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A Narrative from the Didinga Hills...

From R.S., TIMO logistics coordinator (after driving cross-country in bad weather to get to Nagashot, Sudan, near where I'll be living in Sudan):

"...I must admit to another thought as well. (There are) not too many adventures like this left in the world. And this adventure actually had a noble purpose: reaching the unreached Didinga people group so that they would be part of the heavenly chorus in the Kingdom of Heaven. As much as I was physically miserable, I was also filled with a sense of privilege that I got to be one of the ones bashing up this mountain for the sake of God's glory. Maybe that's putting the ring in the pig's snout, but I believed it that night, and I believe it now as I type this.

So I guess the moral of the story is: if you are going to die doing something completely moronic, at least do it in the name of God. It was a relief to arrive at the top of the mountain; we got there about 1 am. David and Deborah happily met us and Deborah warmed up some stew she had prepared for us earlier which we greedily devoured... then, mud caked and all, we fell into the beds provided for us. In the morning after a bucket shower and a breakfast of tea and oatmeal, I felt somewhat human again. At 9 am, David, P., and myself along with a Didinga young man, took off on our hike from Nagashot to Napep. Nagashot, where Pastor W. and the Millers are currently living has a small Didinga congregation of about twenty folk. The Napep region is about 10-12 kilometers away from Nagashot and the only way is to get there by foot over two mountain peaks and through two valleys.

We are hoping to change that by putting an airstrip in Napep, and that afternoon, we had a meeting planned with the elders of Napep to discuss the progress of the strip. We hiked for about four hours, and when we arrived, most of the men of the village were hanging out at the meeting place waiting for us. That's a twist - Africans on time and wazungu (whites) late. Actually, we weren't really late... just on time, which - all things considered - was a bit of a miracle.

The Didinga of Napep are quite rustic - "primitive" would be the politically incorrect word. A lot of these folk have never traveled off of their mountain. Clothing seems to be an optional accoutrement. As the men sat around the fire roasting ears of corn (and sharing with us), a completely naked adolescent boy stretched himself out on the cooled ashes like he was at the beach on a recliner. Inexplicably, the men were holding the meeting in the sun rather than inthe shade of tree, but there were a few bushes near the fire, and after the exhausting walk, I needed some shade, so I plopped myself under the bushes realizing too late that this was the "restroom" of the meetingplace. The meeting went pretty well.

...I'm getting too long winded inthis, so I better start summarizing a bit. The village agreed to clear the air strip which was good. We camped out that night in the Napep region. The next morning, we checked what work had been done on the airstrip, and less than one percent of it had been slashed, and it was obvious to all of us that, left to themselves, there would be no way theDidinga of Napep would get the strip done by our timetable so that wecould build houses for the coming TIMO team. We hiked back to Nagashot, getting there about 1 pm.
While on the way, we spoke with folk in Lokichoggio, Kenya, and they said a MAF flight was passing through Eastern Equatoria (the region of southern Sudan where we were located), and if we wanted, they could detour and pick me up... They were coming in at 3 pm, and even though the strip of Nagashot is only a 45 minute walk from the Millers house, we figured we would take P.'s truck.
Well, we started late, and we almost got stuck, but we got to the strip just at 3:02 pm which was when we spotted the Caravan single engine plane in the sky. Then it started raining, and it is very dangerous for these planes to land in the rain on a grass strip. The MAF pilot passed by the strip once and we feared he would cancel the landing, but then he came in, and I jumped in the door, he turned it around, we bounced down the strip and were back in the air only three minutes after landing.

It took us only 28 minutes to fly to Lokichoggio - a journey that had required two dangerous days by vehicle. You can understand why we want to put a landing strip in Napep. In Lokichoggio I went through customs and then went to the MAF office to pay for the detour flight. I was amazed MAF only charged $40 for the flight which required a rather hairy landing and takeoff. From Loki, I caught an AIMAir DC-3 flight which just happened to be passing through nearly empty on its way to Nairobi. I was at Mayfield Guest House by 8 pm that evening... a far different world from the place I woke up in only 13 hours earlier. "