At Julha, A Harvest of Hope and Longing

A light rain stirred the fronds of millet and the serrated leaves of ground nut plants that cover the red sand of Julha, a women’s farm in Al Daein, South Darfur.

About a dozen women cultivated their ground on a recent morning. Some of them bent to the hoe with a child wrapped artfully on their backs in a tight sling. They’d already carried water to the camp in Jerry cans supplied by United Methodist Committee on Relief. Their seed came from UMCOR, too. And the hoes they were using were hammered out on an open fire by local blacksmiths near El Ferdous, a community of displaced Darfurians and their hosts. Near the end of the day, the women will carry firewood in bundles of 20 to 30 sticks, bound with cords of reeds, perfectly balanced on their heads. Just another day at Julha, which means forehead.

Women’s Self Sufficiency: Good for Recovery

Teaching women to be self-sufficient is a first step in a community’s turnaround after decades of instability, said Jane Ohuma, UMCOR’s head of mission in Sudan. Women can influence the nutrition of entire families, for instance. When they gain the confidence of learning new farming skills, they transmit that confidence, the skills and even extra income to their families. In a culture where the life of a woman is undervalued, these are important strides forward.

Each head of household at Julha received two malwas of millet to plant in the sandy soil and one malwa of sorghum to plant in clay—altogether enough for about four hectares. Teaching them to intercrop, or mingle, these plantings with other seeds, such as ground nuts and beans, was the UMCOR agronomist, Abdul Rahim Malik. Okra and melon seeds are interplanted as cash crops. The half dozen families at Julha, all headed by women, are growing all of these. The rains have been good, harbinger of a bumper crop.

“We Would Like to See Those We Left”

Farms like Julha dot the savanna of this part of South Darfur where UMCOR started the seeds and tools program earlier this year with a grant from the Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church in Ohio. Some 5,200 families have crops under cultivation. Many, like these women, live at the farm sites, since the plots are too far from the camp at El Ferdous to walk back and forth. A few gotia, conical brush structures that serve as shelters, are scattered around the edge of the field.

Angelina put down her hoe and adjusted her son to her other shoulder. She pronounces her name with a hard “g,” a remnant of colonial schooling in her home state of Bar El Gazal, south of where she stood now at Julha. Her story, told so unflinchingly, is like many others: murdered relatives, sacked village, fleeing in fear. And like other displaced persons in South Darfur, Angelina longs to go home.

What is at home that she doesn’t have at Julha? “The people we left behind,” she said. “We left when we were very young. We would like to see those we left.”

UMCOR is working on assisting displaced people in Sudan to find their way home, to return to peaceful farming or work. United Methodists can get involved in these ministries through giving to UMCOR Advance #184385, Sudan Emergency. United Methodist Committee on Relief is a 501(c)(3) charity and all contributions are fully tax deductible. Checks may be mailed to UMCOR, PO Box 9068, New York, NY 10187-9068. Donors using a credit card may call toll free 800-554-8583.