when the place where you make your home is characterized as the middle-of-no-where. However, The Washington Post has brought all this to an end--now you can see where we are, and have no excuse not to visit. All you have to do is make your way to Kauda, turn towards the mountains, go for 10 minutes (really an hour), turn left after the fourth riverbed, and stop in for some tea.

Nuba Wrestling.

Wrestling is huge in Nuba…think high-school-football-in-Texas huge. Our friend, Ayoup, took us for our first experience. We met up with a large crowd at the football pitch.

***click on the images to see them bigger.

The match-up was Heiban vs. Lucholo.

The two villages face off from opposing sides of a field. The challengers sort of dance across the field until they are right in front of the opposition. They give a loud yell and hit a big stick on the ground. If some of the guys want to accept the challenge they’ll cross over to the middle of the field.

The teams always wrestle two pairs at a time. They start off in a standing position, then proceed with a lot of leg sweeps and grabs and flips until one man hits the ground.

As soon as one man touches the ground it’s over.

(this is a cool picture--click on it to see)

Matt now thinks the College needs a team. He’s in discussions with his crew to see who is up for the challenge…you’ll have to stay tuned in for more updates from the HBC wrestling team.

Home-sweet-Sudani-home.

Here are some pictures of our little tukul, and the process of transforming it from storage room to home.

Before shots:

Uncle Saint helped me with the painting when he was here. Many, many thanks!!!

After shots: