Muzungu in the Bush
Winter, 2009. Home is 10,000 miles away.
Jeff and I arrived in Juba, the capital of the autonomous Southern Sudan region. We were there to photograph and video-record the work of Water for Sudan, an INGO founded in 2003 by Salva Dut, a war refugee who, at 11 years old, fled from his school in Tonj and became one of the self-described Walking Boys. With others, he walked thousands of miles to refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya. 10 years later, Salva was relocated to the US where he wound up first in Texas then, supported by a local family and Episcopal congregation, Rochester, NY. After a few years, Salva reconnected with his Sudanese family. With the help of friends, he founded Water for Sudan in 2003 to drill wells in his home region of Western Bahr-el- Gazal.
We caught up with Salva, his co-leader Dep, and the drilling crew in Malek, a small Dinka village four hours north of Juba on the eastern shore of the Bahr al Jabal, commonly known as the White Nile. The well site was a few hundred yards from the river. Salva had hired the four-member crew in Uganda because southern Sudanese with the required technical skills for well-drilling were hard to find at the time. This was the first chance for the crew to work together as a team and learn the equipment, particularly the powerful new drilling rig recently delivered from the US. Once prepared, the team would trek to Maiwut, hundreds of miles to the northeast in Upper Nile State. The goal: drill at least a dozen wells in that Upper Nile region during the next two months before the year’s rains began.
A day or two after our arrival at the Malek site, the entire team gathered near the drilling rig. The rig was silent; all work stopped.
“We have a problem, guys,” said Salva. “It’s the rig’s mud pump.” The pump engine had begun giving off a loud, metal-on-metal clicking.
The usual smile on Salva’s high-cheekboned face wasn’t there. “I’m 100 percent convinced we’ll fix it. It was made by man. We’re men. A team. It’s just a matter of trusting one another. ”
“It’s in God’s hands,” said Dep, co-leader of the expedition. I thought that whatever god Dep invoked had forsaken this land and its people to endless war.
Dep, like Salva, is a southern Sudanese expatriate. He fled Sudan with his wife and infant son during the civil war. As the family made their exodus, the infant died. It was later determined he’d been infected with water-borne parasites in Sudan. Dep and his wife eventually settled as refugees in California and became citizens. He told us he’d vowed to find a way to provide clean water to his village, especially for family members who still lived there. Thanks to the Internet, he connected with Water for Sudan. Then, with the help of Rotarian friends, he raised money in the San Diego area that helped pay for the new drilling rig.
Dep’s role alongside Salva reflected another less obvious purpose in the expedition: the two men are from different tribes. Salva is a Dinka, Sudan’s largest tribe. Dep is Nuer, the second largest tribe. Dinka and Nuer are traditional enemies. The two men hoped their shared leadership during this trip would demonstrate to the different tribal villages where wells would be drilled how traditional enemies can work together, bridging differences to overcome challenges and benefit all southern Sudanese. Our filming would capture such moments, including Dep’s triumphant return to Maiwut after twenty years.
A search of the rig’s documentation uncovered no manual for the pump. Salva and Dep, after huddling with the crew, decided drilling should continue. A risk, they admitted, but there was no time to wait for help from nearby Russian oil field engineers. Two days later, Malek had a well; the new team’s first success and a hopeful sign for the work ahead. The rig’s mud pump still clicked, but not as loud. The long trek to Maiwut began.
—
Our caravan crept north from Malek. Daytime temperatures routinely topped 110°F or more. Our speed rarely averaged 20 miles per hour. The road wasn’t really a road; just an earthen scar gouged by years of war, baked concrete-hard during dry seasons. En route, we passed an assortment of travelers: shambling herds of dusty-white cattle with long, curved horns accompanied by young men with AK-47s slung over their shoulders like sashes; scampering, bleating goats and their kids chased by boys with long sticks; military-type vehicles with huge tires sometime carrying soldiers, sometimes supplies for the foreign oil companies in the area. Such sights were often set against a background of brilliant orange-barked acacia trees, wildly colorful birds calling day and night, a leopard racing through the bush after unseen prey.
War wreckage was constantly in view: an emaciated man leaning on a crude crutch, an empty pant leg billowing slightly as children played around him; vultures picking at animal remains beside burned-out mud-walled tukls with blackened, broken walls and caved-in burnt thatch roofing; minefields marked with white and red-painted stones; trees and abandoned buildings pocked with bullet holes.
After leaving Malek, a routine developed. Break camp, jolt along for hours at 20 miles an hour or less; suffer a vehicle breakdown that takes hours to fix, hastily make camp, skip meals, sleep a few hours, then gulp a cup of tea with a handful of nuts and stagger back on the road before dawn. One day blurred into the next. Like everyone else, I’d been in the same grit-encrusted clothes for days of intense heat and drinking water at temperatures you could bathe in.
Yet, much to my surprise, I’d quickly adjusted to the conditions. My American sense of time had transformed into a southern Sudan tempo. Walking slowly helped. So did constantly drinking water from a military-grade filter bottle I carried and refilled at every opportunity from the team’s jerry cans. At brief rest stops, seeking any shade the bush provided had become instinctive, especially when “copping a squat” — the team’s term for defecating.
Jeff and I had brought a supply of dried fruit, nuts and protein bars, along with packets of cooked tuna and salmon. A few almonds and dried apricots with a couple swallows of warm water now felt like luxurious meals. I sometimes imagined some colonial sightseer of the past, admiring exotic scenery who always camped apart from the muzungu. The word is Swahili for a white-skinned foreigner; it also means “one who wanders aimlessly.” That thought brought mixed feelings; gratitude for this experience, but a sense of guilt knowing I was soon to return home being little more than a tourist in a culture that’s thousands of years old.
—
To make up time, Salva decided the expedition would travel not only all day, but often continue into the night. One of those nights, Dep, Jeff and I were riding in the 15-year old Land Cruiser, a rolling wreck with no suspension or air-conditioning and cock-eyed headlights that sometimes lit up the road, sometimes the bush.
Dep was driving, his broad face set beneath a dirty cap with Water for Sudan’s logo: a black hand surrounding a blue water drop. The unrelenting heat induced a torpor that only slightly eased when the sun disappeared. To my amazement, Jeff slept in the front passenger seat, his bearded face half-masked by a dusty red bandana. Strung out behind were the rest of the team in an ancient Land Rover, two supply trucks of uncertain vintage and the self-propelled six-wheeled drilling rig.
A faint pungent odor of something burning scented the night air. The star-filled black sky’s horizon was tinged with a pink glow, perhaps from bush being cleared for rainy season planting, perhaps something else.
“We’re traveling in enemy country,” Dep said, as if answering an unspoken question. What he meant, but didn’t say directly, was that enemy country was the territory of tribes not friendly to Dinka or Nuer. Long-standing tribal conflicts over access to water and grazing land, intensified by cattle rustling and the kidnapping of women and children, had become intertwined with the civil war against Sudan’s northern Arab-dominated central government. Those conflicts hadn’t ceased with the war’s truce.
Up ahead, firelight appeared, faint at first then became brighter, joined by waving flashlights as huts and a makeshift roadblock came into view. Armed men swathed in ragtag military gear surrounded our vehicles. Fire in a barrel next to the checkpoint illuminated their scowling faces, glistening in the night heat.
“Documents!”
Hearing English startled me and Jeff snapped awake. A torrent of words in a tribal language followed. An arm thrust through the driver’s window. Dep responded rapidly in Arabic, then handed over a dusty manila envelope. Grim-faced men, AK-47s in hand, took turns peering at us through the windows. High-pitched voices became loud and sounded angry. It was difficult to decipher the men’s body language, as they seemed to argue among themselves. Salva suddenly appeared in front of the men pouring over the documents and started to speak. He was pushed back, staggered a couple steps then stopped, silently waiting with arms folded. Strangely, I didn’t feel afraid. Perhaps I naively assumed that Salva would somehow work it out — or that being a muzungu would be a form of protection.
Finally, apparently satisfied, the checkpoint’s gatekeepers returned the documents to Salva, who jogged back to the truck he’d been riding in. Our convoy was waved on.
It was after midnight. We’d been moving since early morning. With windows open, the dusty air provided slight relief from the heat. Jeff dropped off to sleep and I fell back into reflecting on the expedition’s progress. I’d adopted the Ugandan crew’s Arabic exclamation Inshallah ⎯ God willing. As devout Muslims, it was their constant prayer when confronted with equipment failure, lack of adequate food and 20-hour workdays in blast-furnace-like heat. A silent Inshallah became my own invocation as I’d begun to doubt we’d ever get to Maiwut, Dep’s home village near the Ethiopian border.
—
A swarm of shouting women charged toward us. Their flowing red, blue and yellow patterned dresses and head scarves clashed against the khaki-colored landscape of conical-roofed huts and sere bush grass. The crowd engulfed us, swarming Dep. Men from Maiwut escorted Salva and the rest of us to Dep’s family compound.
Weariness from wandering in the desert faded quickly in the enveloping excitement. The procession began again and continued to grow, joined by more villagers while the women sang and danced in an undulating moving circle, stomping their feet in unison. The words were unintelligible to anyone but the Nuer, yet the meaning was unmistakable in its welcoming fervor. Another group of a half-dozen women walked slowly toward us, the crowd parting at their advance. In the group’s center was a tiny woman, her slower pace marking her as clearly older than the others. Her broad face was solemn, impassive. She seemed unsure who or what had touched off this riotous celebration in front of her. Then, a smile slowly appeared as, stepping into Dep’s arms, his mother’s slight frame seemed to disappear in his embrace. The women’s chorus swelled. I thought what a privilege it was to witness such joy, and tried to remember when I’d last had such an experience. The birth of my son? My wedding? Perhaps a friend or relative greeted on returning from Vietnam.
The celebration continued for days punctuated by speeches and meetings with village leaders to discuss drilling plans. Our team campsite beneath enormous ancient trees at the edge of the village center became a movable feast of relatives, local officials and the merely curious. It was difficult to find quiet moments to rest, wash our clothes or take a quick shower with cups of water.
Then, late one morning, Jeff and I were hurriedly summoned by Dep to join him and team members walking to a celebration staged by his family at his brother’s compound. “It’s not far,” Dep said. We geared up with cameras and audio equipment. Our water bottles were left behind; the one time we’d done that during the whole trip.
Dep’s “It’s not far” turned into almost an hour’s slog through the bush in mid-day sun. “This is not good,” I remember Jeff saying to me at one point, although I wasn’t sure then what he meant.
A large crowd, including the singing and dancing women’s chorus, greeted us. Everyone gathered around a black bull and a small piebald goat tied to a tall wooden pole. The animals stood calmly despite the surrounding noise. The bull’s skin had a slight sheen of what appeared to be perspiration.
The camera rolled. One male elder after another made a speech. Dep translated as they spoke about the meaning of his return, the anticipated gift of water, the generosity of the Americans, and the gratitude of Maiwut. Then, it was time.
Four men surrounded the bull. One untied and held the rope as two others grabbed and lifted the animal’s front and rear leg. A fourth held the bull’s horns and twisted its neck, collapsing the wide-eyed but strangely silent animal to the ground where it was instantly still. The man who had been holding the rope thrust a spear into the bull’s neck. Blood spurted, then gushed as the smooth-edged spear slashed an ever-widening gash in the animal’s throat. The bull’s eyes slowly dimmed as its blood stained the brown soil in a pool of red.
Feasting followed as the bull and goat were butchered. Any remaining meat would later be distributed among the family and villagers, an outsized gift in a culture where cattle are visible wealth.
By the time we returned to our campsite, I’d already stopped sweating, but didn’t feel cool. Laying in my tent, sucking on a water bottle, I remember having a vague sense that this situation wasn’t going to pass quickly. A rising fever slowed my thinking. Salva and Jeff came to the tent and began asking questions. My responses became increasingly slow and soft-voiced. Then Jeff was helping me out of the tent. He and Salva, one on each side, guided my slow shuffle through the village toward the cell tower compound and into its white box.
I curled up on a dirty air mattress in the windowless white metal-walled box surrounded by a locked barbwire-topped fence. An air-conditioned room keeping cell tower electronics cool in Maiwut’s 115° plus heat. A faint hum could be heard from twin generators outside.
I hovered in and out of consciousness. My fever spiked toward 104°. Jeff, standing near a rack of electronics, talked on the satellite phone, checking a possible medevac to Nairobi in Kenya. A man in a patterned green shirt squatted down and applied a wet cloth to my head. He asked if he could take blood.
“Malaria,” he whispered, leaning in close to my ear.
“No. No needles,” I croaked. His face registered disappointment as he put another water-soaked cloth on my forehead and offered a drink from a filtered water bottle. I managed a sip, murmured thanks and, barely breathing, slipped back into semi-consciousness.
—
Two days later, I left the white box, blinking in the sun like an emerging cave dweller. Fever abated but light-headed and weak, I felt suddenly old and vulnerable. I would later learn it wasn’t malaria. That disease is common in the region due to the mosquitoes that breed in stagnant ponds and pools left from the rainy season. Most likely it was heatstroke.
The campsite was broken down; the team prepared to leave. Jeff told me that while I’d been recovering in my makeshift hospital room, Salva met with a Dutch UN engineer visiting Maiwut. The engineer told him water from the aquifer was at much deeper levels in the Maiwut area than elsewhere in Sudan’s southern region. Water for Sudan’s plan to send someone to research the Maiwut area before the team arrived had been aborted due to limited funds. There weren’t enough drilling pipe sections and supplies to reach water, the cumulative result of various breakdowns along the way. So although Dep had returned, the drilling mission had ended in failure.
After conferring with local officials, Salva and Dep decided to leave the trucks, drilling rig and supplies in the village. Maiwut’s government officials and village elders assured Salva that the gear would be safe in a police-guarded compound. Salva and Dep gave their word to the village that Water for Sudan would return next drilling season with sufficient supplies to dig the promised wells. Some of the crew would remain in Maiwut with Dep. They’d prepare the drilling rig and equipment for storage, and then return to Uganda. With those decisions made, Salva led the rest of us across the border to Gambela, Ethiopia.
For a few days, Jeff and I camped out in the back of a Gambela hotel compound waiting in smothering heat and humidity for available flights to Addis Ababa, then Istanbul, and then on to home to the US. One night, I woke unable to breathe and staggered from my tent with shoes on the wrong feet to the one hotel room where two of the team slept. Luckily the electricity was on. I fell asleep in a chair as a fan blew air in my face.
I remember feeling sadness at the mission’s failure, but hope for its eventual success and relief at the prospect of going home.
—
Winter, 2025.
When I look through hundreds of photos taken along the way, I’m instantly back in the heat and dust. I feel again the grime shown in a close-up of a cuff on my barely recognizable yellow shirt. I hear Maiwut’s dancing women joyfully singing, their stomped-out rhythms coming back to life. I see the solemn faces of be-ribboned village elders, their upright postures and red sashes of tribal office conveying dignity despite their motley mix of western and native clothes. I watch the young boys, clothed only in faded oversized tee-shirts with Nike and Arsenal logos, and imagine them becoming AK-47 toting government soldiers or tribal fighters. I smile, remembering teenagers in Gambela proudly showing off their cell-phones playing Michael Jackson songs downloaded from the Internet. I recall my anxiety before leaving home, anxious about diseases, the heat, and the unknown.
So, 16 years after a journey that impacted me in ways I continue to discover, it’s as if, metaphorically, I’ve never left what in January 2011 became the nation of South Sudan, which celebrates its official independence each July 9th. The involvement of the US Bush administration, Uganda’s leadership, and UN officials brought the world’s newest nation into existence with a vote by the people of what was once the southern region of Sudan.
Salva and Dep’s promise to Maiwut’s villagers was kept by the drilling of several wells in that area in 2010. Water for Sudan is now Water for South Sudan (WFSS). Not long after my return, I was invited to join the organization’s Board and accepted. It’s become a way for me to remain connected and support the mission of collaborating with the South Sudanese people to secure access to safe water that so many of us Americans take for granted.
WFSS celebrates over two decades of growing impact in South Sudan with supporters and foundations representing 65 countries and including all 50 US States. Salva now lives in Kampala, Uganda with his wife and two sons. He no longer leads water projects but, as founder and lead advisor to the organization and its South Sudanese team, continues to be both a national and international presence in the Global Development arena through TED talks and participation in US and international conferences. A quiet, humble man, he’s become something of a celebrity, a heroic figure to thousands of people, particularly young people thanks to, among other factors, a New York Times best-seller, A Long Walk to Water. The book, written by Newbury Award winner Linda Sue Park, is fiction, but deeply rooted in elements of Salva’s life. The book has been translated in several languages, and has been a mainstay of high school literature study for years now. One result is a continuing flow of support from schools and teachers in the US and other countries.
Well drilling efforts have been joined by other projects related to health and water. Solar power now drives water tower’s delivery of water to even more people. Local villagers are trained and equipped in maintaining wells and towers that they now own. Sanitation in the form of latrines and water access for students, faculty and staff are projects undertaken with other local and international NGOs. Markets of locally produced goods, usually by women and children, spring up near the water sources.
Recently, UNICEF and the Carter Foundation, as well as the South Sudanese government, have engaged WFFS for water sourcing and health training for refugee camps sheltering the growing number of escapees from the genocidal war underway in northern Sudan. Tribal violence, even within the same group, continues in parts of South Sudan. The country and the East African region are anticipating a national election, which has been postponed several times, sometime in the next year or two.
As I’ve seen first hand, the impact of British, American and European imperial colonialism has continued to fuel contemporary international conflict, in East Africa. Those conflicts are growing alongside fights for power and access for the continent’s natural resource. Newer players, same game, but with even greater impact on the world beyond borders.
Bob Shea BIO