Sudanese Cattle Camps

     Cows are at the center of life for the people of South Sudanese tribes. Cows provide milk for food, and in a society that has little use for money, a family’s wealth is stored in its cattle. The number of cattle a family owns determines their worth and standing in society.

     In South Sudan, families traditionally keep a permanent home in a small village-like setting. Crops such as maize, sorghum and millet are grown nearby these permanent communities. But they keep their herds of cattle on the plains, in cattle camps. In order to protect the animals from predators and cattle raiders, a large number of herders will band together to form a cattle camp, and hundreds of animals will be kept in each camp. The head of the camp identifies a good location for the camp: one that is near good grazing land and a source of water, and able to be defended from cattle thieves and predatory animals. The herders carry spears and guns to protect their livestock. During the dry months from November to May, when water is scarce, the herdsmen move their camps toward the Nile River.

     The most capable of the young men are sent to the cattle camps to care for and protect the cows. Older men, women and children also go to the camps. For young boys, the camps are a kind of school in which they can learn the skills necessary for their traditional way of life: how to milk cows, how to give commands to the cows, how to help cows give birth, how to castrate a bull that is not desirable for breeding, how to burn cow dung to keep away insects and use the residual ash as a skin protector. They also learn how to make a paste from ash, dirt, and cow urine, and spread it over the horns of the cows to prevent insects from biting the cattle, and how to fish. When not learning how to care for cows, they are busy tending sheep and goats. Women and girls in the camps take care of young children, prepare food, and do the majority of the milking. They make butter and yogurt from the milk in large gourds, and take the surplus milk they collect to nearby towns to sell or trade for other goods.

     The camps are rough settlements: full of dust, and teeming with cattle, cattle dung, and insects. People sleep on thin mats under the stars and make do with very few possessions. In the evenings when the youths return with the cattle from grazing, the community gathers together and the camps take on a party-like atmosphere. Men decorate the horns of their cattle with tassels and other ornaments, and parade them through the crowds. There are wrestling and jumping contests, singing, and dancing to the beat of goatskin-covered drums. Stories are told, which teach morals and other lessons. Boys and girls are free to flirt, and often engage in sexual activity.

     Today, the youth of Sudan increasingly must choose between going to the cattle camps, or staying in town and getting an academic education. The long wars are over, peace has returned, and oil has recently been discovered in South Sudan. A new way of life may soon take hold there. Sudanese elders must decide whether to continue passing down the traditional skills and rituals, or help the young prepare for urban life and modern jobs. In a few decades, life in the cattle camps may be a thing of the past.


     Below, a family heads off to cattle camp near Kuron, South Sudan.

 

Landmines in South Sudan

     During Sudan’s 21 year long civil war, armies on both sides – the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and the Sudan Armed Forces - planted landmines thickly near major battlefields. Mines were laid on main roads, in villages, near wells and across fields. This limited people’s ability to travel from place to place and restricted their access to drinking water, grazing land for their cattle, and farmland. All aspects of life were affected: women were afraid to go out and collect firewood, children could not go to school, people could not trade with each other, hospitals and other infrastructure could not be built. After the war ended, the fear of stepping on mines blocked the return of refugees and interfered with the delivery of humanitarian aid.

     Today, 19 of the 25 states in southern Sudan are still strewn with explosive devices. The densest presence of mines in South Sudan has been found in Eastern Equatoria and Central Equatoria, the states which share borders with Kenya and Uganda. It is also believed that a high concentration of undetonated charges exists along the borders with Eritrea and Ethiopia in the east, but these areas have not yet been surveyed to determine the extent of the problem.

     In 2010, a study was conducted to determine the extent of the damage that had been done by landmines. Between the signing of the Peace Agreement that ended the civil war in 2005 and 2010, a total of 661 persons were either killed or injured by mines and other explosive devices in Sudan. 41% of them were children, and 13% were women or girls. These numbers do not include the number of people killed or maimed by landmines during the long war.

     Clearing mines from a space of ground is painstaking work. De-mining teams mark out a small area, then work their way across it inch by inch while listening for a beeping sound coming from their monitors that indicates the presence of metal parts in devices buried under the ground. They work 45 minute shifts at a time in the burning sun, wearing plastic face shields that make it impossible for them to drink water. They must work in the dry season, when the soil is so compacted they cannot activate a mine by stepping on it.

     Since 2005, efforts to clear the most densely contaminated areas have been in progress, and a whopping 19,000 landmines and 800,000 other unexploded ordnances have been found and destroyed in southern Sudan. Many kilometers of roads have been cleared, and assistance has been provided to large numbers of people who are victims of mine blasts. In addition, over four million people have received mines awareness education. Nevertheless, explosive devices still pose a significant threat to the safety of people in South Sudan: it is estimated that only 20% of the total land has been cleared of mines, 64% has yet to be cleared, and 16% still has not been assessed for the presence of such devices. 

Hair Braiding

     Hair braiding has been around for many centuries – in Africa, it can be traced back as far as 3500 BCE. It was practiced by the ancient Egyptians and is still a popular activity today in many parts of Africa, including South Sudan.

     Hair braiding is done to enhance a woman’s – or a man’s – beauty, but it is also a social event among women. It can take a long time to complete a hairdo – up to several hours – so there is plenty of time to talk. Girls learn the skill by watching as older women in their communities make knots and braids in the hair of young children. They practice the designs on each other, learning traditional patterns and inventing new ones. Some of the styles are tribe specific, and often the length of the braid is extended with string-like materials. Sometimes colorful beads or other materials are woven into the hair.

     Micro braids, or invisible braids, are a popular style among girls in South Sudan today. These are braids that are very thin - from a distance they appear to be threads woven into the hair. Once in place, micro braids will stay in place for months if left untouched. Below, students at St. Bakhita School in Narus, Sudan, are engaged in the art of hair braiding during their free time.

HIV and AIDS in South Sudan

     Sudan lies on the boundary between sub-Saharan Africa, where HIV/AIDS is rampant, and North Africa where it is relatively rare. The civil war, which lasted more than two decades and only ended in 2005, effectively isolated the country and shielded it from the AIDS epidemic which affects neighboring countries to the south. Hence the HIV infection rate is comparatively low in Sudan. It’s estimated to be about 1.6% nationwide; however it is higher in the south, where it is estimated to be about 3.1%, and in some areas – particularly crowded towns located near the border with Uganda – it is much higher, possibly as high as 10%. Ironically, the coming of peace seems to have also brought changes that have increased the frequency of HIV: refugees and internally displaced people have returned to their homelands, and trade across the borders with neighboring countries has increased.

     Besides refugees and internally displaced people, the populations most at risk for HIV infection include sex workers, soldiers, truck drivers, and women and girls generally. Commercial sex work is common in many parts of South Sudan, especially in urban areas. Many of the prostitutes are from neighboring countries, but the ones who are Sudanese are mostly very young girls who have little knowledge of HIV and are unlikely to use condoms. Condoms are not available in many parts of the country in any case, and are often unaffordable.

     Knowledge and awareness of HIV is very low in South Sudan generally, with many people never having heard of the disease and most unaware of steps that can be taken to prevent the spread of it. In Sudanese culture, contracting a disease is often blamed on witchcraft or superstition. The spread of HIV is also aided by the practices of polygamy and widow inheritance: if a polygamous man contracts HIV, infects his wives and subsequently passes away, his widows will then be inherited by other polygamous men who will in turn contract the virus and spread it to their other wives.

     HIV is also passed from mothers to their babies. Without intervention, an infected mother will pass the virus to her baby 24-45% of the time. Many women in South Sudan don’t know that HIV can be passed from mother to child, and few of them are able to give birth in a facility equipped to do HIV testing.  

     A particularly deadly obstacle to the treatment and prevention of HIV is the characteristic of the disease that once infected, individuals generally appear to be healthy for some time afterward. They may remain apparently well for 8 or 10 years, and during this time infect many other people. Because of this, many healthcare facilities in Sudan have begun testing all incoming patients for HIV, regardless of the reason they come in for treatment. Early detection of the disease is key to preventing its spread.

     Pictured below is a patient at the Mary Immaculate Hospital in Mapuordit, who is dying of AIDS. This is one institution that tests all patients for HIV, and about 5% currently test positive. Many of the affected individuals identified refuse treatment however, presumably because they don’t understand what the consequences of this choice are. 

Mapuordit, South Sudan

     Mapuordit (Mah-poor-deet’) is a small town located in central South Sudan. Twenty years ago, no one was living in Mapuordit. But in 1993, during the civil war, government soldiers bombed the town of Yirol, 80 kilometers away. People fled Yirol and went west, and eventually found a forested area safely off the main road, where they settled. The trees in the area obscured their huts from planes passing overhead and provided some security and peace during the war. After choosing the place where they would stay, the people sacrificed a grey and brown bull. The name of a large bull with this coloring in the Dinka language is “Mapuordit”, and the people named their town after the sacrificed bull.

     Today more than 30,000 people live in Mapuordit. They live clustered together in small  “compounds”, or groups of tukuls (huts), which are connected by a network of dirt footpaths. The tukuls are constructed by packing mud around a framework of sticks and adding a grass roof, and are sometimes raised six feet or so off the ground. Often a family will construct a small platform outside their tukul for preparing food, and store their pots and cooking equipment on a shelf made of sticks above the platform.

     While in Mapuordit, we visited a family living in a small, square tukul. Inside there were two twin-sized beds outfitted with mosquito netting along the side walls, a narrow space in between the beds with the door at one end of the space and a small table at the other; a radio/CD player sat on top of the table. Several suitcases were neatly piled up behind the heads of the beds; presumably the family’s possessions were stored inside. The family did their cooking outside, over a wood fire. Washed clothes were spread out on the roof to dry in the sun. There was no running water, no electricity, no toilet facility inside their tukul.  

     The small neighborhood-like compounds always seem to be full of people: older adults sitting under trees in the shade, women and children carrying water or loads of firewood home on their heads, individuals busy with household chores, and invariably lots of folks holding small children and babies. The photo below shows women and children gathered in a typical compound scene:

Shea Butter and Oil

     The shea tree (in Arabic, the lulu tree) grows across Africa in a narrow band lying south of the Sahara Desert. The tree lives for a long time – between 200 and 300 years - and grows abundantly in South Sudan, where it is revered. Lulu trees provide shade, their fruit is edible, and the nuts of the tree are used for oil and food. During Sudan’s long civil wars, when food was very scarce, the nuts helped many people survive. Children would collect the nuts, and their mothers made oil out of them. The calories and nutrients in the oil helped people stay alive. The nutritious oil is still a main source of food during the yearly dry season that lasts from November to May there.

     Today, some women’s groups in South Sudan have started businesses to make and market shea (or lulu) butter and/or its refined counterpart, shea oil. There are now a few dozen lulu nut processing centers in South Sudan owned and operated by women, who are considered to be the traditional guardians of the lulu tree. Typically each center employs about 20 women, who are often from different tribes. In order for their business to be successful, they must overlook their tribal differences and learn to work together and cooperate with each other. In return, they are building a peaceful living situation in their communities and enjoy a dependable and substantial source of income for their families.

     Typically, women now working in lulu nut processing used to eke out a living by selling meager produce from their gardens in the market, or by making beer and alcoholic drinks to sell. These activities did not produce enough money for them to send their children to school. With the extra money they earn from lulu nut processing, they can send their children to school and also enjoy a somewhat higher standard of living.

     Converting lulu nuts into butter and oil is hard work, and in Sudanese women’s cooperatives, it’s done by hand. First, the fruit which surrounds the nuts is removed, and the nuts are spread out to dry in the sun. Then the hard outer shells of the nuts are broken with sharp rocks and removed. The inner parts of the nuts are then pounded with heavy wooden pestles in a funduk to crush them. The flour formed by crushing the nuts is then roasted in huge pots over a fire, and during this process it must be constantly stirred. After roasting, water is added and the nuts are pounded in the funduk again to form a smooth paste. The paste is kneaded by hand, and then the oil is separated from the butter. Water is added to separate out the oil, which floats to the top of the mixture, where it is removed and the excess water is squeezed out. The oil is then boiled slowly over a fire, which evaporates any traces of remaining water. Meanwhile the butter, which remains in the roasting pan, is cooled and then formed into balls to be sold.

     In Africa, shea butter is used as cooking oil, as a wax for water proofing, for hairdressing and in making candles. It is said to have anti-inflammatory properties and so is also used in medicinal ointments. Companies outside Africa buy shea butter and oil to use in products such as skin moisturizers, salves, and lotions. It is also used in preparing foods - occasionally even the chocolate industry uses it, substituting it for cocoa butter!

     Some of the women in the women’s literacy groups supported by Mercy Beyond Borders in Rumbek, South Sudan, are experimenting with shea butter production in an effort to generate money and raise their standard of living. Below, a woman uses a pestle and funduk to pound the nuts into flour. If you haven’t seen shea butter for sale in the stores, perhaps you will soon – and maybe this woman will have had a part in making it! You may want to buy some and try it – shea butter goes on nicely, as it melts at body temperature and absorbs rapidly into the skin without leaving a greasy feeling, and is reported to be very good for the skin. Be sure that it carries the “Fair Trade Certified” label, which ensures that a fair portion of the proceeds go to the people who produced it. 

Early Marriage of Young Girls in South Sudan

     Girls in South Sudan marry young – typically, at 12 or 14. In many tribes, girls are considered to be ready for marriage as soon as they reach puberty. Sometimes girls who do not feel they are ready for marriage will try to hide their periods for as long as possible. By the age of eighteen, a woman who is still single and without children will often be stigmatized as unmarriageable.

     For people living in South Sudan, marriage is generally not a choice, but an obligation. Everyone is expected to marry and raise a family. Men are generally encouraged to marry as many wives as possible toward this aim.

     Marriages are arranged, and there are several reasons parents may want to marry their daughters early: The groom’s family pays a “bride price” in cows to the girl’s family (the number of cows paid varies according to the tribe and region). Sources of income in South Sudan are limited, so there is a financial incentive to marry off daughters in order to collect the bride price.  In a poor family, an older girl may be seen as an economic burden for the family. Early marriage is also seen as a strategy to prevent girls from becoming pregnant outside of marriage, which is not well accepted. Parents may also think that marrying their daughter will help protect her from sexual assault, which was a common tactic during the civil war.

     Not uncommonly, girls are married to men much older than they are, or to men who already have one or more wives. Marriage nearly always means the end of education for girls who are attending school. It can lead to other problems too, such as complications of pregnancy and domestic abuse. Young girls whose bodies are not fully developed are more likely to develop problems during pregnancy and childbirth.

     The Child Act was passed into law in South Sudan in October 2008, which technically makes it illegal to force a girl under 18 to marry, and also illegal to prevent a girl who is a mother from continuing her education after one year of lactation. It does not prohibit early marriage per se, only forcing the girl to marry. However, many early marriages continue to take place despite the girl’s objections.

     Pictured below is a girl from St. Bakhita Primary School in Narus, Sudan. For now she remains unmarried and in school, but every year several of her classmates leave school at term breaks, are married off during the brief interval, and do not return when the school reopens.