Transporting the sick

It would be hard to find a place more remote than Kuron.  (It isn’t even on any Google maps!) But there is a Peace Village there, founded in the hope that someday all tribes and ethnic groups may learn to live cooperatively.  That day has not yet come.  Cattle-raiding remains a time-honored tradition whereby the men prove their worth as warriors.  Now that AK-47s have replaced spears these skirmishes are often deadly.  While in Kuron in mid-November, we saw this man whose pelvis was shattered by a bullet.  Since the medical clinic has no surgery, he was stabilized and then carried on a makeshift stretcher (poles and a blanket) to the back of a pickup truck for a 5-hour grueling ride on a rough dirt track to Boma, the nearest hospital.  Along with him went 3 other patients, including an infant with a huge abdominal tumor. 2 days later, we learned that the truck never made it to Boma; it was stuck on the road.  The rains that had cooled our evening in Kuron had made the road impassable to the east.  So on the 3^rd day the clinic at Kuron sent another vehicle off to rescue the stranded patients, who had been without food or shelter all that while.  Nothing is easy in Sudan.