A Day in Kapoeta

My cousin is a truly remarkable person. At the age of twenty, Haley has figured out her life calling and committed many months in Rwanda, Malawi, Kenya, South Sudan, The Philippines, and Belize where she taught English in villages, worked in orphanages, and preached the gospel. She is also terribly funny and one of my favorite persons. In light of this, I felt compelled to share some of her experiences. This is A Day in South Sudan by Haley Jones.

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6:53 - The rain has finally stopped beating down on the tin roof, but now the chickens won’t shut up. I won’t be able to sleep those extra seven minutes today. Soon the headmaster will ring the school bell and my work day will begin. I put my glasses on, unzip my mosquito net, and slip on my flip-flops, careful not to stumble upon a scorpion. I don’t feel like dealing with a freezing shower (can you call a steady flow of just a few drops a shower?) so I throw my greasy hair into a bun. On the way to breakfast, I pass the boys who live on the compound. They greet me in Toposa as they brush their teeth with sticks. “Maata, Haley. Ejoka?” I swallow my malaria tablet with my peanut butter toast and eggs and finish my first bottle of water for the day.

I make my way through the thick mud and finally arrive at my class: English for primary one. I teach first graders, aged anywhere between 7 and 12. Today, and every day, we are working on our ABC’s. They knew the alphabet before I arrived, with the exception of about ten letters. I have been teaching for three weeks, but they don’t seem to get it. We’ve also been working on the English words for the different body parts, singing songs like “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.” They may not be able to tell me what letter comes after T, but they know where their toes are. I clean the chalkboard and make my way next door to my second class: primary two. Here I teach English to the older kids – mostly boys, as the majority of South Sudanese girls do not get an education. After arguing with my favorite student to give me my piece of chalk, I write six or seven sentences on the board. We unpack the sentences, underlining and circling personal pronouns, adjectives, and subjects. They speak more English, so a good portion of the class is friendly conversation mixed, of course, with the American teacher being made fun of by her students.

The headmaster rings the bell, indicating the end of class and the start of recess. We play soccer and some of the older students teach me a few Toposa words. Soon young children from surrounding villages file in with empty bowls and gourds and form a line outside the small, concrete kitchen. The cooks are busy boiling beans, sorghum, and ugali - a maize flour porridge. The line grows as the school children put away the soccer balls and fetch their own bowls. This is one meal the children can always count on.

The children finish eating and go back to class. My morning of teaching is over, so I walk to the medical clinic to see what kinds of cases the nurse is seeing today. Outside sit mothers nursing their babies, grandmothers laying on the ground in pain, and skinny children too exhausted to wave the flies from their eyes. Inside I find a woman being treated for a horrible infection, most likely from bugs that burrowed in her skin while bathing in the river. As the nurse puts some sort of salt or powder on her wound, the woman squeals and punches and kicks and I have to leave the room so she doesn’t see me cry. I give myself two minutes, then I go back out and hold her down while the nurse continues with the treatment. I quickly realize I am not strong enough to be in the clinic, so I go to my house and do my laundry. I fill the purple basin with soap and water, then dump in my clothes. I blast my favorite Bethel album, and my friend tells me she can hear me singing all the way in the medical clinic. Laundry days are my favorite times to worship. I scrub my clothes until my fingers begin to form small scabs, then I hang the clothes on the line to dry.

Just another hour until my favorite boys get out of class. In the meantime, I visit the village just outside of the compound, walking hand in hand with my favorite four-year-old.

We play with his goats, one of which was born less than ten minutes ago, and also spend time with his siblings and mom. They speak limited English, and I only know Toposa greetings, so we laugh and smile and play and that seems to be enough.

Finally, primary one students are out of class and we play soccer and other games until the older students join us. African children have a game called “goat and hyena” where the children hold hands and form a circle and one child remains outside of the circle, while another child is inside of the circle. The child outside of the circle is the hyena, and the one inside is the goat. The hyena tries to break into the circle, ready to capture his prey. The goat is protected by the children forming the circle, who lean close together to keep the predator from entering the circle and devouring the poor, innocent creature. Personally, I could play this game for hours. And we do. Eventually the older students are released from class and we all come together for a game of net-less volleyball. If you can’t tell, games and sports are a major part of this culture, which is super unfortunate for my uncoordinated self. The boys make fun of my athletic skills, or lack thereof, for about an hour before it's time for dinner.

For the students who live on the compound, dinner is sorghum, and if they’re lucky, chicken. For the westerners who can’t quite stomach sorghum, hamburgers are served. We eat and talk about the day, then have a short devotional. Afterwards, the girls make our way across the pitch-black compound, shining our lights to avoid snakes or scorpions. I step on a small grass snake, but one of my young students walks over and kills the snake with a rock. No big deal. We make it to our room and kill a few scorpions, then dodge the bats as we race to our beds.

I zip up my mosquito net and put my blanket on my left side, prepared for the rain that will inevitably come through the window and onto my bed. I put my headphones in, close my eyes, and drift off. Tomorrow, I do it all again.

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