For those of you asking, me and my fellow intrepid peacekeepers are safe in the south of Sudan. I don’t have anything to add on the situation in Sudan yet, I will in a couple of days. In the meantime, I have a few more pictures and stories from my visit to Taitti I’d like to relate.
In the top photo, Mohammad is taking the cover traditionally used to put over the food before it was served to keep the flies off of it. Its very colourful, I wish I could have bought one but I never saw it offered for sale anywhere. The second picture is his family's pigeon coop. Yes, I ate pigeon one night, it reminded me of the Cornish Game Hen's we used to get in the cafeteria in Depot during basic training. Not much meat on them but it was good.
As I mentioned, I was treated very well in Taitti, the people all wanted to meet me and shake hands with me and have me to their home for tea or a meal. Very kind, friendly people, I quite enjoyed them. They have a distinct way of shaking hands, first they clap each other on the left shoulder with their right hands, then they shake hands. It took me a day or two to catch on to this (I’m a slow learner). I met most of the women when we arrived at a house, they greeted me and most of them shook hands with me but they usually went to sit in another room with the other women. Heba was able to move back and forth between the groups of men and the groups of women; I wasn’t, I never got the opportunity to speak to any of them other than in greeting. That is the culture there. As Mohammad was explaining, they don’t “date” in the sense that we do in Canada but they don’t have arranged marriages either, they have arranged introductions instead in which family members will introduce them to each other and they discuss whether they would be interested in getting married. It (marriage) is voluntary on both parts however. I noticed a few younger people holding hands or walking together after dark but in general I didn’t see any displays of affection between the men and the women.
One day I was there, we went to the elementary school in Taitti, Heba wanted to interview some students and teachers. As you can see in the pictures, the buildings were in rough shape by our standards. Nonetheless the students were all very bright looking, very disciplined, they all stood up when we entered the room, they kept quiet while the teacher or someone was speaking etc. Something like our schools used to be. Segregated classes may make this possible. When we went into some of the classes in the school, all of the kids stared at me at first. When I smiled at them they all smiled back. They are very attractive, big brown eyes, beautiful smiles. They reminded me of my kids when they were that age (notice that everything seems to remind me of my kids, I’ve missed them more than I thought I would. My kids that is, not the kids of Taitti although they were very nice too. Nice teeth.).
I found myself wishing I could have taken my kids with me to Taitti so they can see what is important in life; not tvs and Internet and clothes, although I must admit I longed for some word of the outside world on some days. The only means of obtaining world news is newspapers, which are in Arabic.
I also never sweated so much in all my life. Even though Mohammad’s family washed my clothes once when I was there, when I came back to Juba my two pairs of cotton cargo pants were discoloured from the salt in my sweat. I only wore sandals when I was there because it would have been too hot for shoes, but the soles of my feet started to dry up and crack open. Fortunately I had taken some moisturizing lotion with me because I read in Heba’s blog that her feet were getting quite dry and calloused; usually when my feet are that dry little cuts appear in the soles and they are painful and hard to heal up. I only had one thank goodness.
As I mentioned, I was treated very well in Taitti, the people all wanted to meet me and shake hands with me and have me to their home for tea or a meal. Very kind, friendly people, I quite enjoyed them. They have a distinct way of shaking hands, first they clap each other on the left shoulder with their right hands, then they shake hands. It took me a day or two to catch on to this (I’m a slow learner). I met most of the women when we arrived at a house, they greeted me and most of them shook hands with me but they usually went to sit in another room with the other women. Heba was able to move back and forth between the groups of men and the groups of women; I wasn’t, I never got the opportunity to speak to any of them other than in greeting. That is the culture there. As Mohammad was explaining, they don’t “date” in the sense that we do in Canada but they don’t have arranged marriages either, they have arranged introductions instead in which family members will introduce them to each other and they discuss whether they would be interested in getting married. It (marriage) is voluntary on both parts however. I noticed a few younger people holding hands or walking together after dark but in general I didn’t see any displays of affection between the men and the women.
One day I was there, we went to the elementary school in Taitti, Heba wanted to interview some students and teachers. As you can see in the pictures, the buildings were in rough shape by our standards. Nonetheless the students were all very bright looking, very disciplined, they all stood up when we entered the room, they kept quiet while the teacher or someone was speaking etc. Something like our schools used to be. Segregated classes may make this possible. When we went into some of the classes in the school, all of the kids stared at me at first. When I smiled at them they all smiled back. They are very attractive, big brown eyes, beautiful smiles. They reminded me of my kids when they were that age (notice that everything seems to remind me of my kids, I’ve missed them more than I thought I would. My kids that is, not the kids of Taitti although they were very nice too. Nice teeth.).
I found myself wishing I could have taken my kids with me to Taitti so they can see what is important in life; not tvs and Internet and clothes, although I must admit I longed for some word of the outside world on some days. The only means of obtaining world news is newspapers, which are in Arabic.
I also never sweated so much in all my life. Even though Mohammad’s family washed my clothes once when I was there, when I came back to Juba my two pairs of cotton cargo pants were discoloured from the salt in my sweat. I only wore sandals when I was there because it would have been too hot for shoes, but the soles of my feet started to dry up and crack open. Fortunately I had taken some moisturizing lotion with me because I read in Heba’s blog that her feet were getting quite dry and calloused; usually when my feet are that dry little cuts appear in the soles and they are painful and hard to heal up. I only had one thank goodness.
No comments:
Post a Comment