Heading back to help Sudan
Everyone's hoping to get back in during August. Marlene van Tonder
She’s fought off deadly snakes and scorpions, surviving in a mud hut in the south of war-torn Sudan, but a passion for the people has former Queenstown teacher Marlene van Tonder heading back there this month.
Van (van) Tonder works for AIM (Africa Inland Mission) and spent two years in southern Sudan, returning to New Zealand for what was to be a fourmonth break in December last year.
Logistics issues delayed her return until last month.
However, early last month the war and unrest escalated to dangerous levels and her organisation was evacuated. New Zealanders were warned not to go to Sudan.
However, that’s not putting van Tonder and the AIM team off returning to the remote south-eastern village of Iboni, where they’re working in outreach missions and developing churches.
In a few weeks (mid-August) she’s heading back to Sudan for another threeyear contract, training local teachers and teaching.
‘‘Sudan is the size of Texas, and what you see on the news here in New Zealand is sometimes taken assured van Tonder.
‘‘The fighting is very much associated with the towns and cities that are at war. The people I live and work with don’t even speak the same language as those fighting, although some have friends who’ve been killed in the war because they were in the army.’’ ’’Everyone’s hoping to get back in during August,’’ out of context,’’ said van Tonder, who has been relief principal and teacher for nine weeks at Kingsview, the Queenstown school where she taught for three years before heading to Sudan.
It’s a four-hour, 90km drive to the nearest town with a shop for supplies – a mission made every six to eight weeks.
Churches around the country that support her, including Queenstown’s St Peter’s Anglican Church, have fundraised to buy her her own vehicle to reach the four schools in seven villages in her area.
A Landcruiser is now waiting for her in Uganda.
She may be living in a war torn country, but van Tonder said the poisonous snakes and scorpions that frequently enter her mud hut are far more of a threat.
She and her American team-mate live in relative luxury. They have a tin roof, enabling them to have a water tank to collect water most of the year.