When the Murahaleen raided Achor’s village early one morning, they killed many men, including her father, who was a minor chief among the Ngok Dinka. Then they rounded up all the cattle and children, including Achor, and drove them north before the SPLA could mount a counterattack. Over several grueling days, the Murahaleen drove a mixed herd of cows and children across the desert. They pushed them relentlessly, often striking the children with their sjamboks—long, stiff whips made from leather hide. At dusk on the third day, they finally came across a water hole, which was little more than an ankle-deep pond of brown muck. It was enough, however, and everyone—children and cows—rushed forward in a mad frenzy to drink.
Earlier in the day, Achor had become separated from her two sisters when the Murahaleen divided them into two groups. She was so desperate to rejoin them that she decided to hide herself among the cows, gradually working her way deeper into the herd as the animals spread out to drink. When she reached the opposite side of the water hole, she lay flat on her back and covered herself in mud and cow shit, just barely poking her head above the surface to breathe and keep a watchful eye on the Murahaleen. Once they began driving the animals forward, she was terrified that they might trample her. She began to pray, and by some miracle, the animals moved past her on either side. She allowed herself to emerge from the muck only when she saw the dust clouds disappear on the horizon.
Achor walked west toward the setting sun, hoping to meet up with the second group and be reunited with her sisters. She stumbled across the barren desert for days, stopping during the hottest part of the day to rest in the meager shade offered by thorn bushes and stark, skeleton-like trees. Eventually, she was picked up by an SPLA scouting party, who dropped her at a makeshift camp for IDPs—internally displaced people—where she was placed with a group of orphans destined for Juba. The group grew in size as they were moved through a series of IDP camps in the general direction of the capital city. After several weeks, they ended up at the Hay Compound. The soldiers told the children they would be reunited with their families, so Achor still held out hope that she would find her mother, who she believed had also escaped the Murahaleen. I knew the soldiers had lied; most girls who ended up at the compound were destined to work as domestic servants. But we were under strict orders to never tell the children their true fate.
Major Deng in particular seemed to love his role as a transporter of human bodies, and he made sure the children who passed through the Hay Compound did so as quickly as possible. He often bragged that he was able to ship his human cargo as far as Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “We are an international business,” he would say. “We are developing South Sudan.” If he thought a group of children was at the compound for too long, he became angry and withheld food or doled out beatings with greater frequency and viciousness. Sometimes he beat the children for no reason at all, especially when he was drunk or smoking marijuana. He chewed khat almost constantly, a leafy plant and mild stimulant that was a favorite of long-distance truck drivers and soldiers. As for the children, he encouraged them to get high by sniffing rags doused with gasoline because it made them easier to manage. The practice had the added benefit of making them forget about their hunger, which saved both time and money. Most children came to the Hay Compound already addicted to huffing, so Deng was only too happy to support their habit. At any given time, at least half the children were unconscious or so high from huffing gasoline that they could barely speak or move. Deng was especially fussy when it came to his supply of gas rags and made certain there was always a large supply on hand.
In addition to caring for the younger children, the older, permanent girls—including myself—were expected to fulfill other duties, including serving as sex toys for all the soldiers and government officials who visited the Hay Compound. During my first week, before I really understood how things worked, I was raped by at least five different men. I cannot recall how many times I was forced to have sex during that time. I only knew that it became such a part of my daily routine that it was almost as if I stopped thinking or caring about it. At first, I tried to resist, but I was so badly beaten that I could barely walk the next day.
Eventually, a Congolese girl took pity on me and advised me to attach myself to one of the soldiers as his “wife.” She told me that life would be much easier for me if I became someone’s “wife,” especially if he was higher up in the chain of command. By that point, I had noticed that some girls seemed to escape the worst of the beatings and rapes. Even as I thought about how to become a Hay Compound “wife,” Major Deng himself told me that he would take me as one of his “wives.” He thought it was a waste to let others “eat such a beautiful prize,” as he put it, but after bringing me to the compound he had been called away, which had made it impossible for him to protect me. He was so angry with several of the lower-ranking soldiers who had raped me in his absence that he had them removed to a military outpost in some distant and particularly undesirable part of the country.
I knew that Major Deng’s offer was not really an offer at all; I had little choice but to become one of his “wives.” Even so, Deng went through the motions of actually asking me to be his “wife,” towering above me menacingly and awaiting a response, as if daring me to refuse. The only effect it had was to make me feel complicit, as if I had agreed to sell myself to the man, which only increased the guilt and shame I felt in doing so, particularly when I was forced to witness the ongoing suffering of the temporary girls who cycled through the Hay Compound.
I soon realized that the horrors I had experienced during my brief time as a “temp,” as they were called, were nothing compared to the experience of these girls. Temps bore the full impact of the sex parties that took place whenever the enigmatic Kuur visited the compound, which he always did with an entourage of high-ranking soldiers and government officials. These parties could last several days; it depended on the amount of Johnnie Walker whisky, Tusker beer, and other alcohol they brought in from Kenya. As the men became drunk, they treated the girls with increasing cruelty, commanding them to do different things, dragging them around like dolls, grabbing, pawing, and eventually raping them without a second thought. Temps were likely to be raped ten times a night; it was a free-for-all. But even when a party was not taking place, temps were raped on a daily basis by the low-level soldiers who hung around the compound. It did not matter if girls were bleeding and in obvious pain; the men raped them anyway. There were girls whose leg and back muscles were so sore that they could no longer stand. Some were unable to hold their urine. One girl who remained at the Hay Compound longer than most developed large boils around her private parts, which then became so rotted and infected that they were covered with maggots by the end. Even after they removed her from the compound, a group of drunken soldiers came to the compound looking for her. I am certain they would have raped her still.
Girls who tried to run away or broke the rules experienced additional suffering. When actual beatings were thought to be necessary, they were usually performed with a one-meter-long plastic pipe to the back of the legs. The beatings could be severe, leaving the victim with ugly bruises, huge welts, and in some cases open wounds. Sometimes, soldiers beat girls simply because they thought it was a good way to keep them in line. I once saw a drunken soldier try to make a girl eat crushed glass because he thought she had spoken out of turn. In most cases, however, rape itself was the preferred punishment. Troublemakers were simply gang-raped or raped more viciously, if that was even possible. One girl who was thought to be too proud was gang-raped in front of everyone and then “married” to “the ugliest man of all” as a way to humiliate her. It just went on and on.
It was hard to imagine how the high-ranking soldiers and government officials who filed through the compound could be in charge of anything; they seemed content to drink themselves into a stupor and flaunt their BMWs, expensive watches, and American dollars. On more than one occasion, they engaged in fights a
nd impromptu wrestling matches with one another, reminding me of the foolish boys I had known in secondary school. Yet by attaching myself to Major Deng as his “wife,” I was at least protected from the very worst of it. I knew I had to do anything I could to survive. Otherwise, I would have been thrown to the baboons.
After six months at the Hay Compound, I resigned myself to the fact that I was there to stay. When Deng boasted of how he had brazenly stolen me from “another group” by plucking me from the bus, I realized that the compound had not been my intended destination. Nevertheless, I believed that my long journey had finally come to an end. For some reason, God had deemed that this should be my fate, and I began to think of my own suffering, like so many of the girls, as a necessary precursor to a more rewarding life to come. But neither my captors nor myself knew how determined that other group was to get me back.
* * *
Over time, I was tasked with more duties at the Hay Compound. One of these involved visiting Juba’s main marketplace—Konyo Konyo—to shop for the meager supplies needed to keep the children alive. Mostly, this included buying bags of cornmeal and filling jerricans with water supplied by Juba’s water vendors, who provided the city’s residents with the precious resource by pumping it from the Nile in large tanker trucks and selling it at designated water stations throughout the city. The water station at Konyo Konyo, like the market itself, was always a chaotic scene. Hundreds of women and children pushed and jostled one another as they jockeyed for position around the tanker trucks, each individual juggling as many plastic jerricans as she could possibly carry. Around them, the market spread outward in a sprawling, unscripted mass of makeshift stalls and shacks selling goods and produce brought in from all across East Africa. Throngs of people coursed through the narrow, garbage-strewn lanes like cattle, pressing together so tightly in places that it was difficult to even breathe. To me, it always felt like a powder keg ready to explode.
On one particularly rain-drenched day in August, I was sent to Konyo Konyo market to buy cornmeal. An SPLA soldier accompanied me, as well as a second man, named Simon. Simon hung around the Hay Compound doing odd jobs, but his abilities were limited—a childhood case of polio had so affected his legs that he was forced to get around on a set of makeshift crutches. It was said that Kuur tolerated him only because he was a distant relative.
As we slowly made our way around the market, Simon paused to haggle with different vendors. The soldier, who looked both bored and irritated, eventually wandered off. I assumed he was going to visit one of the market’s many prostitutes; the soldiers prized the young girls from Ethiopia who worked at Konyo Konyo. Sometimes, if the girl was a new arrival or not tied to a particularly strong “host,” a catchall term that included everyone from hard-core pimps to households that employed girls as domestic servants—in which case the girl often made money on the side by sleeping with men at the market—the soldiers would bring her back to the Hay Compound. She would remain there as an in-house girl until they tired of her and sold her off to another host. They referred to this practice as “testing the market.”
Within minutes of the soldier’s departure, two men appeared and quickly got into an intense exchange with Simon. Though they were speaking Arabic—a language I did not understand—I could tell they were arguing about me. As the conversation grew more heated, Simon glanced about nervously, seeming to search for the soldier or anyone else who could help him. But we were alone amid a sea of people. Suddenly, one man pulled out a knife and in a single, swift motion plunged it into Simon’s stomach. He toppled over his crutches and into a vendor’s stall, scattering several bowls of beans and groundnuts onto the muddy ground. A woman screamed, and the crowd, without even looking to see what was happening, immediately scattered in every direction. It was as if they had been through this before and knew that running was the best option. The two men grabbed me and began dragging me down the narrow lane.
Before we could get very far, however, a loud shout came from behind us, followed by a commotion as more market goers dove behind tables and sprinted between stalls. I turned and saw the SPLA soldier running toward us with his gun raised in the air. He shot off a quick burst as a warning. My captors forced their way through the panicked crowd, but as we were jostled about they loosened their grip on me. It was all I needed; I spotted an open lane and made a break for it. Bolting down the muddy track, I swerved between shacks, trying to run in a zigzag pattern to lose my abductors. More shots rang out. I thought they came from my right, but it was difficult to tell because the sharp bangs bounced off the tin shacks and echoed in every direction. Frantic, I emerged onto a main path and fought the crowd as it pushed against me. It was impossible to tell where I was among the maze of shacks; I could be going in circles and never know it.
When I turned a corner, I saw one of my abductors. It was the man who had stabbed Simon. He was tall—even by South Sudanese standards—and he immediately spotted me from above the sea of heads. He sprang forward with a sudden, almost shocking burst of speed, shoving people roughly to either side. I let out a sharp gasp and whirled about. As I fought the crowd once again, I remember flashing on people’s faces: a wide-eyed woman with a remarkably calm baby peeking out above her shoulder, a gang of young boys laughing and shouting as they pushed their way forward, a female police officer grinning sheepishly. I tried to step over an old lady who had fallen to the ground, but I tripped and fell against a table stacked with baskets of fish. I fully expected to feel the hard clasp of hands grabbing me from behind or even the thrust of a knife in my back. Lifting my head, my eyes fell upon a fist-sized rock that had been placed on top of some old newspapers. I grabbed it, cut quickly behind the stall, and ran up another alley, spotting a major thoroughfare about twenty meters ahead. I felt a surge of hope and sprinted toward it.
Emerging onto a busy sidewalk, I turned and almost collided with one of my pursuers. He must have thought the chase was over, because he stepped forward in an almost casual manner. It was a mistake. With all my might, I swung my arm upward and smashed the rock into the side of the man’s head. He cried out in pain, stumbled into the street, and bounced off the side of a taxi as it sped by. He twisted around violently and fell into the gutter. I dashed across the street, ignoring the blaring horns and screeching tires around me. On the opposite side, a high wrought-iron fence lined the street, forcing me to run parallel to the market. My only hope was to reach the end and find a side street that took me away from the tangled web of stalls and tin shacks. A voice cried out from behind me, but I dared not turn around. Had I really hurt the man with the rock or just stunned him? Stumbling forward now, I cursed the fence. Finally, I spotted the end just half a block away. Freedom, I thought. Gasping for air, I dashed ahead and turned the corner. The second man was waiting for me and drove his fist into my face. It was the last thing I remembered.
7
I AWOKE IN THE BACK of a speeding pickup truck. I sat up and blinked, trying to adjust my eyes to the harsh glare of the sun as it set across a vast landscape of rolling grassland. For a brief moment, I imagined myself back in Namibia; the wide-open skies and expansive vistas reminded me of the Kunene. The air was surprisingly cool, even comfortable; we were clearly nowhere near Juba and its thick, stifling humidity. I leaned against the back of the cab, cautiously feeling the side of my face. My left cheek was raw and swollen, and I felt a little nauseated, but otherwise I was not seriously hurt. As for the nausea, I thought it might be due in part to having lost a lot of weight over the past six months.
But there was also something else: I could feel a deep sickness coming on. It had been lingering for a week or so now, reluctant to emerge, as if my body had been waiting for the right moment to surrender after having survived for so long under such harsh conditions. And it was not just my body; it was my spirit as well, the very core of my being. I felt as if everything I had ever believed in—about myself, about my family, about life itself—were collapsing in upon itself. The nausea I felt
was just the first sign of something more ominous, some impending shutdown. I worried that I was HIV positive or pregnant—perhaps both.
The past six months had been a nightmare: the deplorable conditions of the Hay Compound, the revolving door of sick and maimed children, the endless rapes and beatings by SPLA soldiers and others—the very men, in fact, who were lauded as bringing forth the “world’s newest democracy,” a popular phrase in the press and among the general public when it came to the almost uniformly optimistic discussions about South Sudan’s coming independence. But to me these were just words now, words used by men with power as they raped women and sold children into slavery. The next group of men who seized power would use the same words while doing the same things. For people like me, the only thing to do was to stay as far away from such men as possible. Unfortunately, once they got hold of you, it was almost impossible to escape. Each group ate a piece of you before passing you on to the next. In their world, it was either eat or be eaten.
I watched the sun dip below the horizon and reflected on everything that had happened to me, realizing that I must have turned seventeen at some point during my stay in South Sudan. I wondered if seventeen years would be all the time I would ever have as I fell into a deep sleep that felt more like a long descent into nothingness. It marked the beginning of the dream stage of my ordeal. The shutdown had begun.
* * *
I lay in the sand beside my grandfather as he sat by the Holy Fire. I ran my fingers across his feet, tracing the rough topography of cord-like veins and broken fissures that ran across his leathered skin, and thought about all the paths those feet had walked, all the things they had allowed him to see and experience. The Old One sat silent and motionless, as he always did in my dreams, his blind eyes staring vacantly across the smoldering ashes of the Holy Fire. I knew what he was doing: he was listening to the conversations of the elephants, and for that he did not need his eyes; he required only his feet. They were planted firmly on the ground before him now, like a pair of magical amplifiers, attuned to the vibrations of the great beasts as they lumbered across the rolling plains of the Kunene.
I Am Not Your Slave Page 10
