20 Minute Update...Again

[composed on Monday, May 20]

It’s a brisk Monday morning as I sit in my ramshackle office at the radio station, trying get a good start on the week. Writing a blog post is certainly not helping me start this week well, except perhaps in alleviating the guilt I feel for having been so tardy in my blogging. So let me just give it the best twenty minutes I can muster, and then get on with what needs to be done.

In the last few weeks the dry season has been swept away by the torrential onslaught of May rains. They have come in with a vengeance, not just a few occasional showers but several real thunderstorms, the kind that puts us little humans in our place. Where I come from back home the shocking green of spring, while undeniably beautiful, loses some of its punch because of the muddy greenness resident in wintry lawns. Here, however, where the dry season ground is so parched and barren as to make the thought of green unimaginable, the bursting peach-fuzz of grass after the first rain is breathtaking.

As with all things, the rain is both a blessing and a curse. It has softened the ground enough for people to begin cultivating – tilling up the soil around their homes with hand tools and beginning to plant - and has also brought with it cool(er) weather. Unfortunately, the insects also have sprung out of nowhere along with the grass, and the softened ground can prove to be treacherous for journeys in the Land Cruiser. Such was the case last Sunday when I took a trip to a distant church. Our journey home in the afternoon was disrupted by a torrential downpour. We managed to press on for a ways but finally did get stuck when I stopped the car to scout out the road ahead. After an hour of strenuous labor trying to dig, push, and drag the car free, we gave up and started walking. It wasn’t too far to the home of a pastor we know, where I managed to borrow a bicycle and flashlight and made it back to the radio station in good time. On Monday I found an old tractor for hire in the market and headed out together with three local fellows high hopes of an easy extraction. After several hours and much frustration we left those hopes, along with the car, in the mud and returned home. On Tuesday our salvation came in the form of a big blue tractor, courtesy of our friends at Samaritan’s Purse, and the car was set free.

With just a couple minutes left, let me switch gears, so to speak. On Thursday of this week I will be departing from here and traveling to Juba, the capitol of South Sudan. I will spend a few days there doing various things before heading back home to the States for a summer vacation. Lord willing I’ll be spending June and July in the USA, and return here in August to continue the work. So maybe I’ll see you soon.

Until Then,
JGB

P.S. To make up for my lack of blogging and the absence of pictures in recent posts, let me refer you to the blog of Luke Finley: ­­­­­­­­ http://squirrelinsouthsudan.blogspot.com/. Luke has been my roommate in recent months and has been mainly working alongside of Vince in pastor training and curriculum development. I think you’ll enjoy his more detailed descriptions of some things I’ve only mentioned here, and the pictures.

20 Minute Update

The Muses have been curiously absent since that last burst of poetic inspiration which you can enjoy in the post below. However duty calls and I am compelled to provide you with some morsel of information from these parts, even if it lacks rhyme or reason. So, without further ado, here’s what I can think of in the next twenty minutes:

The radio station, Weer Bei, marches steadily onward into 2013. I am thankful for our committed staff and the relative peace and goodwill that have persisted in our workplace. Two of our staff – Wol and Kiir – host weekly live call-in shows on Thursday and Friday which are quite popular. Our Bible-man Karlo Majok preached a series through selected passages from Isaiah, and is now working through the gospel of John. Saturday topical discussions provide a forum for all three of those staff to give their input (and, more importantly, a Biblical perspective), on various issues; recent ones have included “Forgiveness”, “Loving Thy Enemy”, and “Christian Marriage”. Earlier this month we distributed several thousand solar-powered radios tuned to Weer Bei FM.

On Friday I took a journey about two hours south of here to drop off one of our radio guys for a recording session at a church. We took my uncle’s motorcycle, and shortly after departing from there I “laid down” the bike in an attempt to dodge a pothole. (“Laid down” is such a wonderful way to describe it, isn’t it? As if you suddenly found you and your dear bike in a tricky situation, and out of loving care for the motorcycle tenderly laid it down to rest.) Thankfully I escaped with only flesh wounds on my knee and forearm, and a ripped pair of pants. I had some appointments in Aweil town that day, so after washing up at the nearest well I headed for a clinic in Aweil town. They cleaned me up just fine with extra doses of hydrogen peroxide and iodine, and I managed to roll up my pants in just such a way that the large rip was almost unnoticeable and I could carry on with my meetings unabashed.

The school year has started here, specifically the school year of Cush Christian School, the local community Christian school that was started last year. They have moved into the new building next to the radio station, and classes began last week. My uncle Scott Brinkerhoff has been spearheading that effort along with a couple local teachers and the help of a recently-arrived short-termer Laurie.

Monkeys are back on the prowl and have found our compound to be something of a safe haven. Just this morning I had three of them watching me as I worked here at my desk in the radio station.

It is hot, so I now sleep outside.

Our front gate broke today, and now I must go fix it.

And God is still very good.

JGB

The Best I Could Think

There once was a blog on the brink
Some feared it was going extinct
They cried out in anguish
"Don't let the blog languish!"
But this was the best I could think.

 

A Christmas Story

’Twas the twelfth of December, 2012, an auspicious day to be sure. Oblivious to this fact, Nyathoi was making food in her little thatched shanty restaurant, when lo and behold, in walked a white guy, a blind man and a cripple, and ordered some food…

No, it’s not the start of a joke, just another episode in the wonderful world of South Sudan.

It all began in the morning when I was sitting in my “office” at the radio station. I was working on some programming for Christmas season and had just struck upon a wonderful idea – how about re-writing the Papa Panov Christmas story as a Dinka tale? (You know the Papa Panov story, don’t you? It’s the one about the old man who is promised a visit by Jesus himself on Christmas…well, you’ll have to find it and read it yourself if you don’t already know it.) With just a few minor adjustments – such as changing “Papa Panov” to “Wol Dit” – it seemed to me the story would work splendidly.

So there I was re-writing this story about kindness toward the poor and suffering when who should roll through the gate but my good friend James on his blue hand-powered tricycle. We sometimes call him “Polio James” or “Wheelchair James” to distinguish him from the many others we know by the name of James; as a child he suffered from polio and his legs never developed. Now, at the age of about 20 I would guess, he scoots around on his hand-powered tricycle and shuffles about standing on his hands for shorter distances. Remarkably, despite his handicap, James is probably the friendliest and most cheerful person I know here, not to mention hard-working and helpful. He often comes and washes the Land Cruiser or my uncle’s motor bike for a bit of money. I have befriended him some (or perhaps he has befriended me…) and I occasionally coerce him into help me practice speaking Dinka by making tea for the two of us.

His arrival that day was no surprise. The day before he had begun to help me fix my bicycle and only got half-way through the job. He had to buy a few parts in the market and returned to finish. I went out to greet him, helped him with a couple things, and then left him to continue the bicycle work while I returned to my story writing.

Not long after I was aware of a visitor waiting in the “reception room” of the radio station. Inquiring with one of our staff I learned that the visitor was a blind young man from a village several miles away. He had come to see someone in the nearby county government office about something, but had not succeeded and so someone led him to us.

As Johnny Cash would say, “Well, what could I do?” Here I was writing about the Christian (and Christmas) virtue of kindness to the needy, but was I ready to put my money where my mouth is? Yes, I was. In fact, I was ready to put my money where all our mouths were. Rounding up Polio James and taking Blind Daniel by the hand, the jolly crew set forth down the road to the nearest place of refreshment, the eatery of Nyathoi, where we enjoyed a grand meal of kisera, pumpkin soup, goat meat and tea. Papa Panov would be proud.

A New Perspective on the Bible: Sun, Shade, and Trees

This is the first of what may or may not turn out to be a series of posts with a common theme, namely the ways in which the life and culture of Dinka society sheds light on the life and culture of Biblical societies and so also on the Bible itself. It has struck me over and over again that the life of the people here is so much closer to that of all the Biblical cultures, from Abraham to Jesus, than the modern American culture we are all so familiar with. Just off the top of my head examples include family structures and relationships, the place of agricultural or livestock in a culture, the closeness and familiarity with nature, and generally living at a “subsistence” level rather than far above it. I can’t say that these observations have much altered the theological significance of any passage for me, but they certainly have brought the setting of the Bible to life in a way that makes them more believable and understandable. Well, that’s been interesting and edifying for my at least, so maybe it will be for you as well.

Psalm 19 says regarding the sun: “Its rising is from one end of heaven, and its circuit to the other end; and there is nothing hidden from its heat.” I’m not sure if David would have written that in the comfort of a nice air-conditioned suburban home, but here in Dinkaland we are well aware of the sun’s inescapable heat. These days the sun first peaks over the horizon at about 7:00 in the morning and goes down around 7:30 and (except on the occasional cloudy days) all the hours in between are ruled by the its light and heat. The dry season has now set in for good, with no precipitation in the forecast for many months. It is actually the best time of year here, in my opinion, with mid-day highs only in the 90’s and gorgeous chilly nights plummeting below 75 degrees Fahrenheit. It is the only time of year here that I feel like I really need to wear a shirt...

With no way of escape our only defense from the sun is shade and that is where trees come in. In contemporary American experience the place of trees is now largely aesthetic (or perhaps emotional for the more environmentally sensitive…); for the Dinka and surely for the folk of the Bible trees are eminently practical. Trees mean shade and relief from the beating sun. And so where there is shade, there will be people. The local court here, for example, is held under a particularly large mahogany tree in town, and hence is commonly referred to as “the court under the mahogany tree.” Which reminds me of Deborah. You know, the prophetess who “would sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the mountains of Ephraim,” and where “the children of Israel came up to her for judgment.” [Judges 2] Abraham seems to have had a thing for terebinth trees: in his first trip into Canaan he “came as far as the terebinth tree of Moreh” [Gen. 12:6], and after splitting up with Lot he “went and dwelt by the terebinth trees of Mamre, which are in Hebron” [Gen 13:18]. And let’s not forget Jonah’s experience with his shady plant – God first prepared a plant “that it might be shade for his head,” but when the Lord took it away, “the sun beat on Jonah’s head, so that he grew faint.” Now I’m not going to say Jonah wasn’t overreacting a little when he said regarding the withered plant that “it is right for me to be angry, even to death!” but I certainly can empathize.

It is typical in the heat of the day to see people gathered in the shade of a large tree - talking, resting, playing a local version of mancala in the dirt, or drinking tea. Often they will even drag their beds out to rest on. Just outside of the radio compound there is a wonderful tree in whose shade there are always a few children, men playing a Dinka version of mancala, and most recently a bicycle repair-man, complete with bicycle parts hanging from the branches.

With this in mind, the promises such as “everyone shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree” [Micah 4] and that “everyone shall invite his neighbor under his vine and under his fig tree” [Zechariah 3] are not just quaint pastoral imaginations but actually one of the most tangible blessings that the people knew. I would wager that for the average Dinka man, few things would be more enjoyable that sitting with his friends in the shade of a mango tree, chatting and drinking tea. Something akin to a juicy burger and a cold beer at a summer bar-b-q for suburbanites, only better.

-JGB

P.S. Here are a few of my favorite trees in the area, if the internet will allow; if not, I will add them as soon as I get the chance:

Pictures

Here are a few pictures that should have gone along with the last post. Enjoy.

The soon-to-be generator house:

 Billy Big-Horn (reclining) and Tim

The Road Junction Club posters. Notice #15 on the first page.

And here’s an extra one for free:

Her name is Anok, if I remember correctly, and she cooks food at the neighboring Crossroads market where I also play soccer. Here she is cooking kisera, a kind of extremely thin flat bread, which she serves with chunks of cooked meat. Quite good, actually.



A 20 Minute Update

I know it’s been a while, but I haven’t thought of anything particular to write about. So, I’ll just give you what I can put down in a 20 minute stream-of-consciousness ramble. I do have a few pictures to go along with this post, but they will have to wait for better internet.

The radio station Weer Bei has been moving along quite nicely. I’ve been working on a Doctrine Program (“Piooc Yic” in Dinka) with Karlo; we are on Lesson 28: Satan, Demons, and Evil Spirits. Other lessons have included “The Bible: Inspiration and Content”, “Jesus Christ: The Incarnation”, “Jesus Christ: Savior/New Adam”, “Regeneration”, “Repentance and Faith” and “Prayer”. We also recenlty started a new type of topical study for our Saturday evening program in which our three main radio staff do a round-table discussion about some topic, beginning with a general discussion of the issues and then moving to bring the Word of God to bear on those issues. The first three seem to have gone quite well – “Town Life: Cultural Changes, New Temptations, and How to be a Christian in a Town Setting”, “Rural/Village Life: The Good, the Bad, and what God has to say”, and “Friendship”.

I have also been working on a new more permanent generator house and have just finished the walls. I’ve just got to put on the roof, build a door, and make some windows, and we can move in.

The old fiddle has been getting occasional workouts as well, and I am pleased to say that I have progressed to Suzuki Violin School Book 3. Yes, 1.3 million Chinese first graders and I are scraping our way through Bach’s Minuets and Dvorak’s not-so-funny “Humoresque”.

I’ve been trying to press on in language learning in the past months, with some success. A few of the most recent words I’ve learning are “Is it correct” – “ee ta de?”, “mine” – “kedie”, and “both/together” – “kedhie”. Yes, as you can see there is just an “h” difference between “kedie” and “kedhie”, which is very common in Dinka. H’s and degree-of-breathiness are subtle distinctions that make a big difference in this language and cause me much headache. In order to expedite my learning curve (and give my radio guys something to laugh about) we have started “Dinka Wednesdays” at the radio station, in which we try to talk all in Dinka. (N.B. Please don’t overestimate my language skills – we can manage our way through very, very simple things, but for any real discussion we must revert back to English.) I have also found that the offer of tea is enough to coerce some people to sit and talk with me in Dinka for a while, so that has been somewhat effective. And finally, let me advise you that it is most advantageous to try to practice one’s Dinka on middle-aged ladies who are cooking - free meal, anyone?

In other language news I received a rather nice compliment this week when I was on the phone with someone discussing a radio matter and he asked “Are you from South Sudan?” Note, this was not at all reflective of my Dinka skills, which would never cause anyone to ask that question, but rather because of my “African-English” skills in which I try to speak English as much like the Dinka speak it, i.e. very poorly, and with a strong South Sudan accent. It sounds rather ridiculous to American ears, but it gets the job done.

We have two new temporary residents at the radio compound – Tim and Billy Big-Horn. They are young bulls and when they aren’t eating my clothes they are rather nice to have around.

I have been joining in more frequently in the local soccer “club”, the youth who play every evening at Aram Gek (“The Crossroads”). With a lot of “returnees” new to this area from Sudan proper, the level of play has really improved and I think we are turning into something of a soccer powerhouse. The leaders are trying to organize the ramshackle group a bit more, and here is what was recently posted on the large tree adjacent to the field:

They play literally every day, so it is rather shameful for me to come only two or three times in the week and expect to be a part of the team. I try to explain that I’ve got work at the radio station, and they are very gracious about it.

Finally, we are in the midst of the turning of the seasons in Dinkaland as the rainy season is just now departing. God really knew what he was doing we he created a slightly off-kilter rotating sphere as our home, and an elliptical orbit to boot. Just when the dry season has reached its peak, with all its heat, cracked skin, and barrenness, the glorious storms of the rainy season blow in bringing relief and fruit from the earth; and just when then the hordes of rainy season insects push the limits of human patience, the rains peter out, taking with them the airborne attackers. That is just where we are now, and very soon I will once again be able to enjoy evenings outside without fear.

Well, time’s up. Hope y’all are well.

JGB