A Market, an Ant Lion and Kenyan Missionaries

Torit and Katire, Sudan

Lanny, Brian and I were in Torit this morning.  Brian and I visited the market.  Much of the processed food appears to be from Kenya: jams, pineapple juice, crackers, syrup, soap, washing powder, batteries, cookies, candies, cloth, cigarettes, etc.  Local goods available included greens of many sorts, tiny red peppers, very little dura (sorghum), potatoes, meat, wood, charcoal, cassava (not much), okra, cucumbers, bananas, smoked meat, smoked fish, sugar cane, corn, groundnuts (peanuts), lemons, limes, bread and one squash.  There were also beans, rice, millet and flour for sale.  The storekeepers seemed unwilling to sell whole bags of dura, millet, groundnuts, etc.

  

Brian showed me an ant lion today.  It is a small insect which makes a pit in the dust, then waits for an ant to stumble in.  It has pincer-like jaws.

  

This afternoon we drove up to Katire.  There were many teak and some mahogany trees along the way.  There were bamboo plants and some bananas at the bottom of the Imatong Mountains.  The climate is much wetter here.  There is some rice growing on the grounds of Imatong Bible College.  They have also planted cassava, maize, beans, papaya and a few other crops.

Photo: Myself Near the Road from Torit to Katire 

Photo: Brian Arensen Near the Road from Torit to Katire

  

I met Peter and Ann Konyi.  They are missionaries sent here by Africa Inland Church (AIC) Missionary Board.  They are the first AIC missionaries to be sent outside Kenya.  They are very warm, open and eager to serve the Lord.  I am impressed.  Thelma is also here.  The Pontiers are in Zaire.  We are spending the night in their house.

A Monkey Trap

Lohutok, Sudan

The plane left this morning.  After that, I walked up the valley to our west.  I walked for a ways up the dry, sandy stream bed.  As the stream got rockier, there was water babbling through it.  Parts of the stream were quite pretty with boulders and rocks, pools of clear water, small waterfalls, tiny rapids and grass and trees overhanging the bank.  After about forty-five minutes of walking, I came to the mountain gardens near the head of the valley.  The place seemed drier and sandier than Ahaba.  There was quite a bit of ometi (bullrush millet) mixed in with the osingo (sorghum).  I walked up to a small hut built up in one of the lower fields and said "mong" (a Lotuko greeting) to the young girls who were there.  I always get amusing reactions when I do that.  They were cooking some angiria (sorghum porridge).  I climbed up a rock for quite a ways.  People in some of the fields below me were playing flutes, pounding a drum and singing.

I saw a monkey trap made from a rock, sticks, bark string and a bit of sorghum used as bait.  The following sketch of the trap is my best attempt, but is not quite accurate.  I am not a very good artist.  If the monkey pulls the sorghum, the sticks propping up the rock fall allowing the rock to tumble and pin the monkey's arm.

I saw a young man and woman on a rock in the shade near a sorghum field.  They were talking and smiling.  It was the closest thing I have seen to romance so far.  The man was eating some holé  (or ahulé?) and gave me some to try.  It was a clearly a cucumber, but much shorter and chunkier than the ones we have in the U.S.A.

This afternoon, Martha, Marcia, Brian and I walked over to Lohofan.  This is the place to our east which reminds me of Buttermilk Falls in Ithaca, New York.  (There is photo of this area  at my blog entry dated June 27, 1980.)  I should mention that Brian Arensen is Lanny's younger brother.  He is  here on a short visit.

Community Health Worker in Iboni

Lohutok, Sudan

I drove Martha and Marcia to Iboni this morning to give medicines to the community health worker.  It seems that he has only given out medicine on four days during the past month.  We went to his compound. There was a bit of tobacco being grown there.  Most of the compounds had some sorghum or maize growing in them.  The sorghum looks very good in the flat area near the Iboni turnoff.

Photo: Tobacco Growing in a Lotuko Village

I wrote letters to several friends.  I have nine personal letters and one letter to Dr. Poleman to go out on this plane.  I got letters from Mom and Dad and from Uncle John and Aunt Opal.  I was disappointed that there was no letter from Dr. Poleman.  Mom and Dad said the wheat harvest at home is going rapidly.  It is only making about 25 bushels per acre on average.  Dad cut about thirty acres on each of two days.

We are having a goat barbeque today.  We received no potato chips or other such goodies on the plane.  No big loss.

Slaughtering a Goat

Lohutok, Sudan

I went up to Ahaba, the mountain field, this morning.  The sorghum is looking good.  Much of it is starting to head.  I saw a pumpkin which is already about the size of a muskmelon.  (Some pumpkins were planted among the sorghum plants.)  There was a man up at Ahaba who is already cutting trees for a garden for next year.

AIM missionaries David and Joanne Gladstone came to Lohutok for a visit.  They drove a Land Rover pickup.

We slaughtered a goat today.  It was the first time I have seen the throat of a live animal cut.  The blood really spurted from the jugular veins.  On second thought, it is not quite true that this was my first time seeing an animal's throat cut.  We often cut the heads off chickens on our farm in Kansas.  Somehow, killing a chicken seems less disturbing than killing a goat.  Perhaps this is because I am more closely related to goats which are fellow mammals.  Perhaps it is because the goat's death was a little slower and drawn out than the sudden demise of our chickens.

The Diguna missionaries got the pipe put in the well for the new windmill today.  I helped a bit.

I wrote letters to Mom and Dad and to a friend today.  Letter writing is always a last minute task before the plane comes.

Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) Agricultural Project

Torit & Helio, Sudan

We went to Helio (near Torit) where I saw one of Norwegian Church Aid's (NCA's) agricultural people.  There was also a young woman there from Yambio Agricultural Institute.  She was with NCA for some sort of practical training.  NCA is working with oxenization and with improved seeds such as the sorghum variety Serena which Josiah planted.  NCA works primarily with improved simsim (sesame), sorghum, groundnuts and cassava.  They do not do the breeding, but test seeds in connection with government research and multiply planting stock.  They have a very good looking variety of cassava which seems quite resistant to cassava mosaic.  I was not able to evaluate the groundnuts or sorghum I saw as they were still in an early growth stage.  NCA inter-planted cassava and groundnuts in one of their plots.  I would like to try the improved cassava in Lohutok and perhaps encourage its being planted just before fallowing on the appropriate soils.  That might extend the cropping life of a given field, complement seasonal bottlenecks, provide a famine relief store and encourage the rapid regrowth of woody vegetation.

Photo: Sesame Plants in NCA Test Plot

Photo: Cassava and Groundnuts Inter-Planted in NCA Test Plot

NCA also has nurseries for trees (e.g. mango, orange, guava) which they want people to plant in the villages.  They have Rhode Island Red chickens (better egg layers) for crossing with local types (better brooders).  They have some ducks around their station.  They have cotton spinning, weaving and sesame oil processing as part of an appropriate technology program.

Photo: Spinning Cotton - NCA Appropriate Technology Project

Photo: Seedlings in NCA Nursery

We may have the Lohutok cooperative set up so we can get grain tomorrow.  The man we needed to see was out, but Josiah is staying over to see him in the morning.  A lorry will be bringing grain this way in the morning.  Josiah hopes to be able to come on that truck.  Hopefully we will be able to get that grain at cooperative price.

Torit has a market section which I did not get to look at closely.  Torit also has an area with quite a few "modern" buildings (government offices, hospital, aid agencies, etc.)  The residential section consists of typical Lotuho mud huts with grass roofs.

The Digunas Begin Working While We Unload the Trucks

Lohutok, Sudan

I walked north this morning until I came to uncleared trees.  It was not as far past the intersection of our road as I thought it would be.  Josiah told me he planted his improved sorghum on the 23rd of June.  He said white ants (termites) were its only trouble now.  It is emerging and starting well.

The Digunas started taking the old windmill down.  They also began putting the engine in our lorry (truck).    They are a skillful group.  We unloaded all the lumber they brought.  It was a mammoth job!  The workmen put in an extra-long day, so we gave them some beans in addition to normal pay.  We have beans, milk powder, goulash and chocolate nutrition food to begin distributing tomorrow.  It came from "Food for the Hungry".

Photos: Unloading the trucks

I just heard another rock slide on the mountain.  There was one yesterday also.

We treated ourselves (Lanny, Janis and me) to some Coca-Cola after unloading the lumber.  It was my first soft drink in Sudan.

We plan to go to Torit on Wednesday.  I hope we can make it this time.

Additional Information About Crops

Lohutok, Sudan

I went to the mountain garden, Ahaba, this morning.  There are still very few weeds and little weeding has been done.  Low weed pressure is apparently one advantage in the first year after clearing trees in the mountains.  Some of the tall sorghum is heading.  Some of the maize (corn) is tasseling and looks very good.  Much of it has two ears per stalk though the ears are quite a bit smaller than we would expect in the United States.

  

My house is off to a good start at its new site.  Lanny decided it would be better if it were closer to the other houses, so we moved its location.  Samuel is putting tin on his roof today.

Photos: Construction on my house begins.

  

I talked with Tobia today.  I got the names of more types of sorghum and groundnuts.  I added them to my entry of Tuesday, 8 July 1980.  I will repeat the new information here also.

  

Red Sorghums:

Akunati - Tall, red, goose-necked.

Obilet - Tall, red.

  

Groundnuts (peanuts):  

Atuye - Bush type.

Elonge - Bush type. Very big brown nuts. Must be dug to harvest.

Logum - Bush type.  Like atuye, but big nuts.

Aheto - Bush type.  White nuts.  Many nuts in each shell.

Amakarara - Big shell like kabir.  Bush type.  Must be dug to harvest.

  

Maize (corn):

Etuyet - A type of oseri which is short and has one-ear.

  

Refer to the Tuesday, 8 July 1980 entry for a more complete list of crop varieties.

  

Tobia said some groundnuts must be dug with hoes while others can just be pulled.  The types which must be dug are elonge, amakarara, kabir and aful.  Tobia planted aful and atuye this year.  He had no seed for amilo as his was destroyed by the sun last year.  Amilo is planted about 2 weeks after other groundnuts.  The things he said about it seemed to indicate that it is less drought tolerant or else photoperiod sensitive.

One would expect that with so much variation to work with, crop breeding programs would have a good chance of success with sorghum and with groundnuts.

Cultivars of Sorghum, Groundnuts, Millet and Maize

Lohutok, Sudan

This morning, I helped Samuel with getting the rafters onto his house.  I also watched a bit as they began putting poles up for my hut.

  

Photo: Samuel installing rafters

  

I talked with Michael and asked him about the spelling of Lotuko names for crops.  Emma is a general term for grain.  I initially learned there are at least eight types of sorghum, four types of groundnuts and one or two types of millet and one type of maize (corn).  In later conversations with Michael and others, I learned of still more types.  They are as follows:

  

Red Sorghums:

Osingo - A general term or a specific type.

Ngirengire

Aderi

Tuhunyi - Short, earlier-maturing than osingo.

Akunati - Tall, red, goose-necked.

Obilet - Tall, red.

  

Brown Sorghum:

Okoro

  

White Sorghums:

Odoko

Ameterita - "Dura" can be a general term or can refer to this variety.

Ngaboli - Off-white or yellowish in color.

  

Groundnuts (peanuts):  

["Ful" is the general term for groundnuts.]

Kabir - Big, long shell, bush type.  Must be dug to harvest.

Anguak - Bush type.  Michael said it has numerous small nuts, but Otia said they are big.

Amilo - Red nuts, many nuts in each shell. Plant 2 weeks later. Destroyed by sun in 1979.

Aful - Vine type.  Has been used since time immemorial.  Must be dug to harvest.

Atuye - Bush type.

Elonge - Bush type. Very big brown nuts. Must be dug to harvest.

Logum - Bush type.  Like atuye, but big nuts.

Aheto - Bush type.  White nuts.  Many nuts in each shell.

Amakarara - Big shell like kabir.  Bush type.  Must be dug to harvest.

  

Millets:

Ometi - Bullrush or pearl millet.

Faloro - Finger millet.  Seldom grown.  Maybe planted by only one person in Lohutok.

  

Maize (corn):

Oseri

Etuyet - A type of oseri which is short and has one-ear.

  

Michael said odoko (a white sorghum), ngirengire (a red sorghum) and ometi (bullrush millet) can be planted together.  Of the groundnuts, anguak (a bush type) and aful (a vine or spreading type) can be planted together. 

Interviewing Josiah About Lotuko Agriculture

Lohutok, Sudan
 
It rained most of the morning and some of the afternoon.  I read the rest of the CIMMYT publication about rapid surveys for planning agricultural innovation or research.  It motivated me to start structuring what I am doing.  I need to get crackin' on a thesis outline revision and some tentative ideas for a formal survey.
 
I talked to Josiah this afternoon.  Tomorrow they are going to have a meeting after church to form a cooperative for buying grain.  The grain can be purchased from Equatoria Trading Commission which is headquartered in Juba.  The grain can be purchased in Juba for 15 Sudanese pounds or in Torit for 22 pounds.  That compares with the merchants' price of 30 or 36 pounds.
 
Josiah told me that there is no person in authority who allocates the gardens.  Apparently, for the mountain gardens, a group of people decide they will make gardens in a certain place.  If someone wants to go along with them, he can.  They then, as a group, decide the boundaries of each person's garden.  Josiah says that there is plenty of land.  I guess that is why there can be such an informal arrangement for deciding who gets what and how much land.
 
According to Josiah, there is shifting cultivation out on the plains as well as the mountains.  That makes sense.  In the valley, cultivation is continuous.  On the mountains, fields can be farmed for 2 to 4 years with a 10 year fallow.  On the plains, fields can be cultivated for 3 to 6 years with a 15 or maybe 20 year fallow.  Weeds are the problem which necessitates rotating to fallow on the plains.  Weeds are not so big a problem on the mountains.  This I have observed.  I wonder why the cultivation period and the fallow period both are shorter on the mountains?  Faster nutrient cycling?  More rain?
 
There are 7 clans in Lohutok by Josiah's count.  A given clan does not live in a particular village.  Neither do village or clan divisions determine who goes together to clear a garden such as on the mountain.  One can only marry someone from a different clan.
 
Cattle, goats, sheep and chickens are owned individually.  Some people apparently have quite a few cattle and goats while others have few or none.  During the civil war, the Arabs and Taposa took or killed the animals.  Since then, the herds had to be built up from nothing.  When someone accumulated enough money he could perhaps buy a goat.  That is how the recovery began.
 
I get the impression that there are gender roles but that they are not strictly adhered to.  Hoeing the gardens tends to be done by men but women also hoe.  The women tend to be the ones who gather the weeds into piles if my observations are representative.  When planting is done with communal labor, it is the owner and his best friend and their wives who gather the weeds into bunches according to Josiah.  It is very important to take up all the weeds so they do not regerminate or prevent the crop from starting by smothering it.  (Apparently this is not true in some areas of the Imatong mountains.)  Weeding may also be done collectively.  For collective labor the owner of the garden must provide food and beer.  Weeding tends to be done by women but I have seen many men do the weeding also.
 
During school hours, children who do not go to school guard crops from monkeys and birds.  The children who go to school are supposed to relieve them by guarding the crops after school hours.  If all children went to school, I do not know how this job would get done.  It is not uncommon for a family with 4 children to put 2 in school and keep 2 at home to work.  Compulsory eduction and crop protection could be very conflicting goals.
 
Josiah said that perhaps three-fourths of the farmers have mountain gardens.
 
Josiah mentioned rural-urban migration as a contributing factor in the food shortage.  The drought was the main factor.  The rains did not fall much from July to October.
 
School vacation is from December to April which is the hot dry season.
 
Josiah said it could be difficult to get many people into a cooperative because they are not educated.  They might think the government should give them grain or that the government was taking their money to use for other projects.  This could hold a lesson about the feasibility of a credit program or herbicide and fertilizer programs.  The people might have difficulty understanding and implementing them.

Making Sorghum Beer

Lohutok, Sudan

The plane left this morning.  Lanny is going to get a new Land Rover at Juba.  Daniel, chief of Lohutok, went - on government business I suppose.  Michael went to buy sorghum.
 
Samuel and I completed the last two steel rafters today.  It was our best day ever.  I am glad I know how to use an electric welder.
 
I went for a walk today.  I saw some women on the "rock hill" who were making sorghum beer.  One woman was laying some sprouted, dark-colored sorghum out on the rock to dry.  Another woman had ground some sorghum and spread it out to dry.  Judging from the container it had been in, it had been wet when it was in the ground-up form.  (But I cannot be sure.)  It smelled a bit fermented when it was damp.  When it was dry, the woman swept it up and put it into her container.  It was a dry, powdery substance.
 

Photos: Woman making beer from ground sorghum while carrying child on her back.

 

 
Yesterday, Michael pointed out some sesame to me in a field.  He called it simsim.  It is eaten with the sorghum porridge.  (He called it porridge, but it is actually more like a stiff dough.)  Vegetables and perhaps meat is also eaten with the sorghum porridge.  The porridge is held in the fingers and used to dip in the vegetable dish.
 
I saw Abele's brother, Akim, today.  He teaches P3 (third grade) at the school.  He was planting some of the improved sorghum seed that Josiah got from Norwegian Church Aid (NCA).  He said a bag about a foot long cost one Sudanese pound.

Construction of My Hut Begins

Lohutok, Sudan
 
This morning I drove Martha to the clinic in Lalanga.  Once again I collected weight information for the children.  I noticed that the few who came both weeks are those in the poorest health.  The clinics are intended to help the children stay healthy, so I was expecting that those who came regularly would be the ones in the best health.  But apparently what is happening is that only those most acutely in need of medical care are repeat attenders.  The others do not come regularly.  One wonders how effective the malaria prophylaxis (Maloprim) is under such conditions.  Martha gives Maloprim to all the children who come, but it is supposed to be taken weekly.

Samuel and I finished another rafter (#4 of 6) today.  Six or seven men began work on my hut today.  I saw that they have some poles made for it.  It will be rectangular rather than round as I originally thought.  That is mainly so that things such as a bed will fit in it more easily.

Photos: My hut under construction
(Actually taken on a later date)

I thought I saw groundnuts and sorghum interplanted just east of where the side road to Lohutok intersects the main road.  They were on the south side of the road.  I could not tell for sure from the Land Rover.  I will have to walk down there and have a look sometime.

Visit to the Mountain Field

Lohutok, Sudan

Thobia took me to one of the mountain fields today. He went to Uganda during the war. He speaks fair English. He seems to have had a fair amount of education and would like to get more. His texts and other books were stolen in Torit, which is why he must wait to continue his education.

The sorghum in the mountain field looked good. Most of it was from knee-high to hip-high. The soil was a loamy texture and had some moisture in it. The field is situated in a concave area (or trough) which runs down the mountainside. There is a ditch of sorts down the center of the field. The field is very steep relative to the plain below and the trough is also very steep from side to side. This was the first year the field was planted. The first step in preparation was to cut down the trees in February. These were allowed to dry for a month, then they were burned. Rocks and logs seemed to be placed on the contour in a sort of terracing system. Some were not placed on contour but up and down the slope to demarcate property lines.  Or maybe they mark garden boundaries rather than ownership. I do not yet know much about the ownership system. The fields were fairly free of weeds in general. He said that after the planting of the lowland sorghum, the mountain fields would be weeded. Brown or red sorghum is grown on the mountains and white sorghum in the valley. The white sorghum (millet?) is better to eat according to Thobia. I want to visit a field which has been production for several years for comparison purposes.

Above: Thobia standing in the mountain field.

Below: These two photos show sorghum growing in the mountain field. 

Below: The steepness of the field is evident in this photo taken later in the growing season. 

Thobia pointed out many trees along the way whose seeds are used for food. There is one tree whose seed is used for oil. The leaves of another tree are used as a vegetable. We saw some children picking a plant which is used as a vegetable.

There were notches cut in some trees. If I correctly understood, this was to see if they were hollow and therefore usable as beehives. The beehives were made from logs which were hollowed out. These seemed to be at least partially capped and hung in the trees. I wonder how they harvest the honey without being stung? He also showed me an old trap used for catching animals. It (or what was left of it) consisted of some stones stood on edge in an open-ended rectangle. Apparently when a monkey, or perhaps even a leopard, goes inside, something (a rock?) falls on him and crushes him.  (It was not always easy to overcome the language barrier.)

There were two people at the mountain field to scare monkeys away. Monkeys pull up the sorghum. One person was assigned to each side of the field. The field was quite large, so this was not a large use of manpower. I think the field may have been twenty acres in size. (That's a guess from my memory. I did not make an estimation while at the field.)

Below: A boy guards the field from monkeys.  Birds will also be a problem after the grain forms.

On my way down the mountain I was talking with Thobia. He seemed to want me to get him some shoes. He also wants to see some textbooks. He wanted me to see if the others would bring tea and sugar to him and the other Lotuko men who work here. I am not sure how to handle such requests. I wonder about what my goal should be in helping these people materially. Clearly their level of living should be higher. But I would not want them to be cursed with the materialistically high level of living of the U.S. Maybe this isn't the right question. It is the attitude toward wealth rather than wealth itself with which a Christian ought to first concern himself.

Martha was talking last night about how many people are hungry this time of year. (She said Hans says it is because they sell their grain earlier in the year and have to buy it back later.) I ought to ask her to collect statistics about health status or weights of people who come to the clinic. It would be a useful addition to my thesis.

Samuel and Christine told me tonight that there is a rain queen in Lohutok. Her husband the rain king died a few years back. It is claimed she can make it rain or withhold rain. They say that she really seems to have that power. It is so easy for us to forget that we are in a real spiritual battle. I guess it becomes a bit clearer around here. We need to pray that God will display his power over the rain queen.

Beginning to Explore

Lohutok, Sudan

I went for a walk this morning. Josiah was at the school. It was recess for the children, so I talked with him for a while. He wanted to go to the clinic for treatment so I walked with him. There are three teachers at the school. There are four grades. English, math and writing are taught. English is the medium of instruction for grades P3 and P4. There is a vacation for four months (December - March) during the dry season. They now have school five days per week, but beginning in October they will have six days of school by government policy. They are to give agricultural practice on Saturdays.

Above: Teachers outside the elementary school. Josiah is on the right.

Below: Students in the school.

According to Josiah, the agricultural calendar is:

January - Clear trees from new mountain fields.
February - Plant sorghum and millet in mountain fields.
March to April - Plant sorghum on lower fields.
May to June - Plant millet on lower fields. Plant groundnuts.
July - Some harvesting begins.

This year, the grains were late so the process was a bit delayed. Also worms got the first planting of sorghum on the mountains in February so it had to be replanted in March.

The mountains are planted first because the rains begin there earlier. The lower ground is of two major types. The higher ground near our mission station seems redder and sandier. It is used for groundnuts. It dries faster. Further down the road at a lower elevation the soil is darker and of a finer texture. It holds moisture better and apparently gets more runoff from the mountains. I think that is an area where ants are not as much of a problem as on the red sandy soil.

There are two types of sorghum: white and brown. There are also two types of millet: white and brown. There are three types of groundnuts: a crawling type, a short non-crawling type and a tall non-crawling type.

Josiah introduced me to a man named Adelino. He said Adelino is one of the best cultivators.