Our Hitchhiker Arrested After Clinic at Lalanga

Lohutok, Sudan

I drove Martha to the clinic at Lalanga today. I collected data on each child, making note of identification number, name, sex, birthday, months he or she was underweight and months dangerously underweight. I am told that high carbohydrate foods are in short supply so lower calorie vegetables are making up a greater portion of the diet. I suppose that is alright for older children and adults, but children cannot get enough carbohydrates and protein on that sort of diet. Martha said the swollen abdomens could be caused by malnutrition, worms or a spleen swollen from malaria. The children seem to me to be less well fed than the adults. But maybe I am just seeing a biased sample. Most of the children I have seen are those who come to the clinics. They are likely the least healthy children. I asked Michael if it is Lotuko custom for the women and children to eat after the men. He said it is the other way around; the women and children eat first. So much for one theory. Martha thinks the youngest children get along better than the older ones because the younger ones are still breast fed.

Below: Weighing a child at the clinic in Lalanga.

When we left Lalanga, we brought along a woman and her child who needed to get treatment at Lohutok. A man came along in our Land Rover as well. He said he needed to see Daniel, the chief. We met Daniel and about three policemen walking along the road. They were escorting some men to prison. We stopped to talk. The guy riding with us tried to hide his face. The next thing I knew, he was bolting out the back door. The police grabbed him, threw him down to the ground and tied him up after a bit of a scuffle. It turned out that Daniel was looking for him. He had stabbed someone, but I did not learn anything more about the incident.

This afternoon I read more in The Mountain People, studied some Lotuko and puttered around a bit. I really should set aside more time for prayer and Bible study. The battle here is definitely a spiritual one against him who blinds men to the saving words of the good news of Christ. A full day of prayer would be an excellent idea followed by more time alone in prayer on a daily basis.

Trial and Conviction

Lohutok, Sudan

There were about the same number of people in church as last Sunday.  After church, Daniel and some other men were sitting under a tree.  After a while, I went over to see them.  I soon found myself in the middle of a trial.  One man had come upon another man, taking him by surprise and beating him with a stick.  The beaten man reported the incident to the police who told Daniel to arrest the man and try him.  Each party stated his case before Daniel and some other men.  The offender was sentenced to six months in prison without bail as required by Sudanese law.
 
I think I will be offering to give a talk at a clinic on Saturday.  Martha was hinting for me to do this, but I want to listen to Janis do a talk first.
 
Janis talked quite a bit today about her past, how she met Lanny, previous assignments, etc.

It is too late tonight for deep thinking.  It is just 9:30 pm.  I am on a weird time schedule.  It is a near-the-equator, no-electricity schedule.  The sun sets earlier than during summer in the U.S. and having no electricity discourages staying up after dark.
 

First Visit to a Medical Clinic

Lohutok, Sudan

I went to the clinic at Lalanga with Martha (a nurse) and Daniel (Lohutok's chief).  The road was very bad in places.  We had to climb a few rock covered banks and dodge ditches with the Land Rover.  There were many sick and malnourished children at the clinic.  Each child has a card that he / she is to bring to the clinic.  It contains a graph which is supposed to indicate whether the child is at or below normal weight.  Most were below normal weight, especially those who had measles.  They are weighed each month.  The weights could be a good source of data about existence of a "hungry season".  However, weekly frequency of disease may also be an indicator.  Much of the weight loss seems to be the result of disease which in turn may result from malnutrition.  By going through the daily records, I could get data for a longer time period and more complete data.  The weight data might be a good supplement to this if I could collect it.

Above: Weighing a baby at the clinic in Lalanga.

Below: Martha giving an injection to a child.

As we were returning to Lohutok, we saw a man carrying an automatic, military type rifle.  Daniel motioned me to stop.  Daniel chewed the man out for having the gun.  Daniel said that two Lotuko people had been killed in their gardens by people from another tribe (Taposa, I think).  The Lotuko found those who did the killing and killed them.  Sickness and death seem to be just a part of daily life here.  I guess they do not even sound drums for a child below a certain age who dies.  I guess there are too many of them who die.

Daniel apparently has a big responsibility as chief.  He has to try many cases.  There is a jail up in the village.  Once, each of the villages was supposed to build one of the shelters at the school.  The people in the village just northeast of us did not do theirs.  Daniel put all the men in jail every night for a month.  On the morning of the last night, they all gave a big shout when they got out.  It could be heard all the way to church where the Sunday service was in progress.  That must be over one-quarter mile away.

Today I wrote to Bob Kempf, a friend from Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship at Cornell University.