Ministry in South Sudan
My name is Margaret. At present I am living in Yambio which is in the western part of South Sudan near to the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo and also to the Central African Republic. We have celebrated 10 years here and I have been here for those 10. I arrived September 21st 2008, the date not the year is significant as we all know being the birth date of Marie Madeleine.
I am working with a group called Solidarity with South Sudan which was specifically formed to train teachers and nurses in this country. I have spent four years in Malakal, and also taught in Rumbek and Juba. Here in Yambio I am teaching Mathematics and also am the bursar for the college. I suppose you could say the two go hand in hand so most of my days and sometimes nights are spent looking at numbers. I studied mathematics many years ago so it is not difficult for me. Mathematics in the country is not well taught generally in the primary and secondary schools and sometimes not taught at all to some pupils
Our teacher Training College is one of the few places in South Sudan where one could say there is order. At present we have no bank in our town. Our phones do not work inside our compound .We have to go outside the gate to make a call and sometimes that also doesn’t work. Many days we don’t have internet, despite the difficulties we try to carry on.
Our students are eager to learn. One can see this when you look at the number who are in the library every day. They are constantly reading trying to improve their English. I don’t see too many though bring in Mathematics books; our students come to us from all over South Sudan. They come from all different tribes and we work hard to keep all living peacefully together which cannot be said of the country as a whole. It is a country still at war though there have been many attempts to bring peace to this troubled land.
