Sunday, November 25, 2012

South Sudan Team!


This is the team that I will be working with for the next 6 months in Mundri Town, South Sudan. Starting in the top left is Michael Masso (team leader & engineer), Grant Curtiss (me), Stewart Goodwin (fellow engineering 6 month intern), and Andrew Shaughnessy (writer/man of all trades and a 1 year intern). Middle row is Karen Masso (Michael's wife, mother of 3, and our accountant/ organizer), Larissa Wolowec (teacher/ adviser of agricultural practices), Liana Masso (second oldest Masso sibling), John Sender (water engineer and engineering intern coordinator), and Scott Will (physicians assistant). Bottom row is Gabe Masso (youngest Masso sibling), Jennifer Disse (MK teacher and primary school teacher), Bethany Ferguson (teacher trainer for Mundri Primary Schools), Heidi Lutjens (nurse practitioner), and Melissa Garner (primary school teacher). Pray that God would continue to use us to spread the Gospel to Mundri!

Saturday, November 24, 2012

My Living Quarters


The hut with the thatched roof with the concrete walls to the right is the hut that Stewart and I live in currently. A typical Sudanese house (or so called "tukul") will look like this except their wall and floor will be made of dried mud instead of concrete. The brick house to the left is Scott Will's living area which is connected to our shared kitchen.


This is what it looks like inside the tukul. Stewart's bed is to the right and the bed shown is mine, complete with a mosquito net and a much needed 12 volt fan! Notice the motorcycle helmet on the floor. I am almost an expert here in South Sudan, which is quite an accomplishment considering the condition of the roads...or lack thereof a road.



The above two pictures are our shared kitchen, complete with couches to the left for visitors, a stove in the center, and a running faucet on the right for cleaning our dishes. We don't drink water from the sink because the water is tapped to a city line that may or may not be clean. We get all of our drinking water from a biosand filter seen in the top right hand corner of the picture immediately above.


This is what it looks like inside the latrine. Not much to explain here, got to know this place pretty well the first week I arrived to Mundri. Thankfully toilet paper is available here...

A view of the latrine from outside, which is behind one of the three metal doors in the shack in the distance. The corrugated metal structure on the left is the urination/ bathing area. In Sudanese culture it is known that you urinate where you bath...which makes for a rather foul smell where you wash yourself. Thankfully we have an outside shower attached to the side of Scott Will's house, complete with running water and no urine.


Lastly, I decided to include Neville. Neville is a common African toad who loves to claim the shower drain as his own. He always gets grumpy when I try to oust him out of his much coveted shower drain.