Seed of South Sudan (19 page)

James stayed at the village where his father lived rather than accompanying the boys on the rest of their rounds. He had an opportunity to spend time with his father and he was very grateful. When he rejoined the group, he talked about his father and his wisdom, and that his father “told him to live cleanly and with God.”

Also later, the group told Gini that the reason James stayed back was that “if something happened to us, he would be the one to go tell the others' families,” Gini related. “This impressed me. They plan for these kinds of things,” Gini said.

“I'm in awe of these people.”

“Majok Marier's mother walked for miles to find me where I was staying near Rumbek,” Gini said. His mother was living now in Pulkar, not far from the village where Majok was when the war came, at Adut Maguen.

“Father Andrea of the Diocese of Rumbek arranged for a translator so I could talk with her. I told her if she had been standing with 100 women I would have known her, because Majok looks just like her. We talked a while; I told her Majok wanted to come, but he did not receive his travel documents in time.

“She told me she hoped Majok could come to see her soon. And then she went down the road, walking back to her village.”

Gini interacted with women when she could, although she found that she was given a role of respect mostly reserved for men. In Uganda, Stephen's uncle and about 70 men gathered outside a home where they ate together, and then sat in chairs in a circle. The lights went out at 5 p.m. as power is cut every night in that area, and candles were lit. Gini was sitting among the men. She insisted on seeing where the women were.

“It might have been because it was night, and everything was by candlelight, it was such a unique scene,” she said. “But I found a building next door where there were all these rooms and in each room there were women and their children. The touched me and they caressed me and we sang and prayed together. Women have a fairly subservient role there, but when things change, the women there will be amazingly powerful.”

In saying farewell, Stephen's mother laid her hands on Gini and said, “You are my son's mother.”

“We can share him,” Gini said she told Stephen's mother.

“All of them gave them back to me,” Gini said. “‘You are the mother,' they told me. I took it as a compliment that they thought I was helping each of their sons.”

Mama Gini, who'd recently lost her husband, also traveled with the group, which left December 26, 2005. I was so sad that I could not go. I was depressed for more than three months because of this problem of the travel documents. What made it bad was that I promised my mother I would come home in 2005. She traveled from Sudan to Uganda, like Stephen's mom. She stayed for several months with a relative in Kampala. I talked to her on the phone. She asked me when I could come home, and I did tell her that I could come in December 2005 to see her, so she was hoping to see me in person. In fact, she decided to return to the very poor village in Sudan where she was staying in order to be there to greet me. I needed my family to know that I was a person who could support them right now. I wondered what I could do to make them happy. Not going to Sudan felt like I was not a son they could depend on.

A major goal of the Lost Boys' Rumbek trip was to speak to young people in our home villages and to urge them to make good lives for themselves, to improve their communities. I wanted to be able to tell my story to the youths of Rumbek, as the group planned to do when they traveled with Gini to Sudan.

I decided I would use another method to tell the young people my story. I began writing this book, because I wanted people to know what happened, and not to forget our struggle to live despite all the animal attacks and thirst and starvation along our long journey. I wanted them to know the problems in the refugee camps. And they needed to know what our lives have been like since coming to the United States.

At the time we came here, we did not have much of a choice, as our villages were still involved in the civil war, and just as we had to leave Sudan again when Kapoeta fell to the Sudanese Army and flee across the border to Lokichoiko, we would be facing that kind of life again, and we would not get our education. That goal of education had become more important, especially as we contemplated being the main leaders of a separate South Sudan, which even back in our days in the camps looked like the only option for our area. We were told we would be able to get our educations in the United States. In fact, this was very difficult, and for me, it was not happening.

I began study at Georgia Perimeter College, and after attending for some time, I had acquired a better command of English and writing skills, but all my classes were English as a Second Language courses. No college credit applied toward a degree. It was very expensive, and my work was such that I did not have hours off to attend classes. Studying late at night—after work, after classes—was very difficult. So I stopped attending. And the goal of resettling in the United States—to receive my education—was not fulfilled. Nevertheless, I still have my goal of one day becoming a geologist so that I can find more of South Sudan's oil and other valuable resources.

As a result of Gini's and Stephen's and the others' visit to Sudan, finally someone saw my mother face-to-face! Gini met my mother, after my mother heard of her coming and she walked 15 miles one way from where she was living to meet Gini. They sat and talked for a while. Gini told her how I was doing. Then my mother got up and walked away, another 15 miles to Pulkar, the village near Adut Maguen, where I was living when the war came to my village and I fled. My mother, expecting me to be in Sudan, had left Kampala, Uganda, and traveled again several hundred miles by bus and by transport truck back to that little village in order for me to visit her and other family in our home village. So there was much disappointment all around at this missed visit.

From that time on, I began saving for travel to Sudan, and to provide some money to help my family. If my family was alive, then there were duties to that family that would require some financial resources. At the time, I was still not an American citizen, so I determined that I would not let travel documents (required by all non-citizens) hold me up from a future trip. I began studying for citizenship, which I proudly gained on August 24, 2008.

So I wrote in 2006 and 2007 all the experiences I could remember from my journey. It occurred to me also that if I wrote a book, this could help generate some funds to assist in my education goals and my other desire: to make my mother's life easier, as well as that of my village in general, by providing a deep water well so that walking miles every day to gather water for life's needs would no longer be required.

Always, my main goal has been for those who are in my home country. The writing of my story could help many of those at home and encourage them to resist the hardship they are having in their life. I understand that everyone could have some difficulties in their lives everywhere in the world. It is important to focus on any stressful situation and to be strong to get past that condition. But it is not simple for some people to endure that kind of life. Lost Boys and Lost Girls need a lot of encouragement to keep them away from depression. The Lost Boys and Girls meet together in every state they are living in to make sure stresses are relieved by conversation in groups. We love to talk in the Dinka language because we want to keep our culture in place. More than any other language in the world, it is important to know our language, and it is very helpful for Lost Boys to know our culture. I think it is useless for a person to have no culture in his or her life. Culture is the story of the country you belong to.

Some people do not think culture contributes to their lives; by culture I mean the marriage and birth and death traditions, elders' sayings, music and dance, language and stories and foods that belong to people from one place or one tribe or ethnic group. Frequently, Western people do not respect these distinctions in peoples or countries—they don't see this as important. But culture plays a big role in our lives, especially for the Lost Boys who are alive today in America and in other parts of the world where they live now. When you do not have a cultural background, I think you cannot be a good human being in other people's perception. Culture is the main thing that can prevent people from committing too much crime. Culture can help people to respect one another because people do not feel negative toward other people who share their traditions and unique way of life. Sudanese have a beautiful culture; it makes them important people when compared with other people's cultures.

We love to support one another in our culture. It is hard for Dinka people to let brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, relatives and friends suffer in their presence. And we love to treat people equally. The Dinka are the most numerous tribe in Sudan. There are generally not Dinka in other countries in Africa. This is unusual in Africa, as tribes frequently are spread over more than one country. We could have some people in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Egypt, Libya, Chad, Central African Republic and Congo. But no, we identify with Sudan. We like to serve in Sudan and provide an environment for any tribes that are prepared to respect the rights of other tribes that also live there.

Because we are such a large tribe in Sudan, Khartoum targeted us especially when the government tried to enforce sharia law. The Dinka rose up and refused to bend to this. The Dinka see themselves as protectors of other groups also, because they are such a large group in Sudan. So the Dinka-led rebellion resulted in huge displacements of native people all over Sudan. But this was to fight the attempts of Khartoum to suppress all of our native cultures.

After much saving and shopping on the Internet for a low fare—low meaning it would cost at least a couple thousand dollars, saving money to take home to my family—and gaining several months' leave from my job, I finally was able to arrange a trip to Sudan. The trip took place from early December 2008 to February 2009. I boarded the flight in Atlanta with great anticipation. On the flights over to Atlanta, there had been many novelties—bathrooms that seemed to want to flush a whole person through the bottom of the plane; unusual foods served hot in little trays; sleeping through the night with only occasional “pings” as the pilot experienced turbulence and told us to fasten seat belts, then waking up in Amsterdam—Europe.

Now I was used to many mechanical wonders of the society that I saw for the first time in 2001, especially since the flights from my home involved several different stops, and more than a couple of jet airliners. However, on my first return to Sudan since the war, my first meeting with my family in 21 years, I was able to view earth from above. Flying over the Mediterranean Sea, I could see its blue waters. I viewed Libya as we approached Africa, and then the vast desert of Darfur in western Sudan. It actually took four hours to fly over all of Sudan. From there we flew to Uganda, to Entebbe International Airport in Kampala. From Kampala, I flew to Juba, and then took a single-engine plane with a propeller to Rumbek.

I had not told them the exact time of my visit, because I did not want to again disappoint my family by not arriving when expected. My mother almost went into shock when I failed to show up the first time! So I went to the business of my eldest brother in Rumbek. Malual works for a company that delivers water to businesses and restaurants in the Rumbek area. My brother was very excited to see me! But Malual wanted to know why the family did not know when I was coming. I had to explain. His boss, the manager of his company, provided a car and driver to me to take me to my mother's village, Pulkar. My brother and my sister Lela, who was now married and living in Rumbek, rode with us.

Majok's mother, Yar Chol Gueny (left), and aunts, Alek Chol Gueny (rear left with dark hat) and Achol Chol Gueny (rear right), with grandchildren in Pulkar.