WESTERN EQUATORIA- Picture the scene: School children, traders, youth, men, women, elderly people, the local chief’s wife; some carrying someone, others being carried by someone else, across the river separating Sakure with Yambio town. Some holding onto an item to be sold, with the money earned then spent to buy soap, as used to be the habit of said chief’s wife.

Most make it across the river wet but without mishaps. Some will arrive late to school, perchance being scolded by an unhappy teacher, and a few will, inevitably, fall off their carrier into the river’s slow-flowing water. There was fun, adventure and mild danger to be had.

But no more, because thanks to funding by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), a new bridge connecting Sakure farmers with the city lights has been built and put in place by the local non-governmental organization Rural Development Action Aid.

It replaces the old Yubu bridge, which was destroyed by floods, forcing those with wheels to take a much longer route via Nzara County, while those without would cross the river as best they could.

Mary Zino, a teacher at the Bakiwiri Primary School, is delighted by the new piece of infrastructure.

“It was not good for children to cross the river that way. Some would not come at all, many others would be late for class, disrupting both lessons and fellow students,” says Ms. Zino, shuddering involuntarily at the thought of these frequent occurrences, perhaps also remembering all that time spent mopping up wet floors.

Equally important, the new Yubu bridge makes it significantly less complicated for Sakure residents to reach hospitals, other basic services and markets. Farmers, in particularly, appreciate the easy access to said markets, as they will be able to sell their produce while still at its peak of freshness.

“It has been part of a time-consuming and heavy daily routine for our youth, strong as they are, all this carrying of people, not to mention bicycles and motorbikes, across the water. Even the wife of the chief would be manually transported over to sell something to buy soap,” said Asanta Gabriel, one of the area’s skilled food producers.

Funding for the bridge, some $50,000, came from the peacekeeping mission’s Quick Impact Project programme, an initiative meant to provide relatively inexpensive but life-changing support to local communities across the country. These projects typically consist of some sort of infrastructure, like school classrooms, police stations, bore holes, health clinics, or, as in this case, a bridge.

“We are happy to be able to assist and thereby facilitate the delivery of and access to basic services,” concluded Emmanuel Dukundane, representing the UNMISS Field Office in Yambio, while pledging the mission’s continued support to similar initiatives.

In the meantime, we trust habitual and possibly nostalgic carriers to carry on finding stuff in need of manual transportation from one place to another.