Negotiations

You are leaving already? But you haven’t contributed anything yet! His face was darkened by the sun coming in through the window behind him, and for a moment I thought he was mad at me. I replied that I was simply listening because I thought they were sending me to Sudan. Everyone laughed. It was the fourth of July and I spent the whole day with non-Americans, Africans and Serbs, and it was a great day. After coffee at NorthStar with Alfred, we tooled over to SoPo to visit with his brother and have some food. We’ll be there for an hour or so, he said. But you have to be flexible.

Three hours later, my belly was stuffed with Sudanese foods and tea, most of the women and all the children had been kept away from us men, and we were now deep into debates. I quickly realized that I was in an intense meeting over the construction of the school Southern Sudan. People were calling contacts in Jubba, men were offering advice to Alfred on how to handle the ‘locals’, and the whole time we sat in a circle sharing the floor fairly democratically. A few voices dominated the conversation, but even being a total outsider, I felt as though I could have said something and they would have listened.

Alfred drove me back and I could see he was strained. As experienced as he is, the trip he was about to take, going home for the first time in 14 years and overseeing the construction clearly feels like a monumental task. I spent the evening playing soccer and watching Milos Foreman movies. I didn’t even bother with the fireworks.