01 May 2020

COVID 19 PANDEMIC IMPACTS EAST AFRICA

“What gives me hope is communities rallying around each other. In Kenya, we reacted to the fact that the disease would hit the poor harder than the rich. We have had food drives, with people doing as much as they can to help within the community. We don’t have the facilities, but we (the people) have a long history of responding to crises, mobilizing around public health. The public is trying to believe and act communally.”

Kenyan political analyst and author Nanjala Nyabola

     Nevertheless, East African countries are struggling.  Kenya confirmed the first case of Covid 19 on March 12, 2020 and followed with regulations for lockdowns, instituting a 7pm curfew on March 26.  This led to evening chaos at the Likoni ferry in Mombasa when police used tear gas and beatings to admit only 300 of the 1400 passengers normally allowed to board.

Kathy Flatoff - St. Patrick Dispensary
Bangladesh Informal Settlement - Mombasa Kenya

     East Africa will need to use local solutions to address their unique problems.  In densely populated informal settlements, water and food is purchased daily as 85% of traders work in the informal sector.  20 million people are already short of food.  This year has been troubled by heavy rains, flooding, landslides and a swarm of locust twenty times the size of last year. People are short of food.

Creatively, Maryknoll Lay Missioner Kathy Flatoff works with the parish leaders and priests in St. Patrick Catholic Church in the largest informal settlement of Bangladesh in Mombasa to assist vulnerable people.  Donations are channeled via Mpesa phone transfers to people identified by the parish leaders.  Women were prioritized and 500 shillings ($5) were sent to individuals after meticulous review.  This amount will purchase two-pound bags of rice, beans and maize flour at regular intervals, thereby supporting local food vendors and decreasing physical contact and disturbances at distribution centers.

     Maryknoll Fr. Joe Healey has worked with Small Christian Communities (SCCs) all over East Africa and globally.  He currently lives in Kenya where 45,000 SCCs would meet weekly.  With the Kenyan lockdown, meetings ended abruptly.  Rather than die they went digital.  They are finding ways to access money for smart phones and data bundles to connect pastorally and use phone transfers to distribute funds to vulnerable people.

     Amnesty International Kenya and 15 other community organizations have called for a ban on water and electricity charges to the public utilities in addition to removing a ban on rain water harvesting in Nairobi’s informal settlements.

     During the first two weeks of April, Uganda did manage to flatten the curve of Covid 19 at 55 cases and no deaths.  New cases have now continued to rise.  Previous experience with Marburg and Ebola epidemics prepared the country with improved public health protocols.  An educated public complied immediately with suspension of international flights and restrictions on internal movement.  Food vendors have slept in their market stalls for 14 days to avoid exposing themselves and others to infection.   The government is distributing food to 1.5 million vulnerable families and has halted evictions of communities from contested lands.  It also supports businesses by rescheduling social security contributions.

     Tanzania has struggled with mixed messaging.  The president encourages citizens to continue to gather in places of worship to ‘rid the body of Christ of this devilish virus’.  However, Bishop Niwemugizi of Rulenge-Ngara diocese carefully evaluated the evolution of the pandemic in other parts of the world and decided to suspend all community religious gatherings for one month beginning April 19^th.  Maryknoll Missioners at the Lake House of Prayer in Mwanza have directed the faithful to continue their prayers in the safety of their homes.  Meanwhile, missioners are providing culturally sensitive public health education for prevention and treatment and have organized the local production of over 1000 face coverings.

      South Sudan is one of the weakest nations in the world and 34 cases have been confirmed as of 1st May with limited testing.  The WHO has delivered testing supplies and PPE to prepare for an expected progression of disease.  The government has partially locked down movement by closing schools, shops, borders and airports. Lay missioner Gabe Hurrish is restricted to Kuron Peace Village and Fr. Mike Bassano cannot enter section III of the Malakal Protection of Civilian camp.  Both remain in South Sudan and continue to provide pastoral and educational assistance as they are able.

     It is expected that the pandemic will overwhelm the health care services on the African continent very easily as all infrastructures are fragile.  Nearly 60% of the population are under age 25 but 56% are living in crowded centers and many have HIV, TB and malnutrition.  The WHO estimates 10 million Africans could be infected by Covid 19 in the next six months.  The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa is calling for a $100 billion safety net to provide testing and treatment.

     However, food insecurity is the most immediate problem. 1.2 billion people reside on the African continent and 20% are undernourished; the highest percentage in the world.  Droughts, floods, locusts and war caused this. Lock downs for public health protection that restrict movement exacerbate it by increasing the price of food while decreasing grazing land and access to markets. 

     The WFP estimates 30 million Africans are food insecure and 300,000 could die each day for the next three months without assistance.  It needs $1.9 billion immediately to avert this crisis.  Then, they will need $10 billion for the remainder of the year as well as an end to conflicts and unimpeded humanitarian access.

     The nations of the world are like boats trying to navigate the ocean of the Covid pandemic.  Some countries steer luxury liners.  These who are privileged need to throw a rope to save the African boats which are already being engulfed by waves of food insecurity, hunger and soon starvation.  

PEACE OF ST. JOSEPH THE WORKER TO YOU
May he intercede for casual laborers to find work at this difficult time!!!

https://www.smallchristiancommunities.org - click on the Facebook icon to go to the next link....

https://www.facebook.com/www.smallchristiancommunities.org

https://www.theelephant.info/reflections/2020/04/18/covid-19-in-africa-to-eat-or-to-heal/

https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news/2020/04/06/kenya-coronavirus-lockdowns 

https://www.nation.co.ke/counties/mombasa/Chaos-rock-Likoni-ferry-crossing/1954178-5505438-tgnv84/index.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/52354857

https://theconversation.com/why-a-one-size-fits-all-approach-to-covid-19-could-have-lethal-consequences-134252

https://mklm.org/7000-bars-of-soap/

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/africa/news/2020-04/covid-19-africa-could-end-up-suffering-the-most.html

https://www.africanews.com/2020/04/20/courage-through-a-lens-a-ugandan-journalist-s-covid-19-chronicle/ 

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3081312/prayer-not-lockdown-these-african-leaders-answer-coronavirus

https://www.afro.who.int/news/who-prepositions-supplies-speed-testing-suspected-covid-19-cases-south-sudan

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/world/africa/coronavirus-hunger-crisis.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_NN_p_20200423&instance_id=17877&nl=morning-briefing&regi_id=127404277&section=topNews&segment_id=25792&te=1&user_id=0ce8dac562c8998105e02485745d6854

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-africa-un-idUSKBN21Z1LW?utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook

https://www.dw.com/en/severe-hunger-threatens-africa-during-covid-19-lockdowns/a-53212565

01 April 2020

LIKONI FERRY MOMBASA MARCH 2020

PANDEMIC

     I write from a very comfortable abode in Urbana Illinois, caring for my 87 year old mother and working from home for Maryknoll Lay Missioners.  This week I received a video clip from the ferry in Mombasa Kenya, a place I would regularly cross over, on my way to do my clinics when I lived there from 2010 to 2018.  I had to force myself to watch the horror.

     Kenya instituted a curfew last week because of Covid 19.  They require people to be in their home by 7pm, which is dusk, until 5am.  The first night the police and army used tear gas and beat people viciously to force them to run towards the ferry as the night curfew approached. These are all of the common people who live across the harbor in little shacks and work on the island doing menial low paying jobs for people of means.  They live from day to day on the pittance they earn.

     On March 22nd the Catholic church in Juba South Sudan installed the new Archbishop at a huge celebration bringing people together from all over the country to eat, drink and celebrate.  I told our missioner who works there it should not happen and he should not go.  Three days later the government closed the airport and all borders because of the pandemic.  That is like closing the barn door after all the cattle have run out.

     In the USA New Orleans is overwhelmed with Covid patients for the last 10 days.  They celebrated Mardi Gras about a month before that, just about the time their cattle got out of the barn.  I pray for South Sudan during the coming month hoping the same thing doesn't happen to them.

     In Tanzania the president has said that all churches will remain open because the virus is a devil and it can't live in the body of Christ.  He says prayers are needed to get rid of it.  There are few test kits available where our people work.  Tanzania reports only 19 cases as of today.

     I am working long hours at the computer trying to support our people in Asia and the Americas too, but East Africa is what I know best.  Here in Urbana, Illinois I go to the grocery store once a week and take my elderly mother on walks in the neighborhood.  We have running water and electricity, shelter and money saved in the bank.  Many people here have lost their jobs.  The food banks and soup kitchens are ramping up to serve those who live from pay check to pay check since the last check just ran out and they can't buy food.  

     But I know we are blessed beyond measure compared to countries in the global south.  There, people live from day to day on the water and food they bring home to their crowded shacks in the informal settlements.  In this pandemic I suspect that those in the rural areas will fair better.  There will be more fresh air and some food in their gardens if the rains come and the locusts go away. 

     The last pandemic was The Great Influenza in 1918.  Some people call it 'Spanish flu' but it had nothing to do with Spain and that is a misnomer.  It killed at least 50 million people.  Because of WWI, various countries prevented reporting about the illness and huge ships with soldiers traveled from the USA to Europe spreading the virus which preferred to take the lives of young people in their early twenties.  The lesson to learn from that debacle is TELL THE TRUTH! 

     If we are smart we will learn that pandemic means none of us has any immunity to this virus and we are all vulnerable to varying degrees.  It is a super spreader which means it is very easy to transmit and because it is new we have a lot to learn about how it operates.  We live in a very globalized world with movement everywhere and it will make its way everywhere.  We may contain it in one place but if it pops up in another place it can come back to haunt us until we get a treatment and a vaccine.

     The experts tell us we need to test and  quarantine those infected to stop it from spreading so fast. It kills those who are most vulnerable because they are over 60 and weaker or have an illness like lung or heart disease or a bad immune system.  It has already overwhelmed some of the best health care systems in the world.  When it gets to the global south it will decimate them. 

     Lent is the best time to reassess the way we live our lives and let go of what holds us back from birthing something new and even better.  I do believe in Resurrection and life.  This pandemic will make sure we pay attention to what is essential...relationships and love.

PEACE OF THE DAFFODILS BLOOMING HERE TO YOU!

     

01 March 2020

South Sudan: Progress Toward Peace

Steve Veryser, a Maryknoll Lay Missioner in Tanzania and the Lay Missioners’ Area Director for Tanzania and Kenya/South Sudan, wrote the following article after visiting South Sudan. The article was published in the March-April 2020 issue of NewsNotes.

In February I traveled to Juba, the capitol of South Sudan, to visit Maryknoll Lay Missioner Gabe Hurrish, who works at an organization called Solidarity with South Sudan. I had worked in South Sudan in disease eradication before I joined Maryknoll, and Maryknoll missioners have worked there for years. While I was visiting, we spoke with a graduate of Solidarity’s Teacher Training program who is now teaching at a school outside of Juba in a “Protection of Civilians” (POC) camp, a place where internally displaced people are offered protection by the UN. Remarking on the ongoing peace negotiations in South Sudan, the teacher shared, “We all want peace. But we are at the mercy of the leaders. The two [main] leaders and others just don’t like each other. They don’t listen to the heart of the people. We feel there is more hope now than before. We appreciate international people obliging the leaders to discuss peace. Life in the POC is terrible. We can do nothing. We can’t improve our lives. There are no jobs.” 

There's a saying in East Africa that “when elephants fight the grass gets trampled.” Violent conflict in Sudan and South Sudan has wreaked havoc on the population on and off for decades. If the elephants are the leaders and the grass is the people, in the complexity of the conflict it is often hard to tell where the grass ends and the elephants begin.

On February 20, President Salva Kiir and his vice president, Riek Machar, who leads the main opposition group, finally started implementation of a unity government in accordance with a deadline set under the peace accord, which ended the devastating civil war in 2018. This was an important step, finally achieved after numerous delays and setbacks in the peace negotiations. Various international actors, including the United States, are supporting the agreement. As the teacher we met mentioned, it has often seemed like the leaders have been “obliged into” the agreements by these external actors.

What is the use of forming a “unity” government? In a unity government, people who were marginalized or targeted during the civil war, as well as members of active opposition groups, are asked to come to the same table for negotiations and to share offices, military posts, and neighborhoods. Given the trauma that people from all levels of society have experienced, this is a tall order. While I worked for an organization in South Sudan associated with the Ministry of Health, I remember that the Minister of Health himself, who was from a targeted ethnic group, fled Juba fearing for his life. Large numbers of refugees who fled the civil war are trying to reintegrate into society, although they may have grown up outside of South Sudan and may not even speak a language native to South Sudan. Many people lost land and valuable resources, such as herds of cattle, during the war. Ultimately, the tenability of long-term peace rests on how well people can reintegrate into society and the willingness of aggressors to accommodate those returning. After so many cycles of violence, will the aggrieved be able to forgive their oppressors? The churches in South Sudan are begging for these reconciliations and they know that peace is dependent on them.

While the greed of Kiir and Machar and tribalism are often blamed for the persistent violence in the country, there are also external interests at work behind the scenes. The Somali poet Ali Dhuh once said something to the effect, “the genius of whites is that they can both cause a conflict and then come in to broker peace.” Again, in this case it is difficult to say exactly who the “whites” are in this situation. Suffice it to say that the same neighboring regional countries and global powers that vie for the upper hand in this strategic and resource-rich region of the world are the parties trying to broker peace in the country and offering aid to the people of South Sudan. 

In the optimistic time in which South Sudan achieved independence from the North in 2011, one of the first major infrastructure plans proposed was a pipeline from the oil fields in northern South Sudan to Lamu, on the Kenyan coast. The proposed pipeline would benefit Kenya and allow South Sudan to sell oil to the United States. Currently South Sudan is only able to export oil by means of a pipeline ending in Sudan, and Sudan is barred from selling oil to the United States due to its inclusion on a list of “state sponsors of terrorism.” Other countries, especially China, which invested heavily in the existing pipeline, continue to buy South Sudanese oil from Sudan. So it seems that there may be bigger “elephants” fighting over power and resources than Kiir and Machar, and also bigger than the leaders in the neighboring countries. In trying to convince the leadership in South Sudan to come to peaceful terms and usher in a stable peace for the population, those brokering the peace are treating the symptoms rather than the causes of the conflict. The international powers need to be held accountable for their efforts to control power and resources without regard for the local people.

Gabe noted, “Despite the emotional trauma of losing loved ones to senseless acts of violence, the people of this country carry on. They are sad, frustrated, angry and even vengeful but they carry on. They do what they have to do to support their families. It is this spirit which I feel as I meet them and share their stories.”

As I was leaving, Gabe lent me a book about the life of South Sudanese Bishop Emeritus Paride Taban, the founder of Peace Village, a place where people of diverse ethnic groups live together. To close, I’d like to share a quote from him that I feel expresses the spirit of mission: “If there is any message I have continuously tried to pass on to others, this has always been the one of peace and love. I see myself as a bee; my task is to sting around, not with the intention of causing harm but of awakening people and transforming lives.” 

Photo: South Sudanese citizens affected by the civil war. Photo available in the public domain.

Greetings to all.  I was able to help with the preparation of this article above.  The signing of an agreement in Afghanistan yesterday is another hopeful sign of peace where there has been conflict.  Wishing you all a blessed Lenten season...susan

14 February 2020

Dr. Susan Nagele with South Sudanese family.
Photo credit: Sean Sprague

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

February 16, 2020 

Sir 15:15-20

1 Cor 2:6-10

Mt 5:17-37

Blessed are they who choose to follow the law of the Lord

Psalm 119:1

     I was crossing the border between Kenya and Uganda on the way to Sudan with a friend.  The border official asked our address.  My friend immediately replied, “Box 10, Nimule, Sudan”.  The official wrote it down and I kept my mouth shut while my eyes bugged out.  There wasn’t a post office in Nimule let alone a post office box.  Wasn’t this a lie?  Doesn’t the 8^th commandment say, “Don’t lie”.  Aren’t details important?  Why not just tell him the truth?  Today’s Gospel says that whoever breaks one of these commandments will be least in the Kingdom of Heaven.  Later, I chided my friend about our address and he shrugged his shoulders.  “They just need to fill in the blank,” he replied. 

     The first reading makes clear that it is our choice whether or not we follow the commandments.  If we so choose, the commandments will save us and we will live. 

     I was visiting the San Egidio Community in Rome many years ago with a Maryknoll priest and at the Eucharistic liturgy an Italian lay man gave the homily.   Only a few weeks earlier, the pope had announced that lay people could not give homilies.  My priest friend asked the other Maryknoll priests in Rome how this could happen with the recent papal announcement.  One of them chuckled and said, “This is Rome.  There is the law and there is life”.   There we were, right in Vatican City State, and it looked like the pope’s order was being flagrantly violated.  But laws and legal systems change over time.  It also takes time to change.  Jesus, himself, said he came to fulfill the law.  That suggests interpretive process, movement and change. 

     I was crossing another border from Sudan into Uganda on my way to a hospital.  I was sick with dysentery and the police were shocked as I dragged myself into their office and asked to use their latrine.  They quickly pointed me in the right direction and hastily wrote out permission for us to enter with our vehicle, encouraging us to go quickly and wishing us a safe journey.   Police at border crossings in East Africa are better known for intimidation and their need for extra cash rather than kindness.  They didn’t ask for my passport, check the car or any number of other details the law required.

     The commandments are guidelines written in black and white and can only give parameters to the spectrum of gray along which life is lived.  Jesus fleshes out some of the commandments and other laws in today’s gospel.  Killing can begin with anger and refusal to reconcile.  Adultery can encompass lust and disrespect.  Rather than making false oaths, just be straight forward and clear about what you want to say. 

     The Gospel last week came from this same passage in Matthew and told us to be salt and light for the earth.  How do we do that?  Let our righteousness surpass the letter of the law of the scribes and Pharisees.  Let the Spirit, ‘which scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God, illuminate those parameters and grey areas that reveal themselves in the day to day living of our lives.  In a nutshell, love determines the essence of the law.  That police officer who chose to care about my welfare, expedite my border crossing and wish me well was following a higher law than the rules in Uganda and the usual behavior of police officers at border crossings.

Blessed are they who choose to follow the law of Love

https://maryknollogc.org/resources/scripture/sixth-sunday-ordinary-time-1

01 February 2020

WOMEN PRAY AND FAST FOR PEACE

     Christian women members of the South Sudan Church Council (SSCC) gathered in Juba on 25 January 2020 to pray and fast for peace in South Sudan.
     The fasting and prayer initiative began six years ago (2014) after the civil conflict erupted in the South Sudanese capital Juba in December 2013.  The prayer program has continued ever since.  The daylong prayer brought together women from the seven members of SSCC, including the Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church of South Sudan, the Presbyterian Church of South Sudan, the Evangelical Church, the Sudan Pentecostal Church, the Sudan Interior Church, and the Africa Inland Church.

     While praying on their knees, and in tears, for peace in the country, the Christian women also prayed for their cantoned soldiers, children across the country, women of childbearing age and for all the churches that seemed threatened by their own internal conflicts to have improved relations.
     According to  a 2018 Aljazeera report, there are up to 19,000 children associated with armed forces in South Sudan.  Of these, boys are trained to fight while girls are taken as "wives".

https://www.aciafrica.org/news/735/lay-down-weapons-give-birth-to-children-south-sudan-christian-women-to-child-soldiers?

     When I worked in Torit in 1991 I was displaced to Palataka where I cared for hundreds of children kept in squalid conditions in a so called 'school' that was a front for the enslavement of these children.  

     Oxfam has just published a document entitled Our Search for Peace: Women in South Sudan's National Peace Processes 2005-2018.

file:///C:/Users/susan/Documents/South%20Sudan/Women-south-sudan-peace-processes-300120-en%20Jan%202020.pdf

     I knew some of these women personally and was impressed with their courage, strength and perseverance.  Slowly, their prayers will bear fruit.  On 12 January the Republic of South Sudan signed the South Sudan Opposition Movements Alliance (SSOMA) with a coalition of opposition groups that did not sign the 2018 peace agreement.  It is known informally as the 'Rome Agreement' as it was mediated by the San Egidio Community in Rome.

     Another stunning example of peaceful active nonviolence was seen in Sudan last year when President Bashir was removed from office and a Transitional Council was instituted.  Women were strong and visible participants in this movement that continues to develop with civilian leadership.

PEACE OF THESE MOTHERS TO YOU! 

01 January 2020

SUDANESE CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS 2019 IN KHARTOUM

HAPPY NEW YEAR

     For the first time since 2011 the Sudanese have celebrated Christmas publicly.  The civilian cabinet named Christmas a public holiday.  The Minister for Religious Affairs apologized to Christians for discrimination under the previous government and promised more equality in the future.  Amna Azari, 18, visited a church for the first time in her life.  "We are becoming more tolerant and loving towards each other.  This is the legacy of our great revolution," she said.

     My first Christmas in Sudan was in 1991.  I stood at the back of the Catholic church in Torit. Shortly after the liturgy began a man named William Nyuon entered with his body guards, all dressed in civilian clothes.  He stood quietly behind me and I would later learn he was a high ranking officer in the Sudanese People's Liberation Army.  That same night I met Muslims and other Christians, all celebrating together.  Later on in the year, I attended Muslim celebrations of their holy days.

     As we begin another year and a new decade it is hopeful to see how the Sudanese have used a totally nonviolent process to remove a dictator and move towards a more democratic government.  They have a long way to go but I am impressed with how far they have come.  Other countries are using violence to bring about change and they seem to get more media coverage.  I am keeping my eye on the Sudanese and the path they are forging, hoping that the rest of us will follow in becoming more tolerant and loving.

PEACE OF THE SOLEMNITY OF MARY, MOTHER OF JESUS 

AND

WORLD DAY OF PRAYER FOR PEACE

ON JANUARY 1ST

http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/peace/documents/papa-francesco_20191208_messaggio-53giornatamondiale-pace2020.html

01 December 2019

Steven Mom Pepper Susan

   

Dear Friends,

     I am now back in Urbana Illinois for the whole of this past year and have settled in well.  I work as a Maryknoll lay missioner doing medical consultancy, advocacy with the Maryknoll Office of Global Concerns and mission education and fundraising in the mid-west.  I’ve travelled to Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Chicago and it has been fun to learn more about my own country after being away for so many ears.      

May 2000

I received a great gift about a month ago.  In May 2000, I was working as a family physician in a remote village in Sudan.  A very sick little boy, Adimo, was brought to our clinic by his mother.  She had taken him to traditional healers but he kept getting thinner and thinner. The last town they visited was being bombed by the Antonov plane which was sent by the government to terrorize people.  They were afraid and had heard that there was a clinic deep inside their home area.  In desperation, they walked 120 miles to Nanyangacor where he met the first white woman he’d ever seen…me!  They didn’t know his age.  He looked about nine years old but he only weighed 20 pounds, the weight of a one-year old child!  Kala azar was killing him.  The little shepherds would sit in the shade of ant hills while tending the livestock.  Sand flies would come out of the ant hill and bite the children and pass on a little worm that would cause them to waste away until they died if they didn’t get treatment.  I was sure he would die but I was wrong.  We began to treat him with a painful daily injection in his tiny little muscles.  Over the next month he improved and lived.  Last month he found my email address and wrote to me.  He now weighs 140 pounds and wanted to say thank you. He gave me permission to share his story with you.

         

     Before I left East Africa, I went back to Adimo’s home area to say goodbye.  I failed to find him until now.  I am thrilled to hear that he is still alive and struggling to improve himself and his country.  He taught me never to give up on a sick patient and he continues to remind me how blessed and fortunate I am here in the USA. 

     In some ways, life is so much easier here.  The electricity and water work.  Drivers usually follow the rules of the road and it is a pleasure to get in the car and not be stopped by the police over and over again for no good reason.  It is wonderful to be with my family and enjoy meals together, a walk in the park, the changing seasons and reconnecting with friends in my parish and community who share this journey of life with me.  Unfortunately, we have a lot of consumerism and violence in our society too.  I feel like I need this time of Advent more than ever to focus my attention on love and the coming of Christ once again into my life.  I am very grateful for you and will pray for you during this season.  May it bring you joy, peace and love.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!