Drømmen om et simpelt liv / Dream of a simple life

“Settling into a new country is like getting used to a pair of shoes. At first they pinch a little, but you like the way they look, so you carry on. THe longer you have them, the more comfortable they become. Until one day, without realizing it you reach a glorious plateau. Wearing those shoes is like wearing no shoes at all. The more scuffed they get, the more you love them and the more you can’t imagine life without them.”   (Tahir Shah: In Arabian Nights)

Et år er gået, og min tid i Sudan er ovre. Noget af det jeg finder mest belønnende ved at bo og arbejde  under fremmed himmel, er at få lov at opleve at livet kan leves anderledes, at vi ikke nødvendigvis har den eneste løsning på hvad livet bør indeholde. Det er ikke nogen hemmelighed at vi hvad angår velstand, uddannelse, fred, og valgmuligheder er meget forkælede i Danmark, ihvertfald hvis man sammenligner med Sudan.

Jeg har brugt meget af min tid i Bushen, i små landsbyer hvor folk ikke er så eksponerede for udvikling. Mange kender end ikke Khartoum eller Juba, deres egen hovedstad. Og livet leves som det altid har været levet, generation efter generation. Og det har slået mig at folk faktisk er tilfredse med dette. En kvinde bliver gift som teenager, hver tredje år får hun et nyt barn, hun træder ind i rollen som Mor og hustru, og hun brokker sig ikke, men regner sig selv blandt de heldige. Hun taler heller ikke  om hvad hun kune have drevet det til hvis blot...Her er ingen selvrealisering nødvendig.  Man er kvægavlere, dyrker lidt afgrøder omkring sin hytte, snakker med de andre kvinder når man sammen henter vand ved brønden, og man er tilfreds, for man kender ikke et andet liv.

Også tænker jeg på mig, og mine veninder derhjemme. Vi har haft talrige valg. Vi har valgt uddannelse, karriere, mænd, og nogle mænd er blevet fravalgt igen. Vi har valgt hvor vi vil bo, vi har valgt at flytte væk fra Danmark for en tid. Nogle valg har været nemme, nogle har nærmest indtruffet uden at vi har tænkt over det, og andre har været vanskelige, nærmest umulige. Og hvergang vi foretager et valg, er der en svag stemme kaldet tvivl der hvisker i baggrunden: “har du nu valgt rigtigt?” “ ville dit liv se bedre ud hvis du havde valgt anderledes?” “Hvad nu hvis?” 

Og mens jeg skriver dette melder en tanke sig: “Ville jeg være lykkeligere hvis jeg ikke havde alle disse valg, hvis jeg ikke havde muligheden for at foretage et galt valg, hvis jeg var født i en lille landsby i Sudan?”

English:

A year has passed and my time in Sudan is gone. One of the things that I find most rewarding by working and living under foreign stars, is being given a chance to see that life can be different, that we do not necessarily have the one solution to what life must be like. It is no secret, that when it comes to wealth, education, peace and choices in life, we are very spoiled in Denmark, at least if you compare to a country like Sudan.

I have spend a remarkable part of my time this past year in the bush, in small villages where people are not exposed to development. Many do not even know Khartoum or Juba, their own capital. And here life is lived, as it always has been lived generation after generation. And I have been surprised, that the people actually seem content with this life. A woman gets married as a teenager, for every three years that follows she gets a child, she step into the role of mother and wife, and she does not complain, but count herself lucky. She also does not talk about what she could have made it to, if just... Here is no need to realise your self potential. People are herds-people, they grow a few  crops around the house, talk to the other woman while fetching the water from the bore hole, and she is content, as she does not know of a different life.

And then I can not help thinking of me and my girlfriends at home. We have multitudes of choices. We have chosen our education, our careers, our men, and some men have be de-selected again. We have chosen where we want to live, some have chosen to move away from Denmark for a while. Some Choices has been easy, some have almost taken themselves without us thinking about it, and yet others has been difficult to make, almost impossible. And every time we make a choice there is a possibility that a small voice called doubt will appear, whispering in our ear: “Did you make the right choice?” “Would your life look better if you have chosen differently?” and “What if...?”

While I am sitting here typing, a thought catches me: “Would I have been happier if I did not have the choices, if I did not have the chance of making a wrong choice, if I were born in a small village in Sudan? “

Hverdag i Jiech / Everyday in Jiech

De seneste par måneder har mit arbejdsliv udspillet sig i Jiech. Som et respons på det øgede antal patienter smittet med Kala Azar, har vi i Medair startet en klinik for Kala azar patienter. Området er svært tilgængeligt, isoleret halvdelen af året grundet regn, og nu hvor det er tør-sæson  kan man på 9 timer i raskt tempo gå til nærmeste markeds-by. (Ayod) Mange af de menesker jeg møder der, har aldrig været længere hjemmefra en Ayod. Kvinderne forventer at jeg taler Nuer, da det er det eneste sprog de nogensinde har hørt talt. På grund af isolationen har det ikke været muligt for dem at få hjælp tidligere. Der er ingen sundhedsklinikker i byen udover den lokale troldmand., og den nærmeste klinik er i Ayod. Da der ikke er nogle biler i området er den eneste mulighed for at få folk til lægen at bære dem.

I løbet af kort tid har vi 300 patienter i behandling, som alle kommer dagligt for at få injektioner. Vi træner de bedst uddannede i landsbyen til at arbejde i centeret. De har måske hvad der svarer til en dank 4. klasses niveau. En tager sig af register bogen, da der skal føres rapport over de behandlede patienter, 4 oplæres i at give indsprøjtninger. Det er svært når man ikke har nogen sans for hygiejne. I Jiech er der ingen der har fortalt børnene at de skal vaske hænder efter at de har besørget, og derfor er der heller ingen voksne der har kendskab til denne praksis. Man drikker vandet fra den lokale vandhul, og tager bad i samme vandhul, og køerne gør det samme. Vi har været heldige at få en laboratorie-assistent der kan udføre testene (forgår lidt som en graviditetstest, blot med blod istedet for urin) og en CHW  (Community health worker - har 9 måneders træning i sundhed) som kan dele piller ud men har svært ved at vurdere en person er syg eller ej, og leverer en noget rusten oversættelse til den stakels læge (læs mig)

Som i nok kan forestille jer er der nok at se til. Over jul og nytår var jeg den eneste uddannede sundheds personale på stedet, og det føltes nærmest som at arbejde i døgndrift. Mange af patienterne er rigtigt syge, og når man samtidigt skal supervisere alt det andet der foregår i centret, skrive rapporter til chefen, sørge for at vi har et tilstrækkeligt lager af medicin og kanyler (vi bruger ca 900 sprøjter om dagen) så har jeg strukket mig så langt som jeg kan. Vi giver som regel indsprøjtninger om formiddagen, og har konsultationer med de patienter der føler sig syge, samt udskriver dem der har fuldført behandlingen. Om eftermiddagen ser vi nye patienter, tester for Kala Azar og malaria, og indlægger og skriver journal hvis de er positive. Det er normalt med 20 nye indlæggelser om dagen. Dertil kommer der alt arbejdet i vores hjem, som at instruere vores kok i hvilke dåser hun skal åbne og mikse, købe brænde, skælde vagten ud da han igen har forladt sin post det meste af en dag... Jeg går som regel død i mit telt omkring klokken 9 om aftenen.

Når en 8 ugers rotation er overstået er ferie meget tiltrængt.

English:The last couple of months I have spend much of my time in  Jiech working on setting up a new Kala Azar treatment centre, as a response on the increase in cases seen from the area. The area is difficult to reach, half of the year there is no roads due to rain, and the people live in total isolation. Now, while it is the dry season there is 9 hours walk to the nearest market in Ayod. Many of the people living in the area has never been further away from home than Ayod. The woman expect me to speak Nuer, as that is the only language they have ever heard spoken. Because the place is so isolated, it has been impossible to get treatment previous. There is no health-center in town, only a witch-doctor, the nearest clinic is in Ayod, and with no cars the only option of getting some one sidk to the doctor is to carry them.

We very fast get 300 patients under treatment, who all come everyday to have injections. We train the best educated people in the village to work for us. They properly have what is equal to a danish 4th grade in primary-school.  One is fillig in the registration-book as we need the information for the weekly reports send to donors and MoH, 4 is taught how to give an injection, which is a challenge in a population that has no knowledge of hygiene. Here the children are not told to wash their hands after emptying their bowels, and as they were not taught as children, the grown ups does not know this either. You drink the water from the water-hole, where you also bath, and the cows do the same. We have been lucky to employ a lab-assistant to carry out the tests for Kala azar, and a community health worker, who has 9 months education in health, and who can count the tablets, but not carry out consultations on his own. He does provide a poor translation for the poor doctor (read me) .

THe witch doctor

as you properly can imagine there is plenty to do. Over Christmas and New years, I was the only trained health professional there, and it felt like I was working 24-7. Many of the patients are really sick and need attention. At the same time it is necessary to supervise everything else going on in the clinic, write reports to the boss, make sure that we have sufficient amount of medicine and equipment in the storage (we use 900 syringes a day). At the end of the day I have been stretched as much as I can. We give the injections in the morning, do consultations of the ones feeling sick, discharge the patients finishing treatment. In the afternoon we see new cases, test admit and take up a medical file. It is normal with 20 new admissions a day. On top of that there is the daily work in the house, like telling the cooks which tins to open and mix to make a meal, buy fire-wood, tell the guard off for leaving the compound all day. It is quite normal for me to fall asleep in my tent as soon as I enter it a t 9 o’clock. After a 8 week rotation, a break is very much needed.

Afrika er gravid / Africa is pregnant

Er der noget der i høj grad har præget dette år jeg har tilbragt i Syd Sudan har det været forventningerne til folkeafstemningen. Der har været nervøse forventinger: Vil afstemningen finde sted, bliver der uroligheder op til afstemningen, kan det overhovedet gennemføres til tiden, vil vi kunne udføre vores arbejde, eller bliver vi alle sendt på en måned lang ufrivillig ferie, bliver valget retfærdigt osv.

Men for folk i sydsudan har det også været en dag der er længe ventet. Siden uafhængigheden fra kolonimagten i 1956 har syd og nord bekriget hinanden. Syd-Sudaneserne har ikke følt at de hørte sammen med nord, hadet er vokset frit grundet krigshandlinger og de har haft svært ved at se fordelene i at være en nation. De har drømt om at have deres eget land.

Derfor var det en stor festdag da valget startede. Jeg befandt mig i Jiech, som er en lille flække, stort set bare et administrativt centrum for to payamer, med enkelte hytter, 2 boder der udgør markedet, og en landingsbane. Stort set alle der var registreret til at stemme mødte op på første dagen, iklædt deres pæneste tøj. Talrige medlemmer af Parlamentet i delstaten kom forbi, og lagde vejen forbi vores compound, for at høre om vores arbejde. Selv “the minister of interior affairs” kom forbi, med et TV-kamera, og benyttede sig af lejligheden til at få mig til at give en udtalelse om Kala Azar situationen i området. Sange blev sunget og trommer slået.

Det var glade dage. Folk som kom til klinikken viste glade deres farvede finger frem, som tegn på at de havde stemt. 

Og resultatet er klart (selvom det ikke er endeligt offentliggjort endnu) 99,9% har stemt for selvstændighed. Med andre ord Afrika er gravid, hun har undfanget et nyt land, og har termin om mindre end et halvt år. Det bliver ikke en nem start, udfordringerne er talrige, ressourcerne få. Men jeg glæder mig over at have fået lov at dele dette øjeblik med befolkningen, og jeg håber at en fredfyldt nation vil komme til verden.

The referendum centre in Jiech

English: Is there something that has greatly influenced this year I spent in South Sudan, it has been the expectations for the referendum. There have been nervous Expectations: Will the vote take place? Will there be riots prior to the referendum? instability? Will it be implemented on time? Will we be able to work, or will we be force on a month long holiday? Will it be a fair referendum?

But for the people of South Sudan, it has also been a day that has been anticipated for a long time. Since the independence from the colonial powers in 1956, South and North has been engaged in a civil-war against each other. The South Sudanese people has not felt that they belonged with the people in the north, hatred has grown due to acts of war and has not been able to see the benefit of being in the same country. They have been dreaming of having their own country.

Therefore it was a big day of celebration when the first day of the referendum appeared. I was in Jiech, a small nowhere, basically jest an administrative center for the two bordering Payams, a few cottages, two stalls that makes the market and an airstrip. Almost everyone that was registered to vote came on the first day of the referendum in their very best clothes. Members of the local state parliament showed up, and also came to see us in our compound, to hear of our work while there. Even the Minister of Internal affairs came by, bringing a TV-crew, insisting on me giving a talk on the dire situation of Kala Azar in the area. Songs were song and drums were beaten.

It was happy days. The patients in the clinic proudly presented their stained finger as a sign of them having cast their vote.

And the result is clear (though not yet final) 99.9% has voted for independence. Africa is Pregnant, she has conceived a new nation and is due in less than half a year. It will not be an easy start, the challenges are plenty, the resources few. But I am happy to have been given the chance of sharing this moment with the Sudanese, and I hope that a peaceful Nation will be born