Seed of South Sudan (30 page)

Now, since the 1980s, the Dinka attitude toward education has changed. People saw during the civil war that the soldiers who had positions of authority in the SPLA were like their leader, John Garang—educated. John Garang himself had been educated in Iowa, at Grinnell College and at Iowa State University, where he received a Ph.D.

He spoke like a professor, but very clearly, and always emphasized reading and learning for all he spoke to. Our people quickly grasped the connection between being literate and gaining their freedom from domination by other groups.

The attitudes toward engagement with the outside world have also changed. We now favor roads that can make it easier to get to clinics. We want the water service and the telephone service and easier transportation so that we can get to other communities to be with relatives and to enhance our villages.

So the Dinka now embrace education and engagement, although our traditions are still intact otherwise. These values include: respect for other tribes, care for our cattle, care for our families, consulting with each other in times of difficulty to reach agreement, high regard for elders, and the value of celebration—carrying on the intricate rites of dance and song and body decoration.

I hope through this book to speak for the many refugees who remain in Kakuma and other refugee camps in Africa. While many Sudanese have left to return to their new country, there are many more taking their places from other conflicts and unstable areas; some remain from Sudan, others from Rwanda, and from Somalia as well as other areas experiencing crisis. In Syria, as I write this, more refugees are being created from the protracted war there. All of them share a common problem: They want to have a home, but they cannot go home. And conditions in the camps are never easy.

We Lost Boys are the people who passed through different life experiences, cultures, weather, and languages. It is hard for any one of the Lost Boys not to communicate well because we acquired languages in order to survive. My dream is to make some people's lives better through my book. I want readers to recognize the difficulties of children in refugee camps. I want refugee children around the world to know that Majok Marier from the Lost Boys of Sudan is standing up for you. I do know how hard it is in the refugee camps; I was there not so many years ago. I know it is not simple to be in the refugees' situation. I hope my ideas will support many thousands of refugees right now around the world. I will encourage you to hope for the best in any difficult situation you are now in. I was a witness to people dying, young children dying, because they could not bear the thought of not having food they expected to have. You have to keep hope for the better, for a changed future sometime later in your life. I want you not to lose hope completely in your dreams.

I am glad to have passed through this difficult situation of killing, starvation, thirst, and going without parents. I want my book to make change for everyone who has some issue in his or her life. For this person, I say this: I need you to make yourself like the Lost Boys of Sudan to be successful in your life. The Lost Boys are people who have long been patient regarding the difficulties they face in life. We are lacking many things in our lives still, but we are proud, and we are going on with our planning for our changed life every day. I love being a Lost Boy of Sudan, to have made this tough change in my lifetime, and to have survived. And I think my experiences can help some people to have the presence of mind to deal with any situation they are living in now.

I hope every person reading this book now can have knowledge of at least this African country. There are many others, each with its own unique history and events to appreciate. I hope you can understand the difficulties that arose over our history. Sudan, a country that killed her own citizens every year, never fought any different nation in her history. The wars were waged on her own people, and the two civil wars that have resulted come from the native peoples' refusal to be bound by the stupidity of the government's leaders.

While I spent nine years in Kenya in Kakuma Refugee Camp, I remember the beatings by the Kenyan police, the long lines for food desperately needed, and the attacks of the Turkana tribesmen that killed our residents. There were other mistreatments by our own southern Sudanese and Ethiopians as well. These were attacks on Africans by Africans. Kenya did not remember that we were African brothers, sisters, and neighboring country people. I do not blame its citizens so much, but leaders who did not set better rules for people to respect one another as the neighbors they were. Africans lack unity, forgiveness, support and the independence to solve their own problems. African leaders tend to love for outside people to solve their illegal affairs even though they are responsible for creating the problems. So how long are other people going to solve their problems? I am now ending up here in America where my life is based on paying confusing bills every day—far from my home country, not being as productive as I could for my country—as a result of these wars. This conflict needs to stop.

Africa is a beautiful continent that is full of the best animals, oil, gold, diamonds, and open land. It is a center of many great foods and fruits of the world. She is created in the image of God, a beautiful continent with more than most areas of the world. We as Africans all abuse our beautiful land badly because of the war and conflict from our political parties. Africa is a center of war and diseases that are not cured, and our leaders are not ashamed of the number of Africans dying because of these. Most people look forward to visiting Africa to see beautiful animals they don't have in their own countries. But our leaders do not take advantage of this opportunity to develop their countries. It is discouraging for African citizens to cry for help every year in their own home. This is a painful thing in my life as an African man in this world. I want African leaders to have dialogues and talks to save another generation, which is coming up now.

I believe one day African people can come together to build a united Africa. We are crying for a whole Africa free of many things like AIDS, wars, starvation, corruption, and poor economics. We need clean water, schools conducive to learning, and clinics in our rural villages. I hope African leaders will think about people's future, if my book can reach them. African leaders, you need to make some changes. Please—many people are leaving countries because of wars. Many countries are falling apart all over the continent. Leaders from all of these regions should sit down and discuss African affairs in general to save its citizens.

I remember my home in Adut Maguen before I fled to Ethiopia. I was just a young boy then, but watched the cattle and engaged in games with others doing the same. I played with my cousin, Kolnyin Nak Goljok, and several other boys and girls. We played at night in traditional dancing circles. Just as I missed my family, my brothers, sister, mother and grandmother during my long journey, I missed playing with these children. I remember the grasses that were so tall and green during the rainy season. I didn't get to have the many fruits that grew in our village and that I loved to eat all the time.

I missed out growing up with these children, and around my village people who were so full of love. The people in my village always supported each other, and I grew up without knowing these people, for I was away. I missed the rites of manhood, when I would become a
parapuol
, as my brothers did, with the scars to show my bravery.

My hope for my daughter Adikdik and for future children I may have and all the children in Africa is that the war that visited me will never find them. I will do all in my power to make sure that hers—and theirs—is as peaceful a life as possible. We owe this to those we lost on our long journey. May their lives count for this—that more peace than war will come to this bountiful land of Africa, especially the region of the Sudd, South Sudan.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

World Food Program

International Red Cross

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF; Doctors Without Borders)

United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)

Radda Barnen (Save the Children Foundation)

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

World Vision

International Red Cross

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF; Doctors Without Borders)

Lutheran World Federation

International Organization for Migrants (IOM)

1.
John Ryle and the editors of Time-Life Books,
Warriors of the White Nile: The Dinka
(Amsterdam: Time-Life Books, 1982), 25.

2.
Marjorie M. Fisher et al., eds.,
Ancient Nubia: African Kingdoms on the Nile
(Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2012), 10.

3.
Grzmski Krzstzof,
American Visions
8, no. 5 (Oct./Nov. 1993), 7–8.

4.
Ibrahim M. Omer, “Nubia: Religion: Anubis,” Ancient Sudan~Nubia
,
http://www.ancientsudan.org/religion_05_anubis.html (accessed May 15, 2013).

5.
Ibrahim M. Omer, “Nubia: Religion: Isis,” Ancient Sudan~Nubia website, http://www.ancientsudan.org/religion_03_isis.html, accessed May 15, 2013.

6.
Fisher,
Ancient Nubia
, 26.

7.
Joseph O. Vogel, ed., “Egypt and Sub-Saharan Africa: Their Interaction,”
Encyclopedia of Precolonial Africa
(Wal-nut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 1997), 465–472. http://www.wysinger.homestead.com/su-saharan.html (accessed April 21, 2013).

8.
“Mohammad Ali,”
Gale Encyclopedia of Biography
, http://www.answers.com/topic/muhammad-ali (accessed July 20, 2013).

9.
Fisher,
Ancient Nubia
, 40–42.

10.
“History of the Sudan: Nubia: from 3000 BC,”
History World.net
, from 2001, ongoing. http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=aa86 (accessed December 26, 2013).

11.
Ryle,
White Nile
, 24.

12.
Ibid., 24–28; “Mohammad Ali.”

13.
Ryle,
White Nile
, 28

14.
Encyclopaedia Britannica
, “Sudan: The Growth of National Consciousness.” http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/571417/Sudan/24319/The-growth-of-national-consciousness (accessed May 18, 2013).

15.
Fisher,
Ancient Nubia
, 40–42.

16.
“Sudan: National Consciousness.”

17.
Ryle,
White Nile
, 25.

18.
“South Sudan Backs Independence-Results,” BBC News. Feb. 7, 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12379431, (accessed May 18, 2013).

1.
“Lost Boys of Sudan: 12 Years Later,” CBS News,
60 Minutes
, March 31, 2013, http://www.cbsnews.com/3102-18560_162-57576821.html.

1.
Deborah Scroggins,
Emma's War
(New York: Vintage, 2004), 256–80.

1.
“Africa Millions Dead in Sudan Civil War,” BBC News, December 11, 1998, http://www.news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa /232803.stm.

2.
Julie Flint, “The Return of a Sudanese Survivor,”
Daily Star
, July 19, 2005, http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Commentary/Jul/19/The-return-of-a-Sudanese-survivor.ashx#axzz2T2TwPOIK.

3.
Ibid.

4.
Deborah Scroggins,
Emma's War
, 263, 274–279.

5.
John Garang in interview with Scott Simon, National Public Radio,
Weekend Edition
, February 11, 2005, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4496451.

6.
Ibid.

7.
“New VP Enters Evolving Sudanese Government,” UPI.com, August 14, 2005, http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2005/08/14/New-VP-enters-evolving-Sudan-government/UPI-75091124030107/
.

8.
Ibid.

1.
 “Manute Bol: 1985–1995, Career Statistics,”
NBAwww,
http://www.nba.com/historical/playerfile/index.html?player=manute_bol (accessed June 29, 2013); Phil Jasner, “Remembering the Best of Times with Former NBA Player Manute Bol,”
Philadelphia Inquirer
, http://articles.philly.com/2010-06-21/sports/24965043_1_don-feeley-dinka-tribesman-manute-bol (accessed June 19, 2013)
.

2.
Jasner.

3.
Ibid.

4.
Ibid.

5.
Alan Sharavsky, “Manute Bol: NBA Player Who Cared,”
Philadelphia Inquirer
, July 13, 2004
.
http://articles.philly.com/2004-07-13/news/25372629_1_sudan-famine-manute-bolsudanese; Keith Pompey, “Former Sixer Manute Bol Dead at 47,”
Philadelphia Inquirer
, June 19, 2010, http://articles.philly.com/2010-06-19/news/24962641_1_bol-first-sudan-sunrise-manute-bol.

6.
Jasner.

7.
“Manute Bol Remembered as ‘Also a Giant off the Court' at Funeral,”
USA Today
, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/2010-06-29-manute-bol-funeral_N.htm (accessed June 26, 2013).

8.
“Manute Bol Remembered”; El Tayeb Siddig, “Basketball Star Bol Buried in South Sudan,” Reuters, July 4, 2010, http://www.reuters.com/assets/print?aid=USTRE663K320100704
.

9.
Siddig, “Bol Buried.”

10.
William A. Martin, “Ohlone's Standing Slam Dunk,” Ohlone College, http://www.ohlone.edu/org/athletics/mensbasketball/teamnews20082009/20080925ohlonesslamdunk.html (accessed July 14, 2013)
.