The Road to Nzara

Friday I was scheduled to make my first trip to Nzara. This is a village about 40 minutes from Yambio, where I will also be serving. I spent the first few hours of the morning in the office working on more of the planning and paperwork for some of the initiatives I would like to trial and utilize. We waited for Beverly who was flying in from Juba. Once she got to Yambio we met in the offices and then went to meet the church leader to introduce Beverly to them.

From there we were on the road down to Nzara. I said before that it is a 40 minute drive. That is in dry season when the roads are in better shape. Its about a 15KM drive. The road is pretty large, often with several motor cycles and bicycles on it. People often also walk down the road.

The vegetation next to the road is very different. There are lots of different trees and shrubs along the way. I did not see any animals though. We did pass a pineapple field where there were baby pineapple plants growing. There are many fruit trees in the area but we were told one fruit they do not have a lot of is coconuts, which I found surprising thinking that there would be many of them here.

They have a wife variety of fruit but they do not have berries. When I asked Tuna about this she said that this was because of the lack of water in the area. That makes sense. Also, most of the bushes and trees on the edge of the road have dust on them, which makes them brown in color but most of the vegetation is green, though I suspect it will be greener come rainy season in the coming months.

We drove through different villages that are between these larger villages. There are houses and huts along the road and in their own compounds. Many of the people have one central well that they go to so they can pump water. I saw many women and children walking with cans of water on their heads. This is a skill I have always wanted. Maybe while I am here I can get someone to teach me how to do that.

Nzara is much smaller than Yambio, or at least what I saw of it, but I do believe Nzara is a smaller village. However, the medical complex is very large. Since the hospital that the government ran with a delivery ward in Yambio shut down much of the mothers delivering babies go to Nzara so the maternity ward was very busy.

We met with Dr. Maud who is from the Upper Nile region of South Sudan. He is the one who runs the hospital. He will be working closely with Beverly while she is here. I will also be working with him. He showed us around the compound to the various wards, from their emergency clinic, to the outpatient clinics, the pharmacy, the OR surgical suites, the minor operating theater, the maternity clinic, the pediatric and adult inpatient units, and a few other areas. The complex is large and has a lot of different things they are trying to do for the community. 

Once we were done going through the CMMB complex and the hospital we went over to the public community health clinic to see two of the people who are heads there. We introduced ourselves and what we were doing in Nzara. I find the community health clinic very fascinating and think it is an excellent resource to have alongside the hospital. Then we had lunch in the doctor’s quarters where they are housed and where other people who are visiting short term and are considered VIPs stay.

After lunch we walked around briefly and then it was time to drive back to Yambio. On the drive back I got to sit in the front of the vehicle and enjoyed looking out the window more. There is so much to see and I could not take it all in but I know since I will be going back and forth between Yambio and Nzara I will get to see and know the area better. I really liked going to Nzara and am glad I will go back soon.