First Impressions: Part One

 

There are so many first impressions that I am experiencing here. One thing I can say before I talk about some of my first impressions is that I am glad for how much I have traveled, especially to South America, and to some of the communities I have been to in the Caribbean. Having not traveled that much I think I would be even more shocked than I was when I first got here.

Roads: In the capital city of Juba there are roads that are paved. When I first arrived, I thought there was only one major road that was paved. I was wrong, not a shock. There are a few, but only a few. (I hear in the next year or so there should be another major road being built to help connect different parts of the country better). The roads that are paved are the ones near important places like the president’s house, and other members of government places of business and work. On the other hand most of the side streets and “non-major” roads were not paved. They are semi-packed dirt and rock. Since it is currently the dry season the roads seem easy enough to navigate, albeit, a little bumpy, but come rainy season I can see why the roads are hard to navigate.

There are no paved roads in Yambio. Everything is dirt here. There are ruts and people get creative with driving but the drivers respect each other and no one is going fast so that seems to help. I don’t think I could drive down here, at least not right away. I am sure if I permanently lived here I would figure out the driving but since I am here temporarily I plan on sitting back and observing. It gives me plenty of time to people watch and observe my surroundings.

Housing: So far I feel lucky with my housing. It is not the fanciest or the best upkept but I feel safe and there is a roof over my head. The compound I am in is patrolled and there is someone around all the time making sure things are safe. I have running water (not drinking water- for that I rely on bottled water). I even have air conditioning where I am now. I am hoping to stay here and then simply travel for a few days at a time when I am needed in other cities. Since we have not quite worked out all of my arrangements for working and what projects I will be focusing on nothing is finalized.

Dust: It’s best if you make friends with the dust. If you try to fight it, I can nearly guarantee the dust will win. Within 2 days of being in South Sudan my shoes have a fine layer of the red dust that coats them and pretty everything else. My hair and arms also have dust on them (nothing a shower doesn’t fix) but making sure not to track the dust in on everything is a task and I have to remember not to walk around my apartment with my outside shoes on. Over and over people have apologized for the dust. As if there is something they could do about it. But I appreciate the sentiment, and the warnings when we are going certain places that there will be more dust.

Vegetation and Landscape: The vegetation, not shockingly, is very different from that at home. There is not the abundant water sources that New York has, making it so that the trees are not as green. But there is still vegetation here and it is impressive. There are many fruit trees throughout the landscape. The trees are often massive, especially the mango trees. These mango trees are just starting to bud and I am told that in April or so they will have lots of fruit to be harvested. The trees are so large and so cool looking. I believe some of them could even rival the Sequoia trees.

As I said before there is lots of dust and dirt. There is not the typical grass like in New York but there are grasses. There are some beautiful flowers and different bushes that grow wild here. I want to explore them more and I am sure I will be taking a lot of photos during my walks, of the different flora and fauna. I wish I could have taken photos in the plane flying over some of the different landscape but I didn’t want to get in trouble and we were warned before takeoff not to take any photos as to avoid trouble.

Language: While many people here speak at least some English it is different than the English in the US. The ways of saying certain things such as when one says “welcome” in the US one might say “You are most welcome” here. And there are other phrases that I hear. I don’t know if it is broken English or cultural.

I hope the more I hear it the more I will understand because I have already had a few uncomfortable or bizarre, and one potentially problematic (involving me not understanding the difference between how long have I been in South Sudan vs how long I am staying in South Sudan) conversations. Language is so different so many places and I do not want to judge people on being uneducated when I do not know what is the cultural way of saying something and what might be lack of education. And since it is not my place to question or correct people about this I am just going to sit back and observe. I hope to learn more about the different ways people say things as that can provide a lot of insight into the culture and region I am in, if for no other reason than curiosity’s sake.

I have been told that the most commo languages here are Zande and Arabic. I have tried to learn Arabic and I am not great with it. I hope Zande is easier to pick up. I won’t be fluent but I would like to know enough to greet people and to clarify certain things. Guess that is something else I can do at night.

People: The people are very friendly so far. Some are a bit wary of me as an American and I cannot say that I am not a bit wary of them as well. But overall people have been nice and helpful. One thing I did learn is that it is offensive if one does not say hello and at least wave when encountering people. It is considered very rude and the person seems standoff-ish if they do not do this. Woops. I guess before the pandemic people also shook hands a lot more but that has decreased now.

I haven’t quite figured out the structure of the community here. There are so many facets and people have such a variety of jobs that I am unsure of how all of the different political and social structure’s function. I am sure the longer I am here and the more I am able to take in the better I will be at understanding the different roles. Having met some of the important people in the community already I hope to see their role more clearly as time goes on.

Over the past few days I have been driven to many different community leader’s offices and introduced to them so that they know me and my role and each time it throws me off a little, trying to tell who is who and what they do. Also, they love acronyms, just as most places do, and I don’t know half of them. More to learn, I guess.

Gender: Gender roles is a whole other mater entirely. While I have read up on the gender roles prior to coming here I am still unsure of how progressive or recessive they are in places. I am not quite sure if people take offense that I am one who makes eye contact or if culturally they do not. I am not sure what many men think of women more public roles in the community.

Granted I am a nurse, which still is within the cultural normative here but it still seems as though my role is often weird to people. This could just be my interpretation of the interactions and the fact that I am a foreigner to boot. I am not sure. I hope to get a better idea of what is just a cultural structure and what is not.

I can say that men and women do not seem to mingle as freely as they do in the US. There are also a lot more men out and about within society than there are women. I am interacting a lot with different men right now and my interactions with women, especially women working outside of the household is more limited.

This changes a little when I am at the community health center, but again this is healthcare so that always seems to change things. I did meet a male mid-wife as well. I have yet to meet a female MD but I hope I will meet one. We shall see.

Community Health Center: This one was a bit of a system shock for me. I’ve seen hundreds of photos of rural African hospitals and health clinics, and there is not much about this that is different from the one’s I have seen. However, I think until you step inside of one you do not fully understand what it is like inside one of these wards, clinics, or hospitals. I went to the maternity clinic and to the health center and the people there waited hours and hours. They might see the doctor. They may not. Medical equipment and medicine is scarce.

The mid-wives are overworked and do not have enough staff to deliver all of the babies that are coming in. Recently the hospital in Yambio closed and now this clinic serves as the center for people to deliver, if they come in at all. Many still do home births. This can be good, until there is any complication. I saw an ambulance today. Basic but functional. I am in awe of the people here working and cannot wait to learn from them.

 

Final thoughts (at least for the moment): Now none of this is to say that I think one way of doing things is better or that one society is superior to the other. These are just some of my observations as I start my journey. I feel incredibly grateful to be here and to be experiencing all that I am experiencing. Certainly, all of the things I read about if my books and all of the talks I have had with others from South Sudan have still not been able to adequately prepare me for what I am seeing and experiencing so I am grateful to actually be here, really being a part of this culture and society. I am looking forwards to spending more time with the people in the country and getting to know their culture further.

Please, please don’t look at what I am writing as negative. It is not. It is different. Sure one could say that in America things are better, and to some extent you might be right. But I think that glosses over the larger picture of what life is like for a large chunk of the world, and that people in these communities survive and live this way. Sure improvements would be helpful and that is why they try to make things better, but it does not mean the people here are less or inferior. Life is just different so society and the culture look different. And I am here just starting to get a taste of this.