Solidarity with Southern Sudan - Malakal: Solidarity Unwanted

50. Solidarity Unwanted

‘Solidarity’ is a great idea, standing together with the Sudanese people and journeying with them, and our fellow workers, toward our common goals. I am here as part of Solidarity with Southern Sudan (SSS). Our mission statement asserts our purpose: ‘Solidarity with Southern Sudan is a project that seeks to promote the Kingdom of God in partnership with the local church and the people of Sudan through the establishment and development of teacher and health training institutes and those pastoral services deemed most urgent.’

SSS is the combined response of more than 150 Superiors General of religious congregations to the plea for help made by the Catholic Bishops of Southern Sudan. This is the first time so many congregations, forming mixed communities from diverse religious institutes of men and women, have responded collaboratively to such pressing needs as faced by Southern Sudan after more than forty years of wars and oppression. Our presence here helps build confidence and hope. Our combined endeavours bring great resources generated by the considerable efforts not only of the eighteen women and five men currently living and working in Southern Sudan but by many others planning, supporting and fund-raising in other parts of the world and coordinated through our SSS Board and office in Rome.

The way forward is being found not only with the Bishops and people of Sudan but in forming cooperative partnerships with other contributing organisations, both government and non-government. What seems to be the single, greatest, peace initiative across Sudan is the 101 Days of Prayer Towards a Peaceful Referendum. It is encouraging to know so many people outside of Sudan are also supporting this focus on peace, the campaign started by one of our SSS sisters, Cathy Arata, a diminutive figure in size but not in spirit, who was also one of the key pioneers who brought about the existence of SSS in the first place and promoted the value of such solidarity.

Someone said to me recently in Malakal: ‘We are with you Bill in solidarity’. It was a quip about an unwanted solidarity we have recently experienced. We have had power surges and burn outs, the product of faulty work and equipment in this region where shoddy standards of workmanship are all too common. Now, not only my computer was out of action but so were the power adaptors of every other computer in our community as well as the adaptor on our satellite internet modem and router. On the same day that we awoke to these computer problems, our water supply from the Nile cut out and we had been waiting three weeks for a new supply of gas bottles to arrive from Khartoum. We were not out of gas as we have a reserve bottle which would normally last a month. A few days later our phone rechargers ceased to operate. We try to plan ahead and ‘be prepared’ but even surge protector power boards don’t prevent mishaps. Our internet provider in Juba told me that a high intensity flash of power can be so fast it gets past a protector before it can trip.

So what do we do? Respond to the issues one at a time, share and help one another where we can and learn to be more patient and grateful for what we still have. The gas did arrive, I have a new computer to use, albeit with many instructions in Italian and a keyboard with buttons not always doing what they indicate and I have found another way to charge my phone. I am now in Juba and today sent our restored internet equipment back to Malakal. It is good to be alive even when the technology on which we come to depend is temporarily ‘dead’.

- Br Bill