Waging Peace in Sudan, a new web-based advocacy and education resource has been launched. Check it out at www.mcc.org/us/washington/sudan/.

Keeping Up with Leroy and Joan Willems, Mission Workers in Sudan

Greetings from Juba, Sudan:

We have been on our own the past week. Rob H., the MCC director we are replacing, went to the US for a 3 week holiday to visit his wife and family (who left Sudan in Sept). Our assignment is to learn how to survive while he is gone. It feels like a huge assignment. It means we have to learn how to navigate the challengingly bumpy roads in the city that are not named. We use landmarks to find our way. Rob drew a map for us the day before leaving, but up until that point everything was a chaotic mess in my mind. The city is sprawling and filled with hustle and bustle of all kinds: crazy motorcyclists passing on all sides, people merging in and out of lanes. One never comes to a complete stop! We have a MCC 4x4 Toyota of some kind. Leroy needs a strong cup of coffee and a lot of prayer before leaving the compound we are currently living in. Juba is a booming place that must look like Tombstone, Arizona when it just started.

The market place was quite intimidating first visit. I'm gaining an understanding of what foods are available, and developing menus around those items. The variety is limited. Legumes like lentils, dried beans, vegetables like tomatoes, eggplant, potatoes, onions, and garlic are readily available. Carrots, green peppers and cucumbers are harder to find. I found green beans last night, very fine, delicate fresh ones. They are a delicacy I think. My project is to practice cooking sorghum flour tomorrow. It is a locally grown flour that is very nutritious. I'm going to make a porridge for breakfast tomorrow. (or try) So far I haven't had the courage to buy meat, but we've eaten it in restaurants that Rob introduced us to. We saw the "meat" section of the market today. I think we'll stay on the vegetarian side of things.

We are doing a lot of reading, MCC documents, histories of activities here, documents about relationships and the work of partners. It's the only way orient, to grasp what is happening and how to continue the work. Southern Sudan is the happening place; it's all here. large peace and justice movements in churches. We have already been involved in meetings with people who are meeting with the Lord's Resistance Army, that you may have heard about in the news. It takes my breath away to know that we are in the thick of i, in that MCC is helping fund and organize a church led cross border "Uganda/Sudan" peace initiative. (See link, below)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3462901.stm

1-2 hours in the am we spend wet mopping the floors and washing stuff off. It's what we need to do to make the place feel habitable. In our new MCC house (to be ready first week of July) we will hire someone to do this kind of work because it's so time consuming). We are getting a Blog together which should be available with pictures but being old and all we haven't mastered that yet. Our pictures will be limited because it is not lawful to take pictures even with a permit--given that the 20 year Civil War has just ended things are still pretty sensitive.

The dust in Juba is like nothing I've ever experienced. We wash the counter tops off first thing in the morning. A reddish brown film covers every inanimate surface (and maybe animate). Dust gets wind driven from the dirt roads, plus from the heavy traffic. We have been out driving at dusk, which is a real hoot. It's unbelievable. Rush hour traffic makes a brown cloud in the air, limiting visibility. Your hair feels like straw when you get home!

There is no hot running water. For the most part that's OK. I'm getting used to it. But today a rain storm blew in (it's the beginning of the rainy season) and the temperature dropped considerably - from 90's to 70's. I'm not going to step under that cold water until it warms up a bit outside! Which could be this afternoon. Yesterday it was over 100 F.

We thought we'd have Arabic down by this time but the tutor had to leave for Uganda on family business so we're a bit delayed on that project. Joan is boasting that she can count to 10. My brother said he would give me a US Dollar for every Arabic word I can string together in a sentence, so I'm keen to get going on this.

View this as an initial snapshot of Juba as we've experienced so far. I'm fitting into the rhythm of things pretty well. There's beauty here especially in the eyes of the people and their warm, genuine responses to our stumbling attempts to say hello. It's amazing they have any graciousness left in them at all.

We'll stay in touch and enjoy hearing from you. We'll get back in one way or another, unless the generator fails, as it did last week.

Joan and Leroy