'Over the woods and through the river' on Thanksgiving eve in Sudan

After a short day at home, I left again on Wednesday for a quick visit to the third and final project area of the Lutheran World Federation (the organization Sarah works for) Sudan program for my work on its 2008 annual report. This project area is in the same part of the country as first area I went to last week – it’s a city called Yirol and is in Southern Sudan’s Lakes District. Getting to this place involved taking a morning flight out of Nairobi that stopped to refuel in Lokichoggio (“Loki”), a city in northwestern Kenya (which, by the way, is where one flies to visit Kakuma Refugee Camp, which is managed by the LWF Kenya program), and then continuing on to Rumbeck, where I was picked up by an LWF vehicle and driver who had come from Yirol, 70-some km away. However, the drive took almost four hours, which tells you the state of the roads in this (large) section of Africa (Sudan is Africa’s largest country and is roughly a quarter the size of the lower 48 United States). It’s the same story in all of these LWF project areas with the roads. I’ve spent many, many hours in the car the past week on very, very rough roads.

Wednesday’s car trip was more adventurous, exciting and visually stimulating than my car trips to, from and around the other two LWF project areas. For a little ways out of Rumbeck, where I flew into, the road has been graded and is dirt but is quite smooth. Then it starts getting rough – many potholes and rough parts, which means you have to drive much more slowly. The land is quite lush with vegetation, but it is also very flat, so rains have fallen in a higher part of the country, and all the water has flowed to these parts, which means there are large areas that have some water sitting on them and that are swampy. In several places, the water is flowing across the road in little streams that aren’t very wide – the widest was no more than several yards across – and not always very deep, but these are prime places for vehicles of all types to get stuck.

When we came upon the first of these water-crossing points, there were two other vehicles belonging to non-governmental organizations similar to the type we were in that were stuck in the water, one of them with one of its back corners sunk deep and sitting at an odd angle. The driver and our two passengers joined the small crowd to assess the situation. After several minutes, I was told to roll up my trousers and walk through the water to the other side, which I did. Then, suddenly, came our driver with our vehicle roaring at top speed (as fast as one can go in 4-wheel drive and starting quite close to the edge of the water) through the water. He made it through without getting stuck! I was amazed, but still said to him as he jumped out of the car on the other side, “Are you crazy?!”

Then attempts were made to try to pull one of the other Land Cruisers out with the LWF vehicle. First the cable snapped, and then when it was reattached, it pulled the stuck vehicle free, which started coming toward me at a funny angle. I started to back away to make sure I gave it plenty of clearance, but then I got myself stuck in a thorn tree. Then attempts were made to pull the second Land Cruiser out, which was the one that was more severely stuck and in deeper water. It took two vehicles pulling the stuck one by cable at the same time to free it, but as soon as that happened, we took off to continue our journey.

We soon reached the next stream of water over the road and took some quick assessments. This time the driver told me to stay with him in the vehicle. I asked him if he was going to drive through the water fast. He said no. But he didn’t inch through the water either, which would be one technique that I would think would work. But apparently the best technique is to go through fast so the car doesn’t have enough time to sink in the mud and get stuck (again, it shows my complete uselessness and ignorance as a city boy in these rural parts of Africa). My driver demonstrated his fearlessness again as we plunged into the water with it splashing in front of us and over the hood of the car onto the windshield (these Land Cruisers can drive through deep water without it affecting the engine because they have their air intake through a tube at roof level). We did this a few more times, with our passengers jumping out each time we approached a deeper pool of water to wade through it first to find the shallowest route for us, as the driver and I stayed in the car. Each time I was both scared and excited by the adventure of it all. I kind of wondered, however, why we didn’t caravan with the other vehicles we had seen and freed at the first crossing in case any of us got stuck again. At most of the other crossings, however, we found other types of vehicles, most of them larger than our standard passenger Land Cruisers, that had gotten stuck and that looked like they were there to stay for several days. At one crossing there were two semi tractor-trailers stuck in odd positions – at odd angles and half-in, half-out of the water. Certainly our much smaller Land Cruiser wasn’t big or powerful enough to pull those trucks out with a cable attached to our rear. At another one we passed two truckloads of Kenyan army soldiers who were traveling with the United Nation’s Sudan mission and who were on their way to rescue some of their stuck U.N. vehicles, which one soldier had asked me if we passed. There was also a flatbed truck that had gone through the water but that was stalled on the other side because the water had flooded the engine. We tried pushing it from behind to see if the driver could kick start it, but it didn’t work. We also saw many motorcyclists getting off and pushing their motorcycles through deep water. One of them even successfully kept on driving through the water.

Once we passed through several of these, the road improved somewhat and we could move fairly quickly again. With all of this standing water in swampy areas, one thing that it – and especially these points where water passes over the roads – attracts are many water birds. I saw several interesting species of water birds, some of them quite beautiful. One was fairly large, probably a stork. It had a big, long, bold yellow beak with a bit of red at the top where it connected to its head. Most of its body was white, but on its wings it had some black on the edges and tinges of pink. At one point I also saw another type of stork, which, besides an ostrich, is probably the biggest bird I’ve ever seen. As it stood on the road as we approached it, it probably stood almost 5 feet tall. Then we scared it, and it started to fly off the side of the road. It was mostly black, and when it spread its wings, its wingspan must have been at least 8 feet, but it could have been 10. It was amazing to see this bird both standing and taking off in flight. I wanted to ask the driver to stop every time I saw an interesting water bird like this, which was happening a lot along this stretch, but I was worried about us getting to our destination in time because we had probably delayed by helping the stuck vehicles at the first crossing and because it was getting close to sunset, and I didn’t know how much farther we had to go.

Soon we were approaching some villages, and as we went through them, I saw so many other interesting sites, this time related to people. We drove through lines of cattle that were walking in single file on both sides of the road. Some of these cattle are very large and have enormous horns. All along the way we had to occasionally dodge a single dog or a pack of them or some sheep. One time I saw a pig cross the road in front of us. We passed a few cattle camps, an area where people gather hundreds of head of cattle and have literally set up their camping area among them (makeshift shelters, fires for cooking, etc.).

And the people themselves were so interesting looking. Even though we’re near the first area I visited last week (Panyagor), the people in this area look quite different – or they dress differently. The women wear fewer clothes, and many have just a single piece of fabric that they tie over one shoulder, so many more breasts are exposed here. I’ve seen many more young men wearing funny things on their heads (like a single white feather on the top). Because there’s a lot of standing water lining the roads, many people were taking advantage of it as a place to bathe, so I saw many boys and men (but never women) naked, washing themselves in a large puddle of water.

It was interesting to see the differences in people in this section of Sudan, and as we proceeded along the road, it was like watching a live documentary of life in Sudan through the windshield.