I'm Grateful: South Sudan (Part 2)

I'm grateful this year, to be back in South Sudan. Surrounded by the earthy Moru existence that I love so well. By drums, and gourd shakers, and dancing, singing friends in church. To know the words of the Moru hymns and pipe in heartily with my own voice - loud enough to make me happily hoarse afterwards - like everyone else.

To walk across the yard bare-foot and make sand and gravel shapes with my feet as I sit talking with friends.

To wake before the light and pray into the darkness as my Moru friends do, and to say The Grace as I finish . . . just as we would whisper together when the light of the day starts to peek through the corners of mud hut.

To dig into heaps of linya (starchy sorghum / maize / cassava paste) with friends, and dip it into bean leaf soup, or eggs, or fresh fish soup. To eat hunks of steamed pumpkin, and stick my fingers in ground nut paste mixed with honey and lick if off.

To leap and balance from rock to rock as I ford the puddles and rivers that cross our paths. To take off on my bicycle whenever I need to go somewhere, and to hang my basket bag from the handlebars as I go.

To sit in the market with friends shooting the breeze, or wander about hunting down good Moru eggs and my favorite greens, or discuss the fine points of basket-making while peering at the creation that someone brought to sell today - all the while munching on fried cassava fritters or sucking passion fruit juice out of the corner of the clear plastic bags it was tied into and sold in.

To poke and putter around our bonfire at night, telling embarrassing stories and watching as our riotous laughter rises to the heavens with the sparks and smoke of the fire.

To sit in a hut with a friend poring over our translation of Healing The Wounds of Trauma, discussing word choices and concepts, checking spellings, and feeling deeply satisfied when we know we've gotten something important down right.

To grab my friend's children to me and dote on them with tickles and hugs and kisses, and silly little games.  To squeeze their chubbiness and poke my nose into their necks as they wriggle away in fits of laughter, only to turn around and come back for more the very next second.

To walk to the bush with Cici and her crew to spend the morning taking down and pounding hundreds of bundles of harvested sesame stems for their seeds. Or to cut stalks of towering sorghum with my Moru mother, Viviana, and her family as the sun bakes our heads.

To walk to the saloon on a lazy afternoon with Veronica so that she can get her hair braided.  And for the braider to decide that she wants to braid my hair too. Yes please!

And most especially, the gift of finally being able to talk in depth with people in the language of their hearts. To go over to sweet old Mama Sarah's house after church and see her face light up when she hears my voice even though her eyes are long past seeing. And to sit and read the passages from today's sermon, and tell her what it was about, and who spoke, and all the other little tidbits that she misses because she's too old and frail to make it herself. And to pray for her in a language that she understands.

To actually catch and laugh at jokes. To be able to ask probing questions. To understand confusing explanations, or even be able to explain myself. To gain windows into people's souls. To share in the things they are talking about. To be a part. As myself. Different, yes. I always will be. But just as integral to our local social fabric as the people who have lived here all their lives.

I'm so glad for these things that when I think of them, I could cry. They were so hard-earned, many of them. And came at such a high price. Higher than I could ever have thought possible six years ago (good thing I didn't know).  But they have been made ALL THE SWEETER for the waiting and striving and struggling.

What a gift - to know people and be known. To move people and be moved. To change and be changed. To love and be loved.