The Mercy Corps Blog

Blog Post Posted June 30, 2009, 11:47 pm by Jameson Gadzirai

A ride with Erkana

Photo: Malish John Peter/Mercy Corps

His dream is to wake up one day and be able to read something; a newspaper in English or a textbook, anything written.

When he last stepped foot in a classroom, it was in primary school. Even then, there was no literature at the school. He answers to the name of Erkana. He is 25 years old.

Each morning he drives a vehicle for Mercy Corps Sudan so that he can raise money to go to school in Arua, a town in northwestern Uganda.

"I need to learn how to read and write English," he says to me as he negotiates routes in
Juba on our way to a meeting.

"Can't you continue with your education in Mundri?" I ask him, referring to a place here in Sudan's Equatoria region. The prospects of getting an education outside of Sudan appear to me more daunting than continuing with the local education system.

"There are no books at the schools, and the teachers have not been paid. Schools are
sometimes closed for months," he replies.

This is enough to keep me silent and let him finish. He continues to reflect on the consistency he has heard about Ugandan schools.

"I want to raise 2,000 Sudanese pounds (about US $1,000) so that I learn English in Arua, and then I come back home and do computer training. I have a friend who can help me with computers," Erkana explains.

You can read the determination in Erkana in a lot of ways. As he speaks, I notice his mind
focus on a not-so-distant future where he still has to negotiate the gaping potholes, steep
inclines and jagged road edges of a system still in the first stages of development.

He shares with many young Sudanese the hope for a more formal education system.

"How did you learn to speak English so fluently?" I ask him.

"We had priests and other people come to our area when I was growing up," he tells me,
still looking straight ahead and negotiating the roads. "I started to speak English small small and I would like to improve it."

In many parts of Africa, literacy in English, Arabic, French and Portuguese has often meant
automatic literacy in mother tongues that share similar alphabets.

Community members have learnt, oftentimes through indigenous institutions, how to codify language systems and create meaning, in written form, of the areas surrounding them.

I ride with Erkana down the streets of Juba to a meeting on capacity building, and can't
help but think of the ways our programs can help the many Erkanas out there.