The rain maker

It's hot here.. so hot that all I can think of is THE RAIN!!!

so..meet the rainmaker!

(not anyone in particular, just the figure of the rainmaker)

Rainmakers are.. well people who are supposed to bring the rain!

oh yes, here when the rain comes..its thanks to the rainmaker! at least that's what people believe.

now you're laughing cause you're definitely picturing one of those crazy fellows who dances around (ted mosby style) so that the rain can come!

BUT HERE IT'S A DAMN SERIOUS BUSINESS

First of all being a rainmaker is a full time job: they get paid (not sure about  who pays them), they go around counties and they even get a car!!

what they do all day is still a mystery to me but i's a job. So far so good, you might think. it's an awesome job so why aren't they all rainmakers?

Ready for the shocking news????

WELL BECAUSE IF THE RAIN DOESN'T COME YOU'RE DEAD. AND I MEAN IT LITERALLY.

yes yes yes, apparently if the season is dry there are no gods to blame up in the sky but only rainmakers on earth.

if it doesn't rain, you're not doing your job right.

so they burn you. alive. like the witches back in the days... 

(and you cannot escape; villagers are gonna find you eventually)

quite ironic uh? no rain but plenty of fire.

So this is why not everyone is a rainmaker; people want to live as long as possible

Today is may 29th; the rainy season was supposed to start couple of weeks ago.. no rain yet.

I'm praying people, I'm praying.

Early birds

You know, one of the good things about living in a small South Sudanese village is that there are no cars. I mean of course there are some, mostly NGOs and government ones but they are not that many. The best a villager can get is a donkey (and yes when crossing the road you have to watch out for those, a real traffic jam!).
So you would think nights and early mornings are quiet; you only hear birds chirping and the silence of nature. It's six o'clock in the morning and you think you have at least one extra hour of sleep...
...WRONG.. SO WRONG!
It's six in the morning, they have 24 hours during the day and they choose that one... to cut the grass!! Obviously there is no such thing as a lawnmower (no power here) which is why they use the favorite tool of all African gardeners: THE SLASH (thats how they call it).

The tool itself is not so bad, it's just how they use it. In order to get rid of the grass/weeds they just basically swing it from one side to the other, beating the ground.

You would think it is not an annoying sound (I have been told I am very sensitive), it's very muffled but you have no idea how bad it is; when they hit a stone or just some pebbles it's even worse. and the worst of all is that it's constant. they just start slashing around and they go on for a good hour. It's like when your sink faucet is dripping.. you go crazy one drop after the other.

So yes, I lost one hour of sleep because I mean they really have to cut grass from 6 am to 7 am. Oh yeah, after that they stop and they do not do it again during the day (apparently it is too hot).


A nice variation of this natural alarm clock is when they use the pickaxe instead of the slash and stones instead of grass; headache coming straight up!!

but then again..

AT LEAST THEY DON'T HAVE CARS HERE!

Normal people/life questions

This post is dedicated to my friend Debbie, who lives here in South Sudan with us and whose birthday was on Tuesday the 14th.
Since I couldn't buy her anything (you know, here it's hard to find even a bottle of decent wine), this is my gift.

ok, I bet that you have never uttered any of these sentences in your daily life:

1) Will I be able to shower with the frog this morning? (first thought of the day)
2) Did you hear the mine blowing up this morning? yeah, they're de mining again along the main road! (conversation on the phone)
3) Today I was in the car with the commissioner going to a school and suddenly we stopped because he wanted to shoot some birds (dinner conversations)
4) "What's your job?" "Oh, I'm a store manager" "Very nice, which store?" "Ah, we don't have one yet"....."Right!" (normal conversations with locals)



Was I right?
Well, if I wasn't it means some of you live in South Sudan SO COME AND VISIT ME! or maybe that your neighborhood is a bit dodgy (you might wanna consider moving out).

the point is, to us, these are normal people/life questions. When i wake up, i never know what I'm going to find in the shower. and I don't know whether it's actually raining outside or if they're blowing up mines.. again!

It is very funny though to think that these were not even real problems before coming here; but now we gotta deal with them.

best solution? just go with it!
like for example we are naming all these lovely creatures who are so nicely populating our every day life.

this is Jackie Senior, a lovely gecko who shares the office with me (Jackie Junior was a huge spider that I accidentally killed while cleaning my room):

And that's Laura, the praying mantis that I found on the bathroom door while peeing the other morning (I stood up so fast that I almost felt dizzy):

Well, there you go.. meet my friends (the six degrees of separation can even work with animals, as you can see).

AND FOR THE RECORD, NO, I cannot shower with a frog. 

The hand shake

Greeting a person here is the most fun thing to do.

Forget the ciao, the kisses on the cheeks,  all those European rituals which we have to go through every time we meet someone… here it’s all about the hand shake. Yes I am very well aware of the fact the shaking hands is common all over the world but here the handshake is just..different.

The first time is quite strange but then it takes only one minute to do it and never forget it.

The start is the same, you shake hands..then suddenly the other person (usually the one who decides the rhythm) grabs your thumb (and part of your hand, too) with all their fingers using the thumb itself as a pivot. And then back to the handshake, using again the thumb as a pivot.

God I know it sounds complicated but it quite easy and natural. And you just repeat this strange ritual as many times as you want; after a while it gets awkward and a lot of creepy questions start popping up in your head:  when should we stop? Should I stop? How many times do we have to do it? Am I

holding it too much? It’s stressful, yes it is.

 I found myself a lot of times in one of those situations where the handshake was lasting something like.. one minute. And I had to pull away (was it rude? Should I shake hands again?)!

 

Of course greeting people is vital but you should not be thinking too much of all these questions.. just go with the flow, this is Africa!

Best part? When they cannot shake hands with you because their hand is wet or dirty.. they just give you the arm/elbow and you have to shake it…I ALWAYS find it amusing! 

YES, YES... YES!

You know, the craziest and most absurd conversations happen here in Africa.

It must be the fact that sometimes we just speak two different languages but seriously there is just something about communication which puzzles me.

A: Do you want to go today or tomorrow?
B: Yes.
A: Yes what?? You wanna go today?
B: Yes.
A: So you don't want to go tomorrow?
B: Yes
A: YES WHAT?????
B: Yes
A:......

Oh dear.. I mean the first time it's actually hilarious but then it just kills you.
so I'm trying this new method where I don't ask YES/NO questions.

Quite hard actually, I mean 80% of our daily questions are YES/NO questions but an alternative has to be found.
So the new conversation would be something like:

A: When do we go to x place?
B: Tomorrow
A: Ah GREAT!! (see? it's working, I'm so proud of myself!) so tomorrow we can go back to juba!
B: Yes!
A: ...

seriously, GO FIGURE

UNDER THE TREE

That one, my friends is the answer to EVERYTHING here in Africa.

Where is the school? Under the tree.
Where can we meet the teachers for a training? Under the tree.
Where do people cook? Under the tree.
Where is the clinic? Under the tree.

yes, the clinic, that beautiful place where you can get cured and receive treatment and get tested and get shots.. well yes, it happens under the tree.

I went for an outreach activity last week and yes I have to admit it, I am still surprised to be surprised by that. A clinic under the tree? that cannot be possible! oh wait it is. So i just smiled and pretended I was in a normal situation, which by the way it is, especially there.

what if it rains? well, if it rains then nothing happens under the tree... OBVIOUSLY!
SO YES, enjoy the services while you can.

The funny thing about the outreach activity is that it's never in the same place. it goes around and offers services to the village, kinda like a circus... moving and going "to town".
so people get mobilized, they walk from the village to the tree and they receive treatment.

You see the midwife checking the baby and weighing him  (under the tree).
You see the mothers getting trained on HIV and feeding their kids (under the tree)
You see the kids screaming and getting drugs and vaccinations (under the tree)

It's quite astonishing, really and for a moment you think it's the reality (also because it looks so natural in that context, in that place) and then u realize that the clinic is.. well yes UNDER THE TREE.