New Boys

Last week  the centre took in new boys from off of the streets to come and stay. There are about 12 new boys, ages 6-14. I have been spending about every other day there, and every other day at the other centre. (Staying busy during my school break!) I'm only there during the day, so I'm not there at night when their glue cravings are the worst and when they try to sneak out. I have to say that I have been super impressed with the local staff and how loving and firm they are with the boys. And in just a week you can already see changes in them. One younger boy, he is about 8 or 9, when he came to the drop in centre would usually come in with his salicioon (glue) rag hidden, and get really angry when it was taken from him though he knew it was against the rules. He had a lot of anger and always had a sort of scowl on his face. Today he was laughing, smiling, joking. He was being pretty ornery...but in a cute brotherly way instead of to make them mad and resulting in the throwing of rocks. Like, him and another boy spent the greater part of the five hours I was there burping in each others ears. The other boys joined in too. At one point while we were drawing there was a chorus of little boys burping all around the table. Kids are the same in every country it seems. :)

There were also 3 brand new boys there today, too. They had just come yesterday. It has been interesting to see the boys drawing. The first day we did it at the drop in centre, with only a few exceptions, they all were really into the drawing. Concentrated, focused, and enjoying themselves. The same was true of the brand new ones today, too. They were super focused and into what they were doing.

Remember Oj? The 8 year old who wouldn't even hold a pencil during activites when I first got here? The last few times I have gone to the centre, I kid you not, the first words out of his mouth have been "Daayir risaam!" (I want to draw) or "Barnamij allela?" (Is there a program today?) The first drawing I ever saw him do was kind of indistingishable shapes and really oddly shaped people. Today he drew a house, a church, and a realistic looking saw. Then when he started to get bored and bother other boys, I went back to drawing him some basic shapes and pictures and had him color them in. He was having a grand ol' time and we sat there doing that for probably another hour and a half...until long after the other boys became bored with it. At first he told me to draw anything and had no ideas, by the end he was suggesting all sorts of things. It was awesome.

Poisoning

The drop in centre has ended for now, and we have taken in a about 20 boys who are 13 years and younger to start detoxing them from glue and alcohol. In the next few days they will be integrated with our boys who are already in the centre's.

The drop in centre was supposed to be mainly for younger kids, but really everyone who showed up was let in to wash, have a meal, and a program. It went really well most days and now we have new boys to take in from off of the streets.

All of the kids on the streets here sniff really strong glue and they are all addcited to it. None of the stuff is allowed in the centre and they were all searched before they came in. You can smell it on their breath and coming out of their pores though. It's potent stuff. A few days ago when I was there and sitting with the new boys, our director was telling me that about 20 kids died in the market from a new kind of salicioon. (That's what the glue is called.) Some of the boys that we knew who had come to the drop in centre. It is so sad. A few weeks before we lost 3 of the drop in boys to knife fights. Now someone is supplying deadly stuff to them.

My roomate and I were incredibly surprised when our Google alerts popped up with articles about it this morning. You can find them here:
http://www.sudantribune.com/Methanol-poisoning-kills-at-least,39321
http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2175867&Language=en

I am amazed, and happily so, that it is actually being recognized and that the police are actually investigating and making arrests. The whole thing is so sad. I am happy at least that we have a few of the boys in our care and off of the streets. You can be praying for the new boys and the staff as this rehabilitation time is really difficult for all of them. 

Pool!

Yesterday some friends and I went to a Sudanese public pool.

It was lovely. There is one pool that most of the foreigners use. It is at the Greek Club. I've never been, but it's supposed to be really nice. But it is expensive--30sdg which is about $10. A friend told us about this Sudanese pool, so we checked it out. It is 5sdg for an hour ($1.75ish) and the women's hours are 3:30-7:00 on Tuesdays. Not sure about the rest of the week, but it is always, always segregated.

The pool is actually pretty big, not too crowded, and you have to wear a swim cap. I kind of like that rule. Because it is only women you are fine to just wear a regular (one piece) bathing suit. That surprised me. Not even the "Muslim" bathing suits that companies make that look essentially like a wetsuit.

Most of the swimmers were kids and teenagers. Actually, now that I think about it, my friends and I were the only adults that I saw in the pool. And clearly not many foreigners go there either. We had such a nice time though. We swam laps and cooled off....and then came home and ate cold melon from the fridge. It was a lovely summer afternoon!

A List

of the unexpected things I found as I was organizing in the cupboards at the boys centre today:

-An address guide to Paris.
-A smoothie cookbook.
-Crossroads on VHS. For those of you that don't recall, that was Britney Spears movie from years ago.
-Two school ID cards that were at least 10 years old.
-A large book of collected stamps.
-A large wooden lion puppet.
-A WeightWatchers cookbook.
-Huge bag of Christmas cards.
-Two large bags of poppy seeds.

Hmm.

My roomate is changing her visa from a student one to a work one. In order to do that she has to leave the country, and for an undetermined amount of time. At least a week, and likely a little bit longer. That leaves me here with no school (it is on summer break), no tutoring (my tutor is travelling for the next month), no team (they all leave for the summer), and no roommate. So, it looks like I will either be travelling to Kenya a little bit early, which I would rather not do, or spending lots and lots of quality time at the centre's so I don't get too lonely and depressed. I get a little depressed when I spend too much time by myself.  So we'll see what happens. :)

Covered in Dust

Hi. Can I be honest?

It's kinda been a rough week.

A combination of things I guess. The heat has seemed to be esspecially relentless. I have been esspecially tired. The feeling stupid/awkward/useless type times at the centre's seemed to come in waves this week instead of moments. There's fighting going on all over the country. People are being killed, whole villages are fleeing and being destroyed. You hear of family members being killed. I dunno. It's a lot.

Yesterday it kind of topped off with a really uncomfortable encounter. I was walking down the street to get some fruit at a big intersection near where I live. An older local man stops, thought I was someone he knew, and ended up talking to me for about 10 minutes right in this busy area. Not appropriate, but I didn't have a good out really. Then he gave me his phone number. Then he shook my hand about 8 times, and held it for about a full 30 seconds. Really inappropriate. Then he kissed my cheeks. Not the cheek to cheek thing, but he kisssed my cheeks. Super, crazy, inappropriate. I wanted to fall into a hole. The guy apparently lived in the Netherlands for like 15 years, and maybe was a little crazy...whatever. In any case you don't do stuff like that here. I was mortified. Later I was talking to my roomate about it and I started to tear up. I didn't realize how embarrased and uncomfortable and somewhat violated I felt. Esspecially as we are the only foreigners living in the area. People have to recognize me, and I just feel humiliated about the whole thing.

Sigh.

In other news--yesterday, all day, was a really big dust storm. It really started to pick up as the sun went down and we had to close off all of the doors and windows to keep as much dust out as we could. The house got pretty stuffy. Then the power went. It was super humid and I tried to sleep but I was literally dripping in sweat.  I usually go to bed sweating a little and wake up the same way, but this was nuts. My pillow was wet with sweat. Not damp--it was wet. (Sorry, is that gross?) So we opened some windows and let the dust blow in, so as to not suffocate. At about 2am the power came back. It was like a gift from heaven to have a fan again. Even if I had to get up another 3 times to keep flipping the switch for my room. (The power switch for just my room is really sensitive and trips 3-10x a day--usually at night). This morning we woke up to a brown flat. I'm not kidding, there was a thick layer of dust all over everything. This is our bathroom, which was not even the worst by far.

In spite of my heart being a little down and overwhelmed there have been beautiful things this week, too.

Like--there are two deaf boys that come to the drop in centre a few days a week. One of them is a teenager, really funny, and thinks he's super tough. It has been fascinating to watch him interact with his friends; to see their patience and understanding. Watching them communicate with him is so cool. He can't speak, but makes lots of grunting noises. During the program he usually sits quietly (though sometimes picks on a girl or younger boy). He never whines or gives attitude about having to sit there, though he clearly can't understand what is being said, can't join in the singing, and can't play any of the games. The other day he wanted to play one of the games. One that involves listening and jumping. His friend so naturally moved over and helped him. He's not helpless--I don't mean it like that. But you can just see in the different groups of friends their love for each other. They make their own types of families on the streets. When it's lunchtime they each get bread and a bowl with rice and whatever else is there that day. Almost all of them sit in groups, combine their bowls, and eat together. It is very much a shared communal thing. In between the selfishness (because, yeah, that's there too), you can see how they really do look out for each other. It's beautiful.

Oh Sudan, I love you. But let's keep the culturally inappropriate old guys at home, or at least out of my path. Thanks.

Ratscapades

So we thought that we might have a critter in the flat.

Then we were sure that we did. For several nights in a row it looked like it had a dance party on our living room furniture. (Don't judge the dust. We do clean. It just accumulates that quickly here).

So we bought some rat glue and had high hopes.

This was an early attempt at a glue trap. We set it in front of the garbage to lure the rat.

We accidentally caught some unsuspecting victims. An attempt at rescue and release followed. I like to think that it worked and that the lizard is alive and well still.

The rat got more annoying. Chewing throught the trashcan, eating our soap, and gnawing on our refridgerator cord. We were not happy about that. But after 5 weeks of trying to out smart this critter...

We were victorious!!

Look at that tail. It might look small, but the cage is about a foot long. This rat was not huge, but it was not tiny. So what do you do once you catch the rat? You get rid of it. It was early, about 6:30 am on Friday which is the weekend day here so most of the folks were sleeping in. Including our landlord and neighbor--the 2 men we would have asked to help. So we walk down to the shop and ask what to do with it. The guy said to drown it in a bucket. Um...ok.

So I moved it into a bucket to take outside. I did not want to do this inside. It was crying and squealing at this point.

I took it outside. The plan was to use a hose and drown it. We were freaking out a little at this point and a good hearted man stopped and graciously took the bucket and the trap. He took it down the street and around the corner. We don't know what happened with the rat, but after a few minutes he returned with an empty trap and bucket. Al'hamdulillah! (Praise be to God!)

Pictures

In case we are not facebook friends--I finally got around to posting (a lot) of pictures of my first couple of months here. Have a look and enjoy!

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.916598742168.2405975.55700474&l=54d81793d3

 

Regular Customer

Being a sabuna (regular customer) is a big part of the culture here. It's all about the relationship. There are a few duucans (corner shops) in every neighborhood and you usually frequent one of them. You go to the same fruit guy and the same veg guy when you go to the market. I moved a few weeks ago so I'm only now starting to establish my own relationships with different vendors. Once you are a regular, you don't have to bargain as much because you just trust that they are giving you a good price. They will usually throw in some extra peppers and things. The other day a fruit guy offered to flag down a rickshaw for me. When my veg guy didn't have spinach he got his friend a few stands over who had spinach to get me some. My friend got some pictures framed at the market and told the guy that she would tell her friends about him because he did such a nice job. She did, and returned, and he gave her a really great price the next time. Relationship is very important.

Apparently this extends even to rickshaw drivers. Twice a week I go for language tutoring with a lovely Sudanese girl my age who is sweet and super patient. She lives where I was living before, so I have to go the other side of town twice a week to get there. It is a bit of a hike, but worth it because I doubt if I could find another consistent language helper who is as great as she is. Anyway, so on the way back I can either take 2 buses which will take me about an hour, or I can take one bus and a rickshaw for about a 30 minute journey. Though rickshaw's aren't my favorite, I usually opt for the latter because by the end of the day I'm too tired to withstand another long bus ride.

It's not really protocal to determine a price beforehand, but most all kwaja's (foreigners) I talk to do it because otherwise we are easily ripped off, and the driver's won't accept what is the usual price. But sometimes once I greet the driver and tell them where I'm headed they get the rickshaw going too quickly that I don't get a chance to bargain a price. The trip from Africa Road to where I live usually costs 4sdg, 3 (about $1) if I'm lucky. So on this particular night we get there, I hop out, say thanks, and give him 4sdg. He is like "What?! No! It's 6!" Now, I really hate confrontation, but in this instance I really knew better than to give him more money. So we argued back and forth for a bit. Not arguing in a Sudanese sense, but more of the usual bargaining exchange between a person and a patron. But from an American stance it sounds like arguing. I wouldn't budge. I said that I always pay 4, that I come that way all the time etc.., a few times until he laughed and said ok. Then he told me that I would be his regular customer. Ok buddy, sure.

Let's be honest, I wouldn't be able to pick him out if I tried. In any case, I kind of like the idea of being a regular customer and I look forward to establishing more relationships with the lovely folks around me!

Tuti

I realized I never did a post about the annual trip to Tuti Island for the boys at the centre's, the staff and their families. I wrote a little ditty for the folks that fund the centre's to post on their website. Here is what I wrote for them:

In spite of powerful winds and not being allowed in the water by the police, the annual all day trip to Tuti Island for the boys, staff, and their families (from both the Gerif and Omdurman centre’s) was a great success. All twenty-four of the boys came along, and there were about seventy-five total people total. There was plenty of time for relaxing and chatting (for the adults) and for football and other shenanigans for the kids. One of the teachers on staff who is well over six feet tall with a personality to match led a number of games for the group. Some included singing, most included looking a little silly, and all were met with a great deal of laughter from everyone around. Such a great time, in fact, that we drew a curious crowd from the other folks who were at the beach. There was a sand sculpture contest, many sprinting races (everyone needed to prove that they were the fastest), dominoes, sculpting figurines out of the clay, and a plate of delicious food for all. (That many of the wonderful ladies spent all or the greater part of their day cooking for everyone.) The highlight of the day, of course, was the directors getting to honor and award the boys for their excellent performances in school. It was wonderful to see the boys so proud of their accomplishments and to see the smiles on the faces of the staff as each boy was applauded and called up. What a joy it is to see these boys realize their potential. In a final bit of celebration the boys took turns hitting a piñata they had made earlier that week as part of their summer conference. Perhaps the first piñata in Sudan? Not sure, but certainly the first piñata experience for these boys and the staff. It was a “hit” to say the least.