A breakthrough!

We have had one goal here in Khartoum: to present our workshop here at the headquarters. Because of the election, the staff has not had too much time for non-election related activities. But yesterday, we finally got a chance to speak to Emad, the head of the Organization Development department, and Sami, the head of the Youth and Volunteer department, as well as several other staff members.

Sami

We spoke about our workshop and its manual, which exists in both English and Arabic. The workshop is partly an introduction the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement, and partly meant to provide the volunteers with strategy and planning tools. Like I have mentioned before, the Sudanese Red Crescent has 400 000 volunteers trained in first aid, both active and in-active. We want to encourage the Society to utilize this capacity, and the volunteers to plan small scale activities themselves.

Our presentation was very well received, better than we imagined. It is very likely that the manual will be “exported” to the Red Crescent branches in southern Sudan, as well as to several branches in the North. If everything goes well, we might even be able to train trainers in other branches before we leave!


From one of the workshops in Port Sudan

Still on stand-by

The first multiparty election in Sudan in 24 years is now over. It has been surprisingly calm, even though candidates have boycotted the election and there have been accusation of fraud. Because of logistical problems and the low turnout the elections were extended by two more days.

The vote counting started on Friday, and for every polling station that has finished its counting, they announce the result right away. On Tuesday the last results are expected, and the winner of the presidential election will be announced. According to the newspaper Sudan Vision, president Bashir is leading with "a comfortable 85%".
The way it looks now, there will not be any major problems related to the announcement of the results.

Even though Jimmy Carter and other observers have stated that the elections have not met international standards, I still think it is an accomplishment that the election days and the three first counting days have been with no major violence. 60% of the registered voters have casted their ballot, which is a surprisingly high number.

At the Red Crescent headquarter, the staff is still taking turns at sleeping at the office. They are still on stand-by until Friday afternoon. Even though Friday still is four days away, you can practically feel the relief of the staff and volunteers – many of them walking around with a blue left forefinger, the sign for having voted.

Election time!

After months of preparing, the Sudanese Red Crescent as well as the rest of the country, is ready for the first multiparty elections in 24 years. The election is part of the comprehensive peace agreement from 2005 that put an end to a 22 year-long civil war.


The ruling party's campaign poster (Port Sudan)

I came back to Sudan about a week ago, and it had been decided that Ingvild and I will stay in Khartoum until the election result has been announced. We have therefore been able to follow the last days of the preparation of the Khartoum Red Crescent branch closely.


At the head quarter, Khartoum

Over the whole of Sudan, there are at least two volunteers deployed at each polling station, they are responsible for the first aid if it is needed. All together around 17 000 volunteers have been mobilized, over 2000 of them in the Sudanese capital alone.

“Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst”, the well-used phrase gives a very accurate description of what is going on at the head quarter. The volunteers have been trained in extreme situations such as “dead body management”, just in case. Sudan is now well in its second out of three election days and no major incidents have been reported, neither by the Crescent nor by the government. Inshallah, it will stay this way during the next few days and also during the election result announcements next week.

Handing our baby over..

The last weeks have been busy at the Red Crescent office in Port Sudan. We have had visitors, and a dengue fever outbreak. In between all of this, Ingvild and I have been trying to arrange training of trainers-workshops in order to secure the sustainability of our workshop about capacity building.

The volunteer leaders have chosen 13 volunteers, six men and seven women, for this job. After rearranging several meetings and workshop days, we have finally trained them all. We have focused on teaching methods and why we have chosen different methods for different parts of the workshop. Now, they will form teams of two and conduct a workshop while Mahmoud, Ingvild and I observe and take notes for two full days. After this, they are fully trained trainers.


Awadiyya is explaining the difference between the ICRC and the IFRC while I am taking notes


Zuhur in action


Awadallah, one our star students

This now feels like a mile stone, since it is the first step in handing our baby, the capacity workshop, over to the volunteers.

Visit from Madani

A couple of weeks ago, seven volunteers and two staff members from Madani in al-Jazeera state visited the Red Sea State branch. They spent two days with us in Port Sudan. Here are some pictures from our trip to the beach at Kilo just outside Port Sudan.


Insaaf from Madani and Ingvild


Ohajj..


..and a volunteer from Madani


Jabana is a must, even at the beach!


Younis, one of my favourite volunteers from Port Sudan



Sunset at Kilo

Dengue fever and flexibility

”Ok, finally! We’ll all meet on Sunday, 8.30 am.” It is Thursday, 5 pm, and Mahmoud has just finished calling “our” volunteers. They are the ones that we are training as trainers in order to take over our workshop after we leave. We have tried to arrange for this for quite a while and now we can finally relax, go home and enjoy the weekend.

Saturday evening. Mahmoud calls to tell us that the dengue fever outbreak in Port Sudan is more severe than expected. Several people have already died. The WHO information campaign will therefore start on Sunday, and not on Monday as planned. Since “our” volunteers are working in this campaign, our workshop is again postponed, this time by a week.

For a week, the volunteers go from door to door, inform people about the dengue fever and take samples of the drinking water in every single house (there is no running water in the outskirts of Port Sudan, and the people buy their drinking water from water tanks and store it in big clay containers; potential breeding places for the dengue flies). They also take notes about how many people have the symptoms for the disease, if they have been to the hospital or not. In southern Port Sudan, one person per every five households had dengue fever. In the evenings, the office is crowded; the supervisors (all of them volunteers) are handing in the lists from their covered area of the day.


Volunteers are being trained for the dengue fever information campaign


Even after six months in this country, I am still fascinated by the Sudanese’s flexibility and strong will to help; not once have I seen a volunteer complaining after 10 hours of house to house visit followed by several hours at the office.

Sudanese hospitality

While I waited for my Arabic teacher to arrive at the language centre, I ordered a tea from the boy working in the tea shop next door. When the teacher arrives, I pull out my money to pay, but the tea boy hurries over to tell me that I paid too much last time I was there. I am impressed by his memory and honesty; last time I had a tea here was a month ago.

Earlier that day we were riding a minibus to the office, we had just visited our friend Abeer. One of the other passengers leans over and asks us where we’re from. “Norway! I have been to Scandinavia many, many times. Beautiful!” The friendly old man used to work on a ship, and has apparently been all over Europe. "In the summer, they only have one hour of darkness", he tells the other passengers "just imagine how I suffered in Ramadan!" He decides to pay the fare for us, since we now are visitors in his country.

Back home, Hassan, our landlord and friend, knocks on our door and brings in a plate with Sudanese sweets. His cousin's wife, who lives across the street, has seen us from her house and wanted to do something nice for us, and had therefore made these sweets as well as invited us to play volleyball with her and her friends on Friday.

These are some of the things I love about Sudan; people see and remember each other and they do not need a reason to help you or talk to you. Even though I do not have a lot of experience of traveling in Africa, I believe that the Sudanese's reputation of being the most welcoming and hospitable people on the continent is true.