Seed of South Sudan (5 page)

But most of the time, there was no time to think of beauty. There was only desperation.

A man and his wife were out in the bush walking to a village near their home, passing through thickets of trees and high grass. They had their baby with them, the wife carrying it in a sturdy calfskin sling across her body. All of a sudden, an elephant appeared in the forest, all by itself. It charged toward the man and woman, and grabbed the man and wrapped him with his trunk, raised him high in the air, and then threw him to the ground, killing him. The woman ran, but the elephant caught up with her and tossed her in the air. As it did so, the baby and heavy sling flew off her body and the skin was caught on the limb of a tree. Villagers came by and found the baby, and it lived, though both parents died.

This incident took place in my village before the war, and I grew up hearing it as a caution for watching out for solitary animals. It was a story I related to my companions often during our long journey. Animals in groups are usually not a problem, because they are following a dominant leader, or staying together for protection. A herd or a group of elephants doesn't present a danger because they are following the leader, but an animal alone is another matter. A solitary animal most often has been forced out of the herd because it's violent and a danger to the others, and it's a great risk to humans.

Wild animals, including lions and hyenas and elephants, as well as snakes and scorpions, were our greatest predators on our journey, as were hunger and thirst. Sometimes other people were predators as well, but I will tell more later about the human threats. It took a great deal of knowledge to assess how to deal with each of these. As we walked, we shared stories like this and discussed who and what to look out for. That was the way we survived.

Majok on 2010 trip near Pulkar on a path similar to those they took while fleeing burning villages in 1987.

Villages throughout southern Sudan were burning, and everyone was fleeing, when I started out with my uncle and later found Kau. People were frantic, trying to get away from the war, just as we were. Some carried bundles, mothers towed children by hand and on the breast, fathers herded an occasional cow until they finally had to leave it by the side of the path. Most carried gourds full of grain and water for sustenance. Most were Dinka, but did not speak our dialect. If people we encountered did not speak our language, we hesitated to become friends with them, because they could trick us by speaking strange words to each other. We wouldn't know if they were plotting to harm us, or talking about finding water. We would hurry ahead. But still we would stop where a group of people was gathered on the ground when we needed to rest. Others would be resting, too, each home group arranged around its own tree, and we would be under a separate tree.

In one of these stops we heard boys like me speaking our dialect. We talked, and I found out one spoke our Agar subtribe dialect, so he was of our people. Another boy in the group of people sitting in that group picked up on our conversation and he also spoke the same way. The first boy was Matoc, and the second was Laat. They were from an area near Rumbek, but not our village. When we talked more, we found that we did the same thing back home—watched cattle. And that we enjoyed playing the same games with other boys while we grazed cattle.

For instance, we all knew a kind of tree that produced gum, and we would collect the goo, roll it up and form a ball, and hit it with a stick to move it forward. In the game, called
adeir
, we would push the ball with a stick with teams of 10 on each side, pushing the ball to a goal. Or we would make shields out of plum-tree wood and practice war with sticks and shields, an imitation of the buffalo-skin shield our Dinka warriors used.

We decided we would walk together, and I was glad to have companions my age. My uncle told the other boys to go gather some palm leaves by the path, and my uncle braided palm rope he later attached to squash gourds for Matoc and Laat to carry water. The walking was much easier with my friends.

The talk as we made our way east on the path was about the dangers around us. The Sudanese Army had attacked our villages, and we didn't know if we might meet them again. The Army could only move on the main road (there are only a few roads that tanks can move on in South Sudan), and so we walked on paths that avoided the road. People we encountered would tell us, if we could understand their dialect, where there were soldiers, or where there were animals about.

“Watch out for the green clothes,” we'd tell each other, as the SA wore light green fatigues. We'd try to stay near trees, even though now in the dry season the leaves were dried and thin. At least they provided some cover.

Next to those humans, our greatest fear was lions. Back in our villages, all of our homes were built up over the ground and we accessed them by ladders, primarily because of the floods that came in the rainy season, but also because of the lions. We kept dogs to ward off the hyenas and the lions. The lions usually were active around five o'clock in the evening, so we looked out for them. But if we saw hyenas, we were safe, for they kept the lions at bay.

At that time, we thought hyenas would not kill a man, only other animals, but later, in 1989, while we were in Pinyudo camp in Ethiopia, a man was killed near my home in southern Sudan by a hyena, but I did not know this until people told me this in my village after the war. So now we know to fear them, too. But as we set out on our journey away from the SA soldiers' attacks, we thought a hyena would be protection against the fearsome cats, for they prey on them. Besides lions, hyenas go after cattle, goats, and our own dogs.

For such a small animal compared with a lion, a hyena, with its sloping back and oversized head, has tremendous power. A hyena can attack and kill a larger animal by the sheer force of its jaws. Once a hyena locks those teeth into a prey, the wounded animal jerks and runs and turns about trying to get free. The hyena just hangs on with those clenching jaws, letting the intense struggle work to his advantage; the animal will weaken and eventually die as the hyena rips the prey's skin and limbs in the fight. So lions will flee hyenas, hyenas will be discouraged by dogs, and lions will avoid either of the other two. But we never knew what could happen in the bush. We had little protection, other than the trees with their drying leaves.

This lesson from the animals helped us later in Pinyudo, as some monkeys screeched loudly high in trees above us when we were left on our own to search for grasses to make our shelters. They made such a racket that we knew to be afraid and look for a lion or other danger. The monkeys were alarmed by wild animals in the area, and they were signaling each other. And we were afraid because we were lost. But I'll relate more about this experience, as it shows that even when we were in refugee camps, we were not safe from wild animals.

That night, my uncle also showed us how we would travel to keep alive. If we walked during the heat of the day, we could die from thirst and exhaustion, and also were more likely to be seen by the Sudanese Army, so we found a place where we could crush long grasses and sleep. We did not eat; I had eaten a paste of ground nuts in a banana leaf earlier in the day, and that was my food. That night and every night afterward, we rose about 4 a.m. and walked while it was cool and dark. We walked for eight hours, and then we rested in the middle of the day, usually under a tree, one that was far off the path so we would not be found by others. We would find some grain, sorghum wheat, or corn, among the harvested stalks in plots on the edges of settlements we passed, although these villages were mostly burned; we parched the sorghum seeds and boiled them with the corn for lunch, then rested more and then walked in the late afternoon until about midnight. Then we slept again and woke at four or so to be on our way.

A stranger might join us while we were walking, but we were careful who we allowed to join us. We would always ask, “Why are you here?” “Where are you from?” “What tribe are you?” If his story sounded like ours, that he was fleeing the soldiers, and he seemed to know the names of local villages, then we would allow him to walk with us. Sometimes we did not have a good feeling about a person, as though he could be a soldier or another enemy. When we stopped to rest, my uncle or I would suddenly jump up and say, “Let's go!” and then we five would walk quickly away, as though we had to go fast. Usually that worked to keep us safe.

The next morning after our first day on the path, we rose and walked in darkness. We did not know the country, we did not know the threats, but we kept walking so that we could get as far away from the shelling and killing as we could. We had talked to people on the path the day before and we heard there were refugee camps in Ethiopia. That was many, many days away, and we knew it would be an extremely long trip, even if we had no obstacles. On a straight line, it is probably a distance of 400 miles, although we had no way of knowing it at the time. And there were plenty of problems.

On the third day, we came to a village, Pankar, and the houses there, like many in that area, were built up high. We arrived at night, so we did not see the land around. We were among a group of people who had been traveling together, even though we did not talk with those whose language we did not share. The villagers allowed us to sleep under their homes, where the children slept. The rest of the group slept out from the houses in nearby fields. In the middle of the night, we all woke up when a lioness stole under the house and tried to grab one of the children. We screamed, and the lion roared, then ran away. Everyone was suddenly up, and frightened for their lives. All were running around screaming, trying to see where the animal was. There were SPLA soldiers in the area who came to help when they heard the lion and the sound of people crying; they went looking for the lion and its mate. Often the male lion is in the grasses waiting while a female attacks, and the male catches those running away. But the soldiers found no lions.

At the suggestion of the villagers, all the children and we three boys and my uncle and those who were sleeping under their houses moved inside, and all those sleeping in the fields moved into the space under the houses. The lion did not roar again, but it was a scary night.

Sometimes in those first days we walked in a group of as many as fifty to a hundred people. There was not much talking back and forth as we did not understand their language, but they were mostly Dinka. Whenever we would stop to rest, the groups sat under trees based on their home. They were there; we were here; we did not mingle. I understand weddings and family gatherings in America can be like this; one may wonder about who those other people are, but people in the bride's family gather in one area, and same for the groom's, and within these groups sometimes there are other subgroups that mostly talk to each other.

The Dinka is a very large tribe in Sudan, and it is only in Sudan. It is not in other countries. But there are many subgroups of Dinka, such as my group, the Agar Dinka, and within the Agar Dinka there are Agar Dinka and other Agar Dinka; I was from a village north of Pacong, and Laat was from another village south of Pacong. Matoc and my uncle were from a settlement south of Pacong, but we are all Agar Dinka. There are also subtribes of Dinka such as the Cic, and Aliab; I could not understand the language of any of these. There are other subtribes: Rek, Malual, Tuic, and Gok. At the time I could not understand these, but as a result of my experiences over the years with different dialects, I am able to understand these Dinka languages.

It's as though the experience of the Civil War and displacement in refugee camps created a common language, as if at the wedding mentioned above, all the guests were told they must dance with each other and in the process they found they had many things in common and became fast friends afterwards.

Southern Sudan has been known as the Sudd, or swamp, through history. It's the land at the upper end of the White Nile River, surrounded by swampy areas that often slow this giant river's flow. Every schoolchild learns the Nile is the world's longest river, and it is generally considered the longest at 4,130 miles, or 6,650 kilometers. From southern Sudan to a point north where the Sobat River joins it, the White Nile is surrounded by reed-choked backwaters. During the dry season, one can walk through this area, but during the rainy season one cannot. This was beginning of the dry season, so we could walk a good part of the way through the river country.

Before reaching the Nile we had to cross two other rivers. When we reached the Na'am River, which is not too far from Pacong, we swam across it. As young children, we learned to swim in the Na'am, and that helped us in our journey as we did not have to search for a way across. Similarly, we crossed the Payii River. I understand many American children do not learn to swim, and this is a great disadvantage to them, I think, because in this life-and-death emergency, we were able to cross on our own.