Sheboygan native aids in birth of new nation, South Sudan
Sheboygan native Michael Eddy celebrates with South Sudanese residents on July 9, when the new country was granted independence. Submitted photo
Written by: Josh Lintereur
Inside a Sheboygan coffee shop, Michael Eddy is on his laptop computer sorting through the tens of thousands of photos he took in the past year while helping establish the world’s newest nation — South Sudan.
In one, Eddy, a Sheboygan native and foreign service officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development, stands arm in arm with Sudanese people waving flags during the country’s independence celebration last month in the capital of Juba.
He then quickly flips through a series of photos where he’s seen with a number of high-profile dignitaries, including Sen. John Kerry, former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and former President Jimmy Carter, before stopping at the photo he’s been looking for.
In it, a Sudanese woman has burst into tears following the country’s historic January independence vote that few thought was possible during a half-century of civil war and oppression that left more than 2 million dead.
"It was a moment of release. They all broke down," Eddy said, pointing at the photo. "I’m already rationalizing to myself to get used to the fact you might never experience this kind of emotion again."
For Eddy, 43, who’s spent the past week visiting family in Sheboygan, it’s hard to convey all he’s seen and done in the past year, easily among the most rewarding in his 12 years in international development work for USAID, a federal agency that provides economic and humanitarian assistance around the globe.
Starting in July 2010, the North High School graduate was assigned to Sudan and put in charge of coordinating a historic election that would cap South Sudan’s successful push toward independence, which was made possible by a 2005 peace deal between war-torn Sudan’s north and south.
The accomplishment was no small feat given the country’s dispersed, migratory population, of which about 85 percent can’t read or write.Working with a more than $75 million budget, the USAID team — led by Eddy — got more than 4 million people registered to vote and established more than 2,600 polling centers.
The work required long days with little time to rest. At one point Eddy worked 105 straight days, including Christmas and New Years. It was also dangerous, including the time a airplane he wastraveling in landed and was surrounded and held for several hours at gunpoint.
But the payoff came on Jan. 9, when South Sudanese residents overwhelmingly voting in favor of independence. South Sudan officially became its own country July 9, breaking Africa’s largest country into two.
Eddy’s photos show one rural polling station during the January vote consisting of a plastic folding table that poll workers had walked several days to set up beneath a tree. "That’s what overwhelmed me, how important this was. It was everything for them," Eddy said.
Eddy first became interested in international work after studying abroad while attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He later completed his master’s degree in international affairs at American University in Washington, D.C., and held several positions, including with the World Bank, before joining USAID.
Following the January election in South Sudan, Eddy has helped run a variety of programs providing technical assistance to the fledgling nation as leaders there set up laws, a constitution and civil programs. He’s also gave the thousands of photos he took in the past year to the people of South Sudan, as he was often the only non-media member there photographing historic moments, such as a photo he has of South Sudan President Salva Kiir casting his vote in the January referendum.
Going forward, Eddy said the country still faces its share of challenges, as it’s one of the poorest and least-developed places in the world. There are also unresolved problems between the south and its former foe in the north, and there are tensions between the country’s 170 different ethnicities. But Eddy, who previously oversaw development work for the U.S. government in Macedonia, Bolivia and Nicaragua, said that South Sudan has already come a long way.
"For the region and for the world, it is in the U.S. people’s interest that there be stability there, that there be a democratic representative government that listens to their people," Eddy said. Throughout his travels, and no matter how remote his assignment, Eddy is periodically reminded of home.
Sometimes it’s in the most unlikely of ways, such as the Fourth ofJuly party he attended in Juba this year, where they served Johnsonville brats. "It was a miracle," he said. "Sheboygan brats served in South Sudan. It was a big deal." Eddy returned to the United States just two weeks after South Sudan’s July independence celebration, traveling to Sheboygan to see his parents with his wife, Sharane, and two children, Isaac and India, ages 8 and 6.
It’s a trip he makes once a year, and as always it’s been an adjustment returning to American culture after being so immersed in the developing world. "I’ll be at the grocery store and go into the cereal aisle and be stuck for a while," Eddy said. "Your head can’t comprehend there’s this many choices of cereal. It’s reverse culture shock back to what it’s like to live here." Eddy is scheduled to leave Sheboygan today.
His work in Sudan complete, he’ll soon begin a four-year assignment in Thailand, doing regional development work. He’ll be joined there by his wife and kids, who spent the past year living in Washington, D.C. While visiting Sheboygan, he was scheduled to attend his 25th high school class reunion, the first he’s attended since graduating from North High School in 1986.
He conceded there was really no short answer in updating his classmates on what he’s been up to. "That’s my predicament," he said. "There’s no short answer. I can only give the 30,000-feet version."
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