Akot, Southern Sudan

N 6.55107
E 30.02571

On Google Earth, you can look up the map coordinates above. They are for the “Baptist Training Center,” just west of the village of Akot. If my Internet connection allows, I will attach a picture of my new home-away-from-home. Having seen Akot on Google Earth myself, I was easily able to recognize it from the air as we flew close to it yesterday.

The Center is more a large (approx. 200 yds. x 200 yds.) fenced-in clearing than a finished establishment yet, but the folks here are off to a good start. I am living here with Jermaine (an IMB Journeyman from Ohio) and Andrew (part of a “Fusion” team here for several months from Mid-Western Baptist Seminary). They live in the fancy thatched-roof hut; I have the tent. Cooking is over a charcoal brazier

Actually, it was so hot last night that I slept on a cot out in the open – no cover at all. (Never mind the scorpion I had killed shortly before bedtime!) It was near midnight before I stopped sweating, although a nice breeze was keeping parts of me comfortable. By morning, the air temperature was to a very comfortable 80-ish, with a breeze. During the afternoon yesterday, the temperature-in-the-shade was somewhere around 120. Fortunately, by Eastern North Carolina standards, the humidity is pretty low. The danger is in becoming dehydrated without realizing it.

Yesterday morning, very early, I was taken to Nairobi’s Wilson Airport for the flight to Rumbek, Southern Sudan. We flew at 15-20,000 feet. The view was hazy, but I could still see pretty well when we were not over clouds. I was able to keep track of our journey on my Michelin map. On the flight in, a Dinka passenger was helping me get started learning Dinka greetings. Dinka is a tonal language, but it seems to me that the tones are easier than Yoruba.

This area reminds me of Northern Nigeria in the dry season (which it still is here). The terrain hre is pretty flat “orchard bush,” with scattered trees and grass. The grass is short now, but I hear that it can get up to maybe ten feet tall during the rains.

Jermaine picked me up at the tiny Rumbek airport (it now has two dirt airstrips; the Google Earth view is old enough that it only shows one) and took me by the market to get some things. The market looked like it could have been set somewhere in Northern Nigeria, although if one looks closely, the features of the people are distinctly different.

The Dinka, among whom we live, are generally very dark-skinned here. Some of the are truly pitch-black. This will make photography a challenge sometimes.

Our main diet here looks like it will be mainly beans-and-rice. I bought some peanuts-in-the-shell, but they are tiny and require a lot of work to get very few peanuts. We should also be able to get mangos, and maybe some pawpaw, but most other fruit here has to be brought in from the Juba area. We saw some pineapples in the market, but the shopkeeper refused to sell us even one, because he was using them for juice, which he can sell at a much higher profit margin.

The instant oatmeal and instant coffee I brought made for a pretty good breakfast, but I suspect I will be eating a lot of granola bars while I am here.

Last evening, three or four local pastors came by to welcome me. We talked about how to go about having meet with the local chiefs and other “power-people,” like the police commissioner and the local army commander. By this morning, the meetings with the chiefs and the police had already been arranged.

I found out something else interesting yesterday: my status as a former-Army captain is actually much more important here than I had expected. In this society, which has been formed in many ways by war, military rank is carried over into civilian life, especially for officers. In order to gain the highest-possible “status,” and therefore the greatest potential to open doors for the younger missionaries and local pastors here, it is considered important that I be introduced as “Captain Gilliland.” I think that will take some getting used to!

It is not quite 11:00am, and I think the temperature is already well over 90 degrees – with a breeze, fortunately. I will end this, so my computer won’t have to run so hot. Later, we will go to a nearby mission hospital where there is (expensive and slow) Internet access, and I will try to send it.

As I try to send this, It is 5:00pm, and the air has started -- just a little -- to cool. It's probably back down near 100 degrees by now.