Floods and Dust Storms

This past week we took the kids on a field trip around Khartoum to see the flood water and how it affected the city. Many of the homes in and around the city are made of a traditional mud brick. So when the rains came many of the homes were damaged and destroyed. Many of the workers at our school live in homes like this and we as a school community wanted to help in ways that we could. We realized through meetings and discussions that the best way we could help fairly was to give the workers and Eid gift of food, clothes and money. Because we can not asses the damages of each home and also because of cultural and language barriers may not be able to talk to each family affected we thought it best to give everyone the same thing. Money and food are used by all and clothes given if not used can also be used as currency.
In the attached video you can see the mudbrick homes and the water that is still all over even a week after the rains have stopped.
We also decided to start an emergency fund for the workers at our school. This could be used to help when future emergencys arise. We want to also set up a meeting with them with a translator so they can discuss their needs and decide on what things we could actually help them with. Communication is important and we want them to have agency and a voice in our efforts to help. We don't want to give what isn't needed or help in an area and appear patronizing.
We also learned that many of the workers get a financial incentive from our school if they know English. So now we are discussing the possibility of having English language classes for the workers. Although we all are at school all day many of us as teachers don't interact much beyond hello and goodbye with the staff that cleans and maintains our campus. We want to change that.

There was also a huge haboob at the end of last week. I was on the roof of my building and got some pictures. It was amazing to watch it come in.