On The Road

The work of MY SISTER’S KEEPER in Sudan is always an adventure. This has been one of our most adventurous and ambitious trips so far. We set a number of goals for this trip focused on education and peace advocacy. Our delegation includes Dr. Holly Carter and Dr. Marilyn Quarcoo, both educators and specialists in teacher training and Niama Green, a Kennedy school student fellow focusing on International and Global affairs. MY SISTER’S KEEPER has truly come a long way.

To make the best use of time and money, we decided to travel overland to our many appointments. (Better financed NGO’s usually travel by air.) The four hour trip from the tiny isolated village of Akon, where we visited Kunyuk Girls’ School ….to the more populated community of Wau, where we are putting together the SISTERHOOD FOR PEACE conference, is a perfect metaphor for the road to peace in this struggling country; difficult but navigable.

In the many times I have come to Sudan, I have never traveled such a great distance by car. Giant tractors plow and grade the dusty main highway that runs the length of this remote region promising easer connections ahead. But there is still a lot of work to be done. Much of the road is marred with ugly sinkholes and rocky ridges making the trip slow and arduous. Colorful people trek alongside the road, their heads balancing unimaginable cargo. With goats and cows following behind, they offer friendly waves and wonderful photo opportunities along the way.

Halfway into our trip, Niama got out of the car to take a picture at a roadside market . And in an instant, everything changed. A group of angry and armed young soldiers on motorcycles roared up out of nowhere. Holly, Marilynn, Niama and I sat holding our breathes in the cars as our drivers along with Sarah and Kaidi Rial, MSK’s program director and field coordinator, got out to talk. They are sisters and two of the most courageous women I know. More angry young men, on the back of a truck showed up, clearly looking for confrontation. I couldn’t understand what anybody was saying but the talk went from bad to worse. Before any of us inside the vehicles knew what was happening, our trip was halted and we were quickly escorted to a frightening local police establishment a few miles from where we had been pulled over. It was a heart stopping incident and frankly I am not quite sure what would have happened had it not been for the work of women.

One of the stops we were most excited about in the trip to Wau, was in Kuajok, where our dear friend Achol Cyier Rehan lives. Achol is the woman who inspired MY SISTER’S KEEPER when Gloria and I first traveled to Sudan in 2001. Achol was our first interpreter, a tall beautiful and shy Dinka woman who, blessed with an education, has a burning desire to help her people. In the 8 years since that first meeting, Achol has risen as a leader of the new Sudan. Right now, she is a special advisor to the Governor of Warrap state, and her voice is growing in power and influence not only here in the south but among all of those working for peace in this troubled country.

The young bulls who stopped us on the road were becoming even more agitated as they led us to see their superior in a crowded and dingy courtyard. I kept thinking “This is it. We are going to some unknown jail and nobody will know where to find us. How long would it be before the headlines read ‘American Humanitarian workers imprisoned in Sudan!” I did not know that our salvation had already begun. Just as we were brusquely commanded out of the cars, another SUV pulled quickly into the courtyard. It carried Achol called when the soldiers pulled us over., via cellphone by a fast-thinking Kaidi.

By the time Achol finished a quick conversation with the man in charge, he and she were laughing, the young soldiers were calmed down and our group was back on the road to Wau. (All politics are local!)

Achol, Kaidi and Sara are three of countless Sudanese women who are taking brave new roles in the work for peace here. They all exude a new kind of power and confidence. They each represent the best possible future for this country and the world. I am honored to know them.