Arriving in South Sudan: Echoes of Home
I have arrived in South Sudan.
My name is Dr. Matthew Jones and this is my first day in South Sudan where I am volunteering with CMMB for the next nine months. I arrived this morning flying from Nairobi and immediately I was met with a degree of chaos, which I had been warned about.
South Sudan is a country that has obviously suffered and continues to suffer. For those who don’t know the history, South Sudan broke away from Sudan in 2011 after a long struggle for independence. Unfortunately, two years after achieving independence it fell into civil war. I do not understand it fully and I really see that it is much more complicated than even people who have been here for a long time completely understand. It seems to me to be a sort of combination of national, regional, and local conflict. Where I happen to be going, to the west of the country, a place called Nzara, it doesn’t seem to be relatively too heavily affected.
I arrived at the airport this morning and immediately you are aware that you are arriving to somewhere with less infrastructure than you have probably ever seen before. The airport itself might be described as having sort of shed-like features. So you queue for passport control, and you’re on a dirt floor, and a variety of people approach you (the only uniform I could identify was the Hawaiian shirt on a few of them).
I then met the representative from CMMB, John Perry, who is a very nice guy. He then took me through, leaving one area and then entering the baggage control area, which was 5 meters away. I wonder whether or not they probably lose fewer bags than in Heathrow Airport. They essentially just take the bag from the plane and physically carry it directly to the passengers waiting. I passed through security control which was about a yard further on, and the very pleasant security guard simply looked at my bag. He saw a mosquito net and a towel and that seemed to satisfy him, and just like that I was through. It was a very straight forward process. I must confess that it was a lot easier than the last time I went through Gatwick or Heathrow Airport.
I think it is very easy to arrive in a place like this and think that one starts to come to understand it because one can make a series of flippant observations about the standard of security in an airport. The reality is that there are a whole set of influences, deep influences in this country, which I may never come to understand – I may not have the ability to understand. Certainly the only sort of hope I have for understanding this place is to be humble and just listen and to try to avoid any sort of generalizations as tempting as it is at times. I think when we travel, we do have this temptation which I think is very much born out of an insecurity, sometimes a loneliness, being far from home. Our desire to believe we understand a place can sometimes come at the expense of a truer, deeper connection to a place.
Certainly the only sort of hope I have for understanding this place is to be humble and just listen.
My Concerns
On the first day, having not even seen the hospital yet, I feel that degree of trepidation as to whether I am really going to be able to offer anything here. Whether I can provide any value, or any use. I certainly would fear ultimately having a super shallow and superficial relationship here, in a sense almost like a health tourist and then just going home and spend the rest of my life saying I spent nine months in South Sudan, thank you very much, box ticked.
With that sort of professed insecurity, there is this temptation to throw myself into the clinical work to prove my value and my worth. I hope that on the ground I will be able to find a balance. This important balance will involve clinical work, but also that ability to step back and see things from an outsider’s perspective. I think that I can offer something in both domains. One being the descriptive side, which can lead itself to things like service improvement and change in the way things are done here. As well as, the sort of pure engagement and the pure medical function.
My Plan Moving Forward: Video Blogs
I will be creating video diaries to document my journey in South Sudan. With these videos I hope to take both an exterior perspective and an interior attitude. In terms of the exterior, I predominately want to show an outside perspective on how the healthcare system works, but to also raise funds and awareness about what’s going on in South Sudan and the hospital I will be working at. I hope to also bring a degree of introspection to these videos, where I will take a deeper look beneath the surface.
I hope that over time, these blogs will demonstrate a greater level of understanding, a greater focus, and a greater coherence. I’d like to think that if nothing else, my video blogs demonstrate an open-mindedness and flexibility, and a commitment to not necessarily be coming at this from one angle, no matter what that one angle might be.
I’d like at the end of the nine or 12 months that I serve here, at the very least to believe that I’ve done something more than just go through the motions and tick boxes. I’d like properly engage with the culture and with the service that they offer, and ultimately try and form some relationships with the people who are doing the hard work over a long period of time – the people who will remain long after I am gone.
I think without those relationships, one really is just passing by as a tourist and that to me would be a very disappointing experience. It is wonderful to be here and I sincerely and deeply look forward to this journey.