Into the field

ALP or the challenge of education

My first internship-week has been quite intense. I observed a lot, I took a lot of notes, I went to a lot of meetings with the local authorities but, most importantly, I went “to the field”. In the slang of my office, “going to the field” means to visit the schools in the surrounding villages of the counties of Yei, Morobo and Lainya where Ibis implements its ALP programme. ALP stands for Accelerated Learning Programme, since it condenses the normal 8 years of primary school into 4, so that over-age children who couldn’t study during the war, can finally have access to basic education.

According to Ibis’ work-plan, the last week was dedicated to what’s called “pre-planning”. Pre-planning is done by the teachers, who have been trained according to the vision of the ALP system and thus are called ALP teachers, who schematize the entire academic year before lesson start (and lessons will actually start this week).

So me and Abdu were in charge to go around the schools of Yei county, which are not called schools but ALP centres, to check whether the teachers were doing their job or not.

We started at 10 and we finish at 17, and we managed to visit 7 ALP centres. The impression that I got was quite various, since some centres were functioning well, the head-master looked committed and the teachers were relentlessly scheming what they will teach to their ALP learners, whereas others registered a poor enrolment rate and teachers haven’t even shown up.

Education is considered by the government of South Sudan as an effective tool to build the nation of this newly born state, and since 2007, Ibis is trying to mobilize and sensitize people on how education can free frompoverty, empower people and help to achieve individual and collective rights. But thing are not that easy, an illiteracy rate up to 85% cannot be easily wiped out and the burden of 21 years-war is still on the shoulder of the South Sudanese people.

That’s why cases like the Jombu ALP Centre really makes you hope for the better.

Jombu ALP Centre is constituted of two permanent building constructed by the parents of the learners, which are located behind the shadow of a huge tree where we found the teachers who were completing their pre-planning. The head-master, a wise man with a wise barb, was proud to say that a conspicuous amount of learners have already registered, and that the community is very keen on raising the mudded walls of a third building to host future students. The role of the community is quite crucial in ALP:  if the community perceives the centre, and thus the entire ALP programme as its own,  it will cherishes for it, even when Ibis will leave. “It’s a matter of psychological ownership” as Abdu says.

I will be curious to come next week and see the learners in their classroom. Abdu explains me that the majority of the learners are demobilized child soldiers, children without parents, young mothers,  between 12 and 18 years of age, who have already a busy life working as farmers or pastoralists. For this reason, ALP classes start in the afternoon to give the learners time to do their jobs in the morning and last three hours, to allow them to go back home to take care of their children.

Despite a certain drop-out rate, learners are usually so passionate about ALP teaching system that end up becoming teachers themselves after having finished their last fourth year, so that a quality education could be guaranteed to the generation to come.

In South Sudan, the appointment of qualified teacher is quite a big challenge as well as the involvement of girls in learning and teaching activities, since early marriages, early pregnancies and a general chauvinist culture is the cause of a big gender gap. Therefore, Ibis’ gender policy is used as the main reference point in ALP programme and even beyond that. Our office in Yei has in fact a female driver, Mariam, who raises quite a fuss every time she takes us around, since Yei people are not that used to see a woman at the wheel.

First night out of Yei or the noises of nature

In my first week-internship I already had the opportunity to sleep “in the field”. This time I was with James, my other colleague whom I share the office with, and Felix Amule, Central Equatoria State Education Coordinator, a key person in the transfer management of the ALP programme that will be given into the hand of the government by August 31^st. This time we went to Lainya county to visit the ALP centres in the early afternoon and to have a meeting with Lainya Commissioner the morning after.

Surprisingly our visits to the centres finished quite early, around 17 pm, so we had nothing to do but go to our guesthouse.

Here I learnt that:

-you don’t need to book in advance a guesthouse which is in the middle of the countryside since the chance to have guests is quite low;

-I always took modernity as granted, but running water and electric light are not things you can easily find everywhere;

Fortunately I am in Yei since no more than 2 weeks, so James has a lot of questions to ask me to kill time before dinner. Here people are very catholic, so I always make a good impression saying that I am from Italy where the Vatican city is. James seems quite inspired by my story so it turns on his cell-phone to listen to a gospel song that says “…Jesus has changed the rhythm of my heart…”.

Jesus has surely changed the rhythm of his heart but wasn’t able to change the rhythm of this song since I have been listening to if for the last two hours, given that James has fallen asleep with his cell-phone on his belly.

I am not only hypnotized by the music, but also from the continual coming and going of the owner of the guesthouse, a Kenyan woman who, water-can on the top of her hand, goes back and forth between the nearby borehole and the guesthouse, to fill the water that her guests will need. But this is how it works in South Sudan, a place that looks like the world when it was born, with red soil that hasn’t been paved and green trees now burnt by the dry season and dark nights without street lamps. I am scared to walk without knowing where I put my feet, but my strategy is to selfishly walk behind James, so that he will be the first to fall down in the ridges of the land.

But nobody falls and we make it to Lainya town which actually wasn’t that far. Here we have dinner with cow beans accompanied with rice, matoke (a puree made out of a green banana, the matoke) and posho (which is a puree made out of I don’t know what). Everything tastes delicious and I am happy to go back and to brush my teeth under an enormous starry sky.

Here in South Sudan, I found out that nature can also be very noisy since cicadas, frogs, dogs, roosters, take you company in the night and wake you in the morning. However, I am sort of fresh and clean for my meeting and we reach the office of the commissioner after a breakfast with chapatti and beans.

It’s my third meeting with authorities since I am here, and I must confess that these commissioner look scary at first sight.  They are big, serious, silent and wear a military uniform. But when they finally open their mouth, always at the end, they are actually nice and smiling. The meeting with the Lainya commissioner is actually the best of the tree I took part to. He seems in fact quite an enlightened man, really committed to implement the Memorandum of Understanding that has been recently signed between Ibis and South Sudan.

One of the nice things about going to the field is that you can buy vegetable or fruit from the street-seller on the side of the road. I buy a bag of cassava, a tuber largely used in South Sudan, that I will eat once back home together with a good beer.

  

Copenhagen-Cairo-Juba-Yei: the journey

Copenhagen-

On February 13^th, I left Copenhagen for Juba where I landed the next day, since my St Valentine’s date was with South Sudan this year.

The first challenge of my trip was: how to get from my place to Copenhagen Kastrup Airport without a valid ticket? I was in fact stupid enough to spend the last money of my bank account buying a ticket to the airport the day before my departure, without knowing that the validity of the ticket starts the same minute you buy it…

To get a 750 kr fine is not exactly the best way to say goodbye to a lovely city as Copenhagen is, but fortunately it didn’t happen, because the patrol on the metro was busy giving a fine to someone else, so I made it to the airport without losing my dignity.

I checked in (I was allowed to bring with me 48 kg and the weight of my one-year Copenhagen life, that I was carrying in my luggage, was 44) with Egypt-airlines and before going to the gate, I killed my time using my really last 20 kr coins to buy a delicious double-cheese burger.

-Cairo-

I discovered that Egypt airline is great. We took off at 14:45 and we arrived in Cairo at 20:30, where we were supposed to wait for 12 hours but Egypt airlines provided us with a hotel not far from the airport which was included in the price of the ticket! Once we arrived at the hotel, another pleasant surprise was waiting for us: free dinner and free breakfast! I definitively consider Egypt airlines my favourite airway company.

On the way to the hotel, I befriended with my first travel companion R., a Lebanese guy, who was also going to Juba. I found out that Italians and Lebanese have a lot of things in common like hand gestures and disrespect for rules. Whereas the others were lining up to get their rooms’ keys, R. sneaked out of the line with non-chalance and invited me to do the same. I couldn’t disappoint my brand-new friend, so I was in my room at the third floor of Le Passage (that’s the name of the hotel) without waiting one minute.

After a quick shower, I went with R. to the restaurant where buffet dinner was already served. R. couldn’t really speak English but during our meal, he managed to tell me that: 

-I shouldn’t drink water while I eat; 

-Lebanese bread is better than the one we will have in Juba; 

-He has a company together with his cousin which sells electric generators in South Sudan.

In order to digest the insane amount of food we ate, we took a walk around the hotel, where in one of the conference room a wedding party was held. We weren’t exactly invited but R. didn’t really care and after a while we were amongst the guests, looking at them dancing and asking the waiter if he could bring us a “whisky-no-money”. If R. makes business as he sneaks into wedding parties, he will definitively make a fortune in South Sudan.

The morning after, we were at the airport at 6:30 waiting for our passports that were temporarily confiscated by Egypt airlines while we were enjoying food and drinks. Another guy was waiting for his passport with us, his name was D. and his destination was Juba too. Although South Sudanese himself, this extremely tall guy was going to South Sudan for the first time in his life after having lived in Cairo, Kenya, holding a British passport and a letter which said he was authorized to see his family in South Sudan. He hasn’t seen his father for more than 20 years.

Juba-

And here we are, me, R. and D. on the same plane to the same place. Egypt looks quite arid from above, the only thing you can see is the serpentine track of the rivers that were once running wild, whose waters have been sucked by the desert nowadays. But, as soon as we approach South Sudan, the landscape changes, everything is “green-dotted” as D. notices with a certain pride. But it’s the vivid brightness of the iron-sheets of Juba’s roofs that welcomes us and marks our arrival.

After having wished the best of luck to my friends, I am ready to set foot in hot Juba, whose temperature is around 40 degrees today, quite a difference from what I left in wondercool Copenhagen.

Peter McCanny, the programme coordinator of IBIS-South Sudan and my supervisor for my 6 months internship, is waiting for me at the entrance of Juba airport, right after the immigration desk where I am trying to get my passport stamped. I wave at him several times but he doesn’t recognize me while holding stubbornly in his hand a sign which says “IBIS”.

But when I am finally done with bureaucracy, I go to him to shake my hand and introduce myself. I am very happy to see him: it’s always very nice to have someone who picks you up at the airport, especially in a foreign country.

In the twinkling of an eye, we are at IBIS office. Here I meet the Juba staff and Abdu, who is instead part of the staff in Yei, my duty station, where I will go with him tomorrow.

I fight with my tiredness while listening carefully to Peter, who after having lived in South Sudan for eight years and worked for IBIS for four years, is surely the right person to talk about this country and what IBIS does here.

It’s time for dinner and I go with Abdu to the nearby guesthouse where we will also spend the night. We sit in the courtyard where other guests are enjoying their meal, and we share our table with N. and W., who are both from Kenya and who work in Juba for the World Bank. The air is fresh, the food is good, the company is enjoyable. They talk about the South Sudan Development Plan, the possible relocation of  the capital from Juba to Ramciel, but they also make fun of the difference between Kikuyu and Masai, the ethnic groups that N. and W. respectively belong to, and of the tradition of donating cattle that the groom has to respect in order to marry his bride.

They are surprised to hear that it’s my first time in Africa:

“Did you take with you a little pharmacy as every foreigner who come to Africa do?”.

I nod embarrassed. They laugh to tears.

Yei

On February 15, at 10 a.m, I am ready to reach my final destination. The distance between Juba to Yei is of only 132 km, however, on a bumpy road, this easily becomes a 6 hour car drive. Fortunately, me, Abdu, Dominique the driver, Abdu’s friend who asked for a lift to Yei and two children who are the sons of a colleague, have a lot to chat on the way. I get to know that Abdu grew up in Uganda as a refugee, came back to Sudan after the war, went to attend a Master in Education and Development in Oslo, and has been working for IBIS since a couple of years.

But Abdu is not the only one to have such an interesting story behind. Once arrived in Yei, I met Daniel, a former child-soldier who greets me with a bright smile saying: “Welcome to Yei, welcome to South Sudan!”. He is Yei’s project manager and will be my mentor during my internship here.

It’s late afternoon and I am taken to my room inside the lovely compound that IBIS share with the Danish Refugee Council. I am tired but I am also excited of all the things that happened in the last two days. Tomorrow it will be my first day at work. And I can’t wait.