People We Meet

The other night I went out to meet a friend of a friend. The meeting took place at Logali, which, as you may remember, is the hang out for most expats. In his email, the friend of a friend said he would be at Logali at 6:30, but would be skyping “in poor French” with some one in Chad. I could “hover” if I wanted to until he was done.  I chose to stand at the bar with a G&T. They were out of Gordons, did I mind Bombay Sapphire, asked the barman. I said I did not. 

The first part of our conversation was all work-related, mostly his work and my appalling contract with UNESCO. As someone who works within the UN system, he was horrified at the contract I was given. I shrugged it off with a G and T and then a couple of his female friends showed up, so we joined them. We sat outside on a patio, our backs sticking to plastic chairs,  the few ceiling fans failing to cut a breeze through the still air. 

The conversation turned to the other people at Logali. Who was the woman with the long blond dreadlocks? Oh, a VSO volunteer. How did that Lebanese guy with weight-lifter biceps stay in such shape? And oh, here come the refugee camp workers on R&R. Specifically a couple of women who were making a beeline for the Lebanese biceps. There is a big Lebanese crowd here, most of whom are engaged in property: management, construction, sale/rental, and are loosely referred to as the “mafia”.  Not surprisingly, they have the best parties, the best houses with pools and excellent kitchen staff, nabbed from the few decent restaurants here.

I ask one of the women if she knows my landlord, Abbas, also Lebanese. She says yes, but adds that she doesn’t like him. Not surprisingly, really, as Abbas has no love of aesthetics. His sole ambition, he proudly tells me, is to make $5 million. I am supposed to be impressed by this, and also by his incorrigible efforts to convince me to date him, ‘You just need to get to know me better’, he says. I know you well enough, I reply.

Back at the bar, I am enlightened to the different types of relationships that emerge in situations of conflict/disaster. There are, I am told, three main types. There is “emergency sex”; brief, fleeting, adrenaline fuelled and the subject of a book by the same name; there is the “disaster couple”, a slightly more enduring relationship, but which tends to be location specific - refugee camps mainly; and the “contract relationship”, which exists only for the duration of one of the partner’s contracts, most likely between three months to one year. 

At the table next to us, a group of Africans are drinking Jamesons and coke. A bottle sits on the table, and they compete to top up each other's glasses. One turns to chat to one of the women at our table and we learn he is Somali. The guy I came out to meet, an American, turns to him and says, “Oh, I’ll be coming to work in your country.”  The Somali grins, and says, “Then I will kidnap you!” We all laugh, but it’s slightly awkward.

Regardless, with Janis Joplin’s Me and Bobby McGee competing with the loud chatter of a couple dozen expats getting steadily drunker, we fall into a conversation about who is worth what to the Somali pirates. Of the woman who works for the World Bank, he says: “We do not like the World Bank. We would kidnap you. But you are Italian, so your country wouldn’t pay, so we would kill you.”

What about journalists someone asks, are they ok? “Yes,” he says, “journalists are ok”. A whoop goes up round the table on my behalf. “But wait,” he says, almost with an un-pleasant taste in his mouth, “but not if they are the BBC or CNN”.  Boo, says our crowd. 

And then I tell his friend, who has joined us, that I don’t mind being kidnapped, as it would be a great story. He looks at me somewhat confused. “Sure, I  could tell your side of the story,” I say.

“We would let you come with us,” he says, oh so seriously, “on one condition: that you let our government see what you wrote before hand, and if there are any lies, we will kill you.”

I decline the kidnapping trip.

Africa

In 2009, a friend loaned me a book, Blood River, A Journey to Africa’s Broken Heart, by Tim Butcher, a British journalist. The book was about Butcher’s, (in his own words “foolhardy”, in others “suicidal”) attempt to retrace the journey of the Telegraph journalist, Henry Stanley, in tracking down David Livingstone in the Congo in 1871. Despite being named a Richard and Judy bookclub book, it is actually quite brilliant! Butcher travels overland through an inhospitable and, most often, menacing terrain, writing about the country, its history, the current conflict (thousands dying every day and no one seemed to notice), the people (he meets a guy in the middle of the jungle taking his goods to sell on a bicycle) and development, or its retreat. At one point he stands in the middle of the jungle (everywhere is the middle of the jungle), and describes how 50 years ago, beneath his feet, was a railroad, the metal tracks now either stolen, or covered up by the encompassing jungle. It is probably, he writes, and I paraphrase as I no longer have the book, the only place in the world where a country has fallen so far backward so quickly.

Some critics see elements of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness in Blood River, in that it sort of chronicles one man’s struggle to see how far he can push himself, how deep he can go into his own darkness, and there are indeed moments of despair, of illness and malaria, of fear at what might happen, where he feels he cannot go on, but he does …

Anyway. I was riveted and so when I handed it back to my friend and he asked what I thought, I said: “I want to go to the Congo”. And he replied: "You are the only person I know who would be inspired to go there after reading that book.”

But there you go. I don't know why I was inspired, but I was. I can’t remember when I first started thinking about Africa, although I have a latent memory of knowing, or thinking I knew, that kids in South Africa lived in rubbish bins, but perhaps that was one of those didactic stories told by parents: “What? You want your own room? You’re lucky to live in a house. Think about those children in South Africa who have to live in rubbish bins ….”

But of course, growing up British in the 70s and 80s, the romance of colonial Africa was part of our culture. There was Born Free, the tear-jerker film about the British couple who raised an orphaned lioness in Kenya and then set her free in the wilderness. And books such as Karen Blixen/Isak Dineksen’s Out of Africa, and certainly as a girl, my favourite, Elspeth Huxley’s memoirs of growing up in Kenya, Flame Trees of Thika, and the Mottled Lizard.

I didn’t think much about Africa after that. But then in 1994, I was sitting in a small bar on Koh Tao, an island off the coast of Thailand, having just come up from a dive, and relaxing with a beer. I picked up a copy of Time magazine, weeks out of date of course, and flicked through it: “The Killing Fields of Rwanda” was the main story. Below is an excerpt from that article, taken from the Time website.

“As the tales of murder began to filter out, it became clear that there were no sanctuaries: blood flowed down the aisles of churches where many sought refuge; five priests and 12 women hiding out in a Jesuit center were slaughtered. A Red Cross ambulance was stopped at a checkpoint, the six wounded patients dragged out and bayoneted to death. Toddlers lay sliced in half, and mothers with babies strapped to their backs sprawled dead on the streets of Kigali.”

I remember sitting there, reading and crying. “Why has no one done anything? Why am I only reading about this now?” was what I thought at the time. 

It is one of the moments that you reach back to and with hindsight can recognised that something changed in you. I knew then that that’s what I wanted to do; I wanted to write those stories, although I didn’t know why. I went back to the UK, I trained as a journalist and I started to report on the stories which I thought went underreported.

I travelled and worked my way through South East Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East, and for the most part I loved what I did. But then, while working at the National in Abu Dhabi, something felt flat, and I felt that I had lost my connection to humanity. And then my friend gave me Tim Butcher’s book, and there it was again: Africa.

I applied for a job working for Journalist for Human Rights, in Liberia, West Africa. JHR is an NGO that trains local journalists. I got through to the second round of interviews. I saw a psychic, who told me I would get the job, told me she could see me in Africa (actually she said a country beginning with A, which technically means Angola, if we are talking on the continent) and I was ready to go.  But I didn’t get it. I demanded my money back from the psychic.

Then I planned a trip to Namibia. I would spend three weeks over my birthday, driving through the red, red desert and up into Etosha National Park where I would see giraffes, a dream of mine. And then, out of the blue, I was offered a job in Afghanistan. Africa, again put on hold. 

In Kabul, a friend and I sat in our garden, drinking champagne, and talked about my future. I confessed to the DR Congo dream, and we agreed, drunkenly, I would go there, in fact, we agreed I would just show up, without any work. I thought that a bit rash, and stored the thought. Instead, I returned to the UK to study international development, thinking Africa would surely be a focus. But it always seemed to slip away. I told everyone I wanted to go to Africa, but they said I would end up in China.

It wasn’t until my course ended that Africa began to look like a reality. I made the leap to come to South Sudan, and I managed to get some consultancy work with UNESCO. But it never felt sustainable.  But last week, after three interviews over five months, and a rather humbling test, I was offered a job with BBC Media Action, the charitable arm of the BBC, as a project manager for a girls education programme. I will help to create programmes to convince families it's a good thing to educate a girl. 

It’s a two-year position that will start in May, just as the UNESCO one finishes. So, this is it. Maybe I should return the money to the psychic.

For those interested Blood River: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blood-River-Journey-Africas-Broken/dp/0099494280

Women's Day in Juba

This morning I got the opportunity to join women in Juba celebrate International Women’s Day. I arrived at Juba No1 Girl’s School at about 9:30, thinking there was no need for me to be on time, as nothing ever starts promptly here. But, still, even though I was technically half an hour late, it was just me and some UNMISS peacekeepers milling around on a scrubby, football field. Then a flat bed truck packed with soldiers in camouflage came roaring down the road, the soldiers, all of them women, singing, shouting and trilling.  They poured out of the truck, and spilled across the field, still laughing and shouting until their commander took them in hand.

A small group of girl scouts, dressed in light beige, with crisp white socks and pink, green and yellow knotted kerchiefs, many of them with their heads shaved, started marching with knees up at the end of the field.

More women showed up, enveloped in bright colours, their hair either twisted into intricate plaits or tied up under colourful scarves, all hugging and slapping hands and everywhere, the trilling; I don’t know how to describe it other than a escalating call, like a bird. Many are dressed in t-shirts that call for girl’s education and an end to violence against women. I saw one t-shirt that read: “gender mainstreaming is not a request, it’s a requirement”, so I took a photo. A mistake. One of the women pointed at me, and the woman in the t-shirt span round. “Are you secretly taking my photo,” she accuses. “No, no,” I reply, “I just wanted a photo of your t-shirt.” She smiles, and shakes my hand. You are welcome she says, turning her back to me so I can take another photo.

A truck of police arrives, all men this time, with riot shields and batons and they lurk, uncomfortable, at the edge of this critical mass of women. I turn to the UNMISS peacekeepers who look as surprised as I do at the seemingly over armed police.

The band shows up. Trumpets, drums, the works, and soon we are off, more women join  - NGOs and civil society groups and women and girls who just walk along sides us. Four or five blind woman hold hands and walk, seeming without any trepidation, over the undulating, potholed road, which trips me up every couple of steps.

Hundreds of women sing in unison, and I ask what the words mean. “We are singing to Salva Kir, our president. We are saying we will not surrender what we have gained; our education, our freedoms. We are going forward, we are never going back.”

Men sit along the side of the road, watching, smirking, slouched over their motorbikes or in tea stalls, where they spend most of every day while their wives, daughters and mothers cook, clean, gather water, firewood, wash clothes and pots and pans and look after children and relatives and cattle and farms and often bake bread to sell, or tea, or tailor, or work in an office. I hate those smirks.

We arrive at the Women’s Union, where there are speeches and songs. One class of boys and girls file up on stage to sing.  They lyrics are a hit: “They are the mothers of the world, the mothers of the world. They are the reason that we stand strong and firm. But we have a question; a question for you. What is the future for women, in South Sudan?”

The women erupt in applause, waving their “educate girls and women” placards. It’s a pretty emotional moment.

Another woman gets up on stage and addresses the men. “We made a mistake,” she says, “when we tried to do gender sensitizing without men. I have a message for the men who support us. Do not accept to marry an uneducated woman.  If you do, you are inviting problems into your home. You are inviting poverty into your home. An educated woman, a woman who can read and write, will bring prosperity and health to your family. Do you want a wife who cannot budget the household, who asks you all the time for money? Do you want a wife who doesn’t know when her child is sick? Who will wait for you to get home to take the child to the hospital, or to administer the medicine because she cannot read it? Men of South Sudan, do not accept to marry an uneducated woman.” 

I’m not sure how I feel about this message. But it strikes at the heart of the issue. Girls are seen as items of value. A man has to pay, in cattle, for a bride. If he doesn't want an educated wife, it is unlikely a family will allow their daughters to go to school, no matter how many "behaviour changing messages" we run.  

Women

I am slowly beginning to break out of the Juba bubble. I made my first trip outside the capital on Friday, to a suburb called Rajaf, where under a mango tree, men and women; community leaders, discussed gender-based violence. For many of them, it was the first time they had been asked to think about how women (and men) are mistreated; or to think in a normative way about their own behaviour. 

Domestic abuse, beatings, rape, discrimination against women are rife in South Sudan, for a variety of reason but all boil down to the belief, among men and women, that a woman is less of a person than a man, and is therefore not deserving of equal rights. 

A friend here, a young photojournalist, told me how she went out drinking with some South Sudanese friends, and one of the women got very, very drunk. She got in the face of a man at a bar who turned around and hit her, then hit her again until she fell on the floor where he started kicking her. Blood ran from her head, but no one did anything. My friend’s South Sudanese friends said the woman deserved it.  When speaking with the community leaders about what they thought led to violence against women, many listed alcoholism, poor education, culture and tellingly, among the all-male groups, “misunderstanding”. 

Asked to explain further, they said: “For example, if I say to my wife, you should cook dinner, and she doesn’t. This is a misunderstanding that can lead to beating.”

The young British-Nigerian volunteer advising the South Sudanese Women's Empowerment Network - the group running the workshop - jumped up.

“Let me be clear,” she told the group. “If a woman says she doesn’t want to have sex. Maybe because she is tired as she has been working all day, or she is ill. But if she says she doesn’t want to and you ignore that.  That is not a misunderstanding. You understand what she is saying, you understand she doesn’t want to, and you still have sex with her. That is not a misunderstanding, that is you deciding your needs are more important than hers. That is gender-based violence.”

The group was silent, and I silently gave her a standing ovation.

My work, as some of you know, is with women. The aim of the project is to improve women's presence on and access to the media. One way we are doing this is by creating "women's voices" groups, where the women will talk about the issues that affect them, what they are interested in or worried about, what they want to see changed, and this will be broadcast on the radio, or will directly influence the type of programmes the radio airs. 

To get a better understanding of the types of issues women do face here, and explore what type of discussion would work best for radio, I have been meeting with some of the local women's groups. One was SSWEN, who allowed me to observe the gender-based violence training, and another is Roots. 

Roots teaches about 60 women how to make the traditional beadwork of the country's 60 or so tribes. It buys the pieces direct from the women for between $12 to $75, and sells the necklaces, head and body coverings in two shops in Juba, and in the States. But it does much more than teach beadwork. It also offers literacy training, and just as important, a space for women to talk and to share their problems and their successes. The other day we celebrated one woman sending her daughter to school, the manager of the centre, Ruth, tells me. 

Ruth (a South Sudanese who used to live in Canada) acts as rode model and unofficial councillor, as well as manager. She brings into her office those women for whom speaking out among a group is still difficult. In some cases, their stories are still too painful. For some women, life has been so difficult, that they are on the edge of suicide. It's more common than reported, Ruth says. Some women kill themselves by pouring scalding water on their bodies, or set their homes on fire. Some drown themselves in the rivers or walk out in the bush and sitting down to die. I ask Ruth how you talk someone back from that brink. She says she asks them to swap places with her, physically gets them to sit in her seat, and she adopts their role, tells their story, and then asks their advice. "Usually they start by saying 'Don't give up, you're beautiful' (at which point I choke back a tear). And then they remind me of what I have come through, and what I can do; they tell my story back to me. South Sudanese women are really good at giving advice, it's that they sometimes can't see how it can help them. " 

The women at the centre also support each other financially. Every month they create a pool of money, donating what ever they can, and loan it to one of the women. All of the women have jobs, either making or selling bread, running a tea shack, tailoring clothes, breaking stones, brewing alcohol; they look after their families, their husbands, their homes, and then they come to the centre. It's unlikely they will get work beyond what they have now, says Ruth, as "office-based" employment and good jobs at the NGOs in Juba depend on who you know and family ties, and these women are among the most vulnerable. 

The centre has received death threats from more conservative elements of society, who do not like to see women empowered to take control of their lives, or to talk openly about issues, such as domestic violence. Three women were beaten by their husbands when the van the centre uses to take the women home each evening broke down, meaning they were late home.  But the women still returned to the centre.

I hope our groups can provide as much solidarity and strength as the Roots project.