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Dorothy Rankin on trip to Guraferda, Ethiopia, 1973, side 2.
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- speaker[Rankin, Dorothy L. speaking] Well
- speakerhoney. For twenty seven dollars
- speakerand you're. The. Very good price. And we've been drinking a lot
- speakerof any water since we
- speakercame. Perhaps in the background you hear the children voices. I don't know whether they're out
- speakerfor recess i guess. I'm not quite sure what they are doing.
- speakerWell i've had talks with several people here [Guraferda, Ethiopia], including the governor.
- speakerAnd including
- speakerfive Anuak [also Anyuak] chiefs from the lowland west of Guraferda Mountain.
- speakerSome of them come from two or three four days away, and
- speakerthey are ones who know something of the people at the Gillo Station.
- speakerAnd they seem to know Donnie McClure [McClure, William Donald] you asked how they knew
- speakerhim. Well.
- speakerThat was. They were the people that
- speakerfound him or helped him get out when the plane
- speakercrashed down the lowlands two or three years ago. That is how they knew Donnie.
- speakerWhen we were talking to the Anuak chiefs
- speakerThey looked to be quite knowledgeable people in a
- speakerway. The the translator was a Masayo man.
- speakerI tell you these people are very much mixed up. There's a place called
- speakersusuki up on the mountain here just over to my right.
- speakerMight be a thousand feet higher than this.
- speakerAnd they said the people in the other side there are all mixed up and their Golla there and
- speakerSheko and Anuak and Messengo and Maji. And, they are the
- speakerpeople who live up there and then they go down in the valley along
- speakerthe water courses and dig for gold.
- speakerSo they're not a homogenous group by any means. But, the Shekos are
- speakerthe ones who have the
- speakermost concentrated population in this
- speakerarea. And we are trying to find out who the people are and where they
- speakerare. So that we know
- speakerwhat kind of work our mission should be doing and what we should be aiming, at which we should
- speakerbe praying for. Logically the organ money in your ex would come from
- speakerthe low country down at Pocoh and Gillo. I mean to cope when
- speakerBut, this will be something
- speakerthat Mal [Vandervort, Malcolm S., Jr.] can present to the evangelistic committee when he.
- speakerWhen they have their meeting. The survey was supposed to be made of all this part of
- speakerthe country where we do have a
- speakerresponsibility and it was decided that the surveying would be done
- speakerby individuals
- speakerin their own areas rather
- speakerthan one team trying to cover the whole bit. I was talking with some of the
- speakerAnuak men now. I will see if I can get a bit of that on the tape so you know what the interview looks like. Sounds
- speakerlike. [Anuak speakers]
- speakerAnuak continues
- speakerAnuak
- speakerAnuak
- speakerAnuak
- speakerHad the Anuak chief Akanakillo.
- speakertalking to
- speakerMal [Vandervort, Malcolm S., Jr.] through Anuak interpreter who was speaking Amharic.
- speakerAnd, then Al was. I mean Mal was talking to them telling them how
- speakerthis was a survey trip. And, we were coming just
- speakerto see what we could see and to understand the situation. We couldn't
- speakerpromise any help. They're very ready to ask for schools and for
- speakerclinics. And, I think there's a tremendous opening here. The Governor you see gave
- speakerus blanket permission to travel anywhere and to get help from anyone.
- speakerAnd also. Then the people seem to be quite willing and quite open for
- speakerthese new things. Though that doesn't mean that they will
- speakerautomatically just send all their children to school when the school gets here. The children who are here
- speakernow have
- speakerbeen brought in by the police that. Rather, that means their parents were told they
- speakermust send their children to
- speakerschool. and the school games two girls were just chewing up the string
- speakerto get to what we would have had the marshmallow but they got to something else. I don't know what it was. And, they
- speakerwere eating up the string. And, they got their game played and
- speakersomebody won. Now you called out two boys and they're going to chew up the same string. He is
- speakersort of wiping the saliva off of it and start over
- speakeragain. Tomorrow we expect to go farther up on the mountain. In fact just
- speakerto the other side of the mountain to a place called Bebeka
- speakerwith these Anuak Balabatu
- speakerchiefs. We'll travel together and see who the people are up there. We expect
- speakernow that they will be Sheko people.
- speakerWe just go up there tomorrow and spend the night and come back here the
- speakernext day. And after that we'll be on our way back
- speakerhome. The trip home will not be near as
- speakertiring as a trip this way. And we're rather glad of that.
- speakerBut it has been a tremendous experience for me,
- speakerreally being out in the in the wilds
- speakerof the country if one ever could
- speakerbe. Something that has interested me in
- speakerbeing here is to
- speakersee how some of the people have contacts with magi.
- speakerThey've heard that the Hakim has left. And so they don't. go to Maji anymore
- speakerfor medicine. That means Marge Faught, who has left just this past summer.
- speakerBut they had contact with maji. These are Anuak people who go up there. And now. They go over
- speakerto Mizan [Mizan Aman]
- speakerthen. And this kind of thing takes oh, eight or nine days travel
- speakerto get to medical help that direction.
- speakerThere is some at Gillo and Poko in the other direction and that's several days also.
- speakerThen. Some of the people know about Harvey's work over
- speakerat
- speakerGodri. Some of them have
- speakersome knowledge of Donnie [McClure, William Donald] starting work among the Surma people.
- speakerThen there are some contacts that they've had with the
- speakerJebra and Gamo. And
- speakergeisha geisha mountain we can see from here.
- speakerAll those last three. Are titian
- speakerareas. And there are some little
- speakercontacts with the Gamira but it don't seem to be as many Gamere over this
- speakerway as. With the others. But the work. At
- speakerleast news and word of the different, of the work in different places
- speakerhas spread
- speakeracross. But now there are vast vast areas in here between
- speakerwhere there are no believers that we know of. And, we can't
- speakersee that the other churches are working here either.
- speakerSo there's a great deal yet to be done. And
- speakerso you can see how we are asking God to
- speakershow us how this big task can be
- speakermet. The plans for civilization
- speakerare growing and growing and we hear that roads are going to be put
- speakerin way into the interior and so forth.
- speakerRoads coming in means that the people themselves may be dispossessed of their
- speakerland. And yet, when you see how they farm the land
- speakerby, especially the forest land, by just chopping it down and burning the
- speakertrees, the land is in worse condition by that time when they finish that than if
- speakercoffee is
- speakerplanted. So there are lots of
- speakerpros and cons
- speakeron what is the best thing for the land. But we know what is the best thing
- speakerfor the people in their hearts. And
- speakerso that's the most important
- speakerthing for us to do is to try to get the gospel out in all these
- speakerplaces. There used to be an airstrip here several way back in
- speakerItalian times probably. It was cleared again five years ago.
- speakerHasn't been used since and so it has grown up in grass, but I would think it might be possible to clear
- speakeran airstrip here and thus be able
- speakerto have work in the area
- speakerif that were possible. If they find people who can and would like to
- speakerdo
- speakerit because getting in by air would be
- speakeractually cheaper than it would be to come in by mule. It takes
- speakerso much energy but also it takes it to fairly expensive things when you have to
- speakerbe sure that you have meals. And, this is a dangerous area for meals because they don't have injections.
- speakerThey die very quickly from a kind of fly that is in here, they call
- speakerthe elephant fly. And, we're not just exactly sure what it is.
- speakerAnd I'm surprised to learn from our evangelists
- speakerthat none of them, neither the two, have been in this area before.
- speakerAnd this is about as far away from home as one of them has ever been.
- speakerI've traveled more around the country even on foot than they had.
- speakerSo some of them
- speakerhave, which is quite interesting to me. They have no reason to go to another area, I
- speakersuppose, so.
- speakerAnd they're busy at home, so they don't go. We get mules. Mal [Vandervort, Malcolm S., Jr.] bought two new ones
- speakerjust before we started out on this
- speakertrip. One is a riding mule and a beautiful little creature, which I rode
- speakermost of the time. But, she's not accustomed to being ridden on long journeys, I'm
- speakersure. She's gotten
- speakersome calluses on her chest have been rubbed a good bit. By the saddle.
- speakerOn short trips that would be all right. So i hope we'll be able to let her
- speakergo back without saddle on. Not use her on the way back, so she won't get too tired.
- speakerShe's a friendly thing and very
- speakerpretty. And, one can handle her just very nicely, and
- speakeron the road she steps along very sprightly. Very willing heart.
- speakerSo I hope we don't, haven't hurt her by bringing her on a long trip like
- speakerthis. There's a little black nervous creature that we use for loading. Once she
- speakergets
- speakerloaded, she moves along very nicely and very obediently, but
- speakerit's sometimes
- speakera little bit of a
- speakerjob. She's not vicious particularly but she's nervous.
- speakerAnd if someone touches her tail, she just quivers all over.
- speakerBut, Mal [Vandervort, Malcolm S., Jr.] has instigated a new type of packing the mules where the
- speakerdiamond hitch. I guess it is, used in the western part of the
- speakerStates. And, it has worked very well so far. We don't have any
- speakersore backs on the animals. And, you
- speakerwould be sad to see how some of the
- speakertransport animals are covered with sores on their backs and
- speakerdeep
- speakerones sometimes. So we're very happy that it's worked out like it has for this.
- speakerNow i'm going to stop working on this. And, it hasn't been much work,
- speakerbut rather a pleasure. I wish you
- speakercould see the horizon, it's all hazy and so forth but there are mountain ranges. Ranges
- speakerand ranges. And, we're trying to figure out which ones are Magi, which ones
- speakerGech'a we know. Gamire we know because it's the highest. But the ones in between are
- speakerhard to identify.
- speakerI. It's a pleasure to sit here in the late afternoon with a
- speakerlengthening shadows. The kids are playing
- speakergames and the men are talking. I'll go over and hear a little
- speakermore of what they're saying so i'll be a bit more knowledgeable. Then i'll try to get around to writing a letter.
- speakerI stop here right now. This is Dot.
- speakerI'm back to talk to you on Monday
- speakermorning. We went across the mountain to Bebeka, which is
- speakera seven hour trip for us,
- speakerstarting up first and then going across a flat top more or less and down a thousand feet on the
- speakerother side to a
- speakersmall police post, where Mal was able to contact some of the Sheko
- speakerchiefs. We were most welcomed by
- speakereveryone, and people are eager for the mission to come in and.
- speakerany grand grandiose scheme that is
- speakeravailable. And Mal [Vandervort, Malcolm S., Jr.] is seriously thinking of
- speakergoing back to get an airstrip in so that work could begin. We could hardly even send
- speakerin
- speakerthe local people without some kind of air support.
- speakerWe spent one full day there and came back the next day that. We came back on
- speakerthursday friday saturday and. Half a sunday we travelled from Guraferda to
- speakerback here to Gech'a. About half that time we were in the shade of the forest trees and
- speakerBerahare wilderness trees.
- speakerIt was a tiring trip but not too much so. I don't feel really worn out at all.
- speakerI've been able to get going today on some of the things on the desk.
- speakerI feel it was a worthwhile thing. Coming through the last little town before Mizan
- speakersomeone called Mal in to drink beers, which is the honey
- speakerwater. And, it was the chief or balabut of
- speakerBurrhan. Which is another small town out
- speakerthere in the wilderness. And, ee said, "Oh, why don't you come to us? Why don't you come?
- speakerI have so many geysers. That's a huge area of land. And I'll give the mission a
- speakerhalf geyser of land." Well, we don't take that all too seriously, but it does indicate
- speakerwillingness and eagerness for people to come
- speakerthere for school for clinic. And, there would be a real opening for the
- speakergospel. Now that's the second area. And then. There is a third area which
- speakeris nearer home, the Sheko area just west of Gecha. It's up in the hills
- speakerand down
- speakerhills. And the people there are quite willing and ready to hear the
- speakergospel and
- speakerto have the mission come to them too. So things are very very much
- speakeropen and. We pray that the lord will show us exactly how to proceed.
- speakerWe need more help. We need. It would seem we might need more
- speakerexpatriate help. We need local people who can take on the leadership.
- speakerMal is training some new young men to go out and witness.
- speakerThey're not calling them evangelists yet, I think. But it may be that the Lord will pick up some of those and
- speakeruse them in place of the older men. And let the older men go out. Tito and Isaac said that they
- speakerwould like to go back there to Bedeka
- speakerand preach. Well, we'll see how the lord works it out and how
- speakerHe provides the funds and all. And we can trust Him for that. This is a part of faith.
- speakerIt's been nice talking to you. And I wish I could have gotten this to you sooner. Then, I'll be thinking about you so much
- speakeron the wedding day. And everybody having a good time there.
- speakerThis is about the end of the tape i fear. So, I'll tell you good bye and send you a lot of my love.
- speakerThis is Dot.
- speakerAgain.
