The Rest of the Way

We had a completely uneventful flight to Aweil, despite Taeler's fervent misgivings. Weather conditions were surprisingly smooth for this time of year, though it was cloudy and hazy enough that we didn't have much view of things on the ground.  So we just read as we floated along.





Landing at Aweil, we disembarked to find Mawiir's brother waiting for us.  Another reunion! What a blessing to get to see him meet with family members he hadn't seen for so long (and, in some cases, ever.)

But Aweil wasn't our final destination. Marial Bai was, so we mounted on our trusty steed named Toyota and set out.

Our driver, Deng, had his hands full navigating the worn roads, populated by other vehicles, road construction equipment, pedestrians, goats, and above all cows.

It took us about 3 hours to cover the 60 or so miles from Aweil to Marial Bai.

Taeler's home for the next week.

In Marial Bai we stayed at the Marial Bai Secondary School (the school founded by Valentino Deng.)

 

The school has a staff comprised of both local teachers (mostly returnees after the end of the war) and some teachers recruited from Kenya and Uganda.  One of the unexpected bonuses of this trip was the spirited discussions we had with these folks after dinner in the evening--everything from theology to current American politics (yes, we cut a pretty wide swath in the world... yikes!  And with the widespread availability of the internet via cell phones all of it spreads everywhere: true, dubious, completely-made-up... it makes no difference.  Double yikes!)






 (Next installment: Mawiir Returns Home)