Friday as a Day of Rest

We are finished with all our conferences, so today we were at loose ends. Mary went to the hospital with Jim, and I came to the office to help Vasco and Gordon set up their computers' guest accounts and password-protect their own stuff. Etc. We got that done, and I gave them a little tour of Control Panel and all the things one can change from there. After that we worked on searching for info online for a while, and then we looked at the webpage Chris Wright in the Diocese of Bradford has created for Lui. It's just a skeleton, and he wants control of the content to be local, so my task is to build the page with them and then give them the tools to change it. They thought about it for while and then realized that they have a booklet about Lui Diocese with the perfect content. So tomorrow we're going to work on creating the page. Also tomorrow, Vasco and I will work on uploading photos from his camera to the computer and then resizing them so they can be emailed without breaking the bank.

I've kind of gotten to know Lorna, who is taking care of us this trip. We are speaking Arabic together, which is great for me. At first, she was just using a word or two, but now she speaks rapid Juba Arabic, and I pick up just enough to get what she means and verify that I've understood by replying in some mix of Juba, Cairo, and Modern Standard Arabic. She giggles, but it works. So she's been excited to be able to find out that we liked the rooster we had for lunch and we love bananas and mango, and she was able to ask me for headache medicine and then come back and say it worked and could she have more for six o'clock please. I asked her if she was in the Mothers' Union English class, and she told me no, it's at 2:00, and she has to be working in the house of 'the man' at that time. The real coup for me, though, was Jim telling me that Lorna came and tried to talk to him about something and asked for me to come translate and then was frustrated that I wasn't there. Finally, so many years of studying Arabic are truly useful! I have to say, too, that in limiting my baggage to 15 kg, I didn't bring anything to read in English, just one slim novel in Arabic. I knew if I brought anything in English, I wouldn't read the Arabic novel, but thought maybe if I brought only Arabic, I'd get faster at reading it. It has worked! I've actually read over 100 pages and have hopes of finishing the novel before we leave Lui! (If you know me at all, you will know how much this means to me :)

I understand that some of you are wondering why we aren't posting photos. I do apologize: The thing is that we are limited to 1.5 gb of data per month on our VSAT account, and I don't know yet what that's going to look like. I promise that my first or second day home I will upload photos from this trip.

We had quite a conversation with Ramsey last night about the Chinese presence here. Seems there are Chinese in Mundri building some kind of factory. And according to him, Sudan is selling 80% of its oil to China.

Some of you might be wondering about Mama Jenifa. She is still not really well -- as we knew in January -- and so she's still staying in Mundri with family there. I finally realized that her absence explains the lack of buni (coffee) this time; Mary had Sudanese fresh-roasted coffee in Buwagyi, but otherwise we haven't seen it.

I guess I also said "Peter is better" without having said "Peter is not well." We think he had pulled a muscle in his back; he was in terrible pain for quite a while. He's now up and around, going to the hospital with just an afternoon rest, but is walking with a cane.

We got a little more time with Gordon last night, too. He gets up every morning to work in his fields at 6 a.m. His compound is a couple of kilometers east of Lui, beyond one of the characteristic rocks. Besides his resident family, he routinely hosts apparently hordes of relatives who've brought sick people to Lui Hospital. He grows corn, potatoes, cassava, and sorghum to feed them all. Just because I like to talk about food, I will mention that he said South Sudan's watermelon isn't very good, but the north grows wonderful sweet watermelon. Just thought you'd like to know...

Jim and Mary and I have spent some time this afternoon thinking about the companion relationship and what we should be doing here. I think they'll have useful observations for the committee in Missouri when we get back.