Picture-Postcard Charms: Kajo Keji

After a few rough days in Malakal, Africa, as it always does, got itself back into my good graces. This time, it was a trip to Kajo Keji, where my organization runs a midwifery school.

Kajo Keji is a 25 minute flight from Juba, but the better part of a day’s drive. On the way out of Juba, I got some great views of Juba as we flew south down the Nile. Actually, I’m pretty sure I could still see Juba when we started our descent into Kajo Keji.

Kajo Keji is lovely—a small town on the Uganda-South Sudan border. It’s on a plateau, so is substantially cooler and greener than Juba.

I went to Kajo Keji primarily to finish up a proposal to the US government for funding a new class of registered midwives (a 3-year program) at the school. Though I look at the M&E sections of most proposals my organization submits, I don’t usually write them. But I was there, and let’s be honest. Midwhiffs are my thing, so I jumped at the chance to go see the school and finish up the proposal (or at least get us closer to finishing…)

The school is fabulous, clean, well-stocked and filled with a group of bright, ambitious student midwives.

The hospital, which we support with our student nurses and midwives and partner closely with, was also interesting to visit.

Each midwife is required to do 30 deliveries as the primary attendant to graduate. However, many women in the Kajo Keji area deliver at home and there aren’t enough deliveries for the midwives to get as many deliveries as they need. While I was there, we actually crossed into Uganda for a few hours to the town of Moyo to see about having some of our students do a rotation at Moyo Hospital, where there are more deliveries. The border is quite porous, and almost all of Kajo Keji’s goods come from Uganda (which was creating an issue with the staff at the school when I was there—the cost of living was increasing partly due to the fact that in order to buy anything they first had to convert their Sudanese pounds into Ugandan shillings, and they were requesting a substantial increase in salary. Of course I, as the visiting HQ person, was CLEARLY the person who could FIX. THIS. PROBLEM. I kept saying, no! no! I’m monitoring and evaluation! [imagine elaborate arm waving that goes along with this…] Please don’t make me do anything with finance! Let’s talk about your logistical framework! Your patient registries! Anything but finance! Noooooooo….).

Anyway, it was very interesting to cross the border—Uganda feels markedly more prosperous than South Sudan. Among other things, all of the children wear school uniforms and were on their way home from school. I’ve seen almost no children in South Sudan in school uniforms, and there are many fewer schools visible as you drive around. Evidence of what decades of civil war will do to your country, no surprises there.

When we got back, we walked around the market so I could see for myself some of the prices and how much came from Uganda so that I could report to our finance department better about whether the Kajo Keji staff’s requests were accurate and reasonable. I love village markets in Africa, and once again, the ever-photogenic South Sudanese didn’t fail me.

Walked around Kajo Keji to see a bit of the town.

This school is so important—it is one of only three in the whole of South Sudan that is training midwives. Since skilled birth attendants (aka, midwives and others with midwifery skills) are the people capable of reducing South Sudan’s astronomical maternal mortality rates (2,300 deaths per 100,000 live births), I think we really can’t spend enough money and energy training midwives and supporting this school.

On an entirely other note, I'm partial to Kajo Keji because it seems to played host to my favorite disease not so long ago. I noticed these binders on a shelf in the office and took them off for a little light bedtime reading.