by Majok Tulba
‘When did you get here?’ I ask him.
‘Four days ago.’ He sweeps an arm around him. ‘Four days ago this place had about half as many people. Every day more and more arrive. Where are they all coming from? How many more will show up?’ He shrugs. ‘They’ll probably run out of ration cards soon, if they haven’t already.’
‘What are ration cards?’ Chieng asks.
‘It’s how we get food and supplies,’ Bol says. ‘You need a ration card if you want food. Haven’t you got one yet?’
We shake our heads.
‘You should then. My father won’t even let me touch ours. He’s afraid I’ll lose it.’
Bol is lucky to have all his family in the camp. He tells me that after the attack on Pacong his father was separated from his mother and siblings, and they didn’t meet up again until they reached the camp.
Once Bol has left, Majok and I go with Chieng to the registration office to ask about Chieng’s family. They have no record of his parents or his brothers and sisters and they tell us to go to the Red Cross office, just near the registration building.
We make our way to a portable building made of corrugated iron. It’s crowded with people asking about missing persons. Some have photos to show the Red Cross workers. Chieng and I try to squeeze our way in but it’s impossible. We could wait here all day, so we decide instead to go and ask around the camp.
After hours of fruitless searching, Chieng’s hopes are still high, even though we’ve come across a lot of children who aren’t with their parents, and just as many parents who don’t have their children with them. I wonder why the childless parents don’t pick a child to look after, at least for a while, but it doesn’t seem to work that way.
I wonder, too, if these children still dream of going home. Although I’m a long way from Pacong, I could find my way back there. Grandpa taught me how to tell the direction and time of day by the position of the sun, and I know a lot of these boys would also know how to get home. But knowing your way home doesn’t help much when your home is no longer there.
Heading back to our makeshift shelter we pass two old ladies. We haven’t seen that many old people in the camp. Most of them wouldn’t have been able to manage the long walk here, running from danger to danger. But these two have somehow made it. They look frail and delicate as moths, as though the next big gust of wind could blow them away.
After a couple of weeks our situation hasn’t improved much. We still don’t have a tent or a ration card. Every day the men venture into the jungle to forage. Our hunger pangs are as strong now as they were on our journey here. Even the trees are being stripped of leaves.
Mama and Nyanbuot’s days are consumed by fetching water and collecting firewood to cook what little food we can scrounge, just enough that we don’t starve. Chieng, Majok and I eat from one plate while Mama, Nyanbuot, Thiko and her mother eat from another. Getting water from the well has become harder every day, Mama tells me. Sometimes, if the well is too crowded, we drink the water from the stream, after first boiling it.
A fight almost breaks out one day. A few men thought someone had killed a bird and was going to roast it, but it turned out no one had a bird, it was just a baby squawking. I hear a woman tell another that the UN will send food rations from Kenya. I don’t know why it’s taking so long for supplies to get here. This camp is the opposite of the land of milk and honey, it’s more like the land of dust and garbage.
Many people here seem to have given up the fight to survive, and I can see even Mama is starting to lose hope. It’s been a while since I saw her smile. I’ve only ever known her to be a strong woman and I hate to see her weakening. She’s a different person to the one I met on the path to the camp. It hurts me to see her just sitting on the ground staring in front of her, like that old man we saw on the first day here.
When she’s not sitting and staring she spends much of her time sleeping. Nyanbuot and I can’t get her to engage in anything for more than a short period. She always finds an excuse to go back to sitting and staring or sleeping. It’s like she thinks if she sleeps long enough, she’ll wake up warm in her own bed back in the village.
But our village, I have to keep reminding myself, has been destroyed. What is left of Pacong? The mudbrick walls of any huts still standing will crumble. The thatched roofs and fences will have succumbed to the fire, then the rain, followed by the harsh sun. I imagine the remains being baked into a flat, ugly sculpture, where once was a village full of trees, grass and wildflowers. The village of my birth is no longer my home.
Some nights Mama talks in her sleep. Two nights ago I woke up to find that she wasn’t in the shelter with us. I went outside and there she was, sitting and staring at the stars. I cuddled her and said things to try to make her laugh, but it didn’t work. Last night, when she thought we were all asleep, I heard her crying softly. I crept over and held her, told her everything would be alright and to go back to sleep, just the way she used to do with me. It’s up to me to take care of her now.
Even Nyanbuot is helping take care of Mama more than she is expecting to be taken care of. Nyanbuot and I don’t talk about the change in Mama, we only smile at each other, hoping she’s still in there and someday she’ll come back to us fully.
This morning I came out to find her sitting on the ground and staring again.
‘I’m thinking about our village,’ she says when I ask. ‘Do you ever think about our village, Juba?’
‘Of course I do, Mama. All the time.’ I sit down next to her. ‘I think about Pacong and school, about Grandpa too.’ I hesitate. I’ve told her what happened to Grandpa and Momo and I don’t want to upset her more by reminding her of it. But then I decide to tell her again how brave Grandpa was in defending me.
It’s hard to look at her eyes as I talk, and saying Grandpa’s name still hurts every time I say it, but I want her to know how courageous he was, and once I’ve started talking about him I don’t want to stop. I never want to forget what a good, kind man he was.
‘And,’ I finish at last, ‘I made myself a promise to tell his stories and keep them alive. Keep him and our village alive.’
Mama nods sadly. ‘Your grandfather loved you very much, Juba.’ She leans over and kisses me on the cheek.
‘I know he did. I loved him too. And I miss him. But he wanted us to survive, Mama, he didn’t want us to give up. We’ve got to keep going for him. We’ve got to keep our hope strong.’
She has told me so many times herself that hope is everything, but now she only sighs and goes back to staring at the ground.
It’s easy enough to tell Mama to stay strong, even if saying it has no effect, but I find it hard to do myself. It’s hard to stop thinking. I wonder why the most beautiful memories are the worst, cutting my insides like knives.
Groups of kids have emerged from the tents and shelters now, to run and play. Koko and Bagic, who live with their relative in another shelter, come out to play too, and I’m glad to see them so lively. I want to join in but there’s an invisible rope keeping me within Mama’s orbit. I’ve sometimes seen Nyanbuot looking longingly at a group of giggling girls, but she too stays close to Mama as much as possible.
But later that day, my sister comes running up with something in her hand.
‘Juba!’ she calls excitedly, and shows me what she has. It’s a bunch of slender twigs tied together with leaves and bark to make a doll. Nyanbuot hugs it to her.
‘Where did you get that?’ I ask.
‘Yomjima made it for me.’ She points to a woman sitting in the shade of a proper tent. She’s looking our way and I give her a wave.
‘That’s a lovely doll, Nyanbuot. And it was really nice of her to make it for you.’
Nyanbuot stares at her doll with a loving look while I go over to Yomjima to thank her.
She smiles at me with kind eyes. ‘Juba, your sister reminds me of my daughter,’ she says, and my heart bleeds. I know that Nyanbuot and Mama helped Yomjima bury her daughter a
long the way to the camp. And that Yomjima helped bury Thon when it was his time.
‘Nyanbuot, though, she is strong,’ says Yomjima. ‘Brave, even though she’s still a little girl. And I’m happy to do something for her. I have no family of my own left. The war has stolen them all from me.’
She looks at me gently. ‘You too, Juba. I know you’re also brave. And you’re a strong young man. Your mama always sang your praises to me on the way to this place. She knew in her heart you were still alive and that she would be reunited with you. That’s what kept her going, especially after Thon died.’
My shoulders straighten when she says this. I want to be a man. I want to be ready for whatever that brings.
But first I want Mama returned to herself.
A month or so after our arrival, the UN supplies still haven’t arrived. It seems no one was prepared for this number of people in the camp. With each passing day here the hope on even Thiko’s face has lessened, bit by bit. We have been safe here in this camp, and that is much to be thankful for, but I can see the hunger on her face and the worry in her eyes.
Some days she and I go together in search of food. This morning I take her hand as we slip through the fence and we walk deep into the jungle, where sunlight filters through the canopy and makes everything glow. It would be better to stay out here, I think, than in the camp, but Mama isn’t capable of leaving.
Thiko and I dream of finding small game but we’ll be happy with anything edible, fruit, berries, roots. We find very little. We have been walking dejectedly for some time when we hear a buzzing noise. It sounds like flies over a carcass, but when we look we find to our shock not the body of a dead animal, but of a boy about my own size. Marching ants and a cloud of flies crawl over him. Maggots wriggle in and out. His arms and legs are rail-thin but his belly is huge.
The stench hits my nostrils. It’s worse than all the bad smells in the camp put together. A putrid, stomach-curdling smell that makes bile lurch up the back of my throat. But there’s no food in my stomach to throw up. Thiko whimpers in horror and moves away but I can’t take my eyes off him, even though I badly want to. His own eyes are wide open and staring. I think of the hunger that was eating away at his flesh before the flies did, and I wonder how long it will be before it eats mine.
At last I turn away. I grab Thiko and we flee.
‘I’m not hungry anymore,’ she says quietly when we finally slow down.
‘Me either.’ Thinking about starving to death has given me a headache. I want to get out of here. Out of this jungle, out of this camp. I want to get all of us back home to Pacong, the way it was. Before the bombing, before the soldiers. It’s knowing that things can never go back to how they were that’s hardest of all to bear.
To think how hard we longed to reach this camp while we were walking here. Only to discover more suffering. Sometimes I’m not sure where I’d rather be, here in the camp or back on the path, with all its dangers.
Between the tree tops the sky is adrift in a violet haze, like it might rain, but the air is dry. Thiko and I don’t talk. I wonder where she’s going in her mind. Maybe she’s also thinking about Pacong, and its thatch-roofed huts. Maybe she’s seeing the maize fields and the wispy golden elephant grass on the plains.
I can’t stop thinking about that dead boy. Did he come out here because he knew he was dying or because he hoped to find food that would keep him alive?
When we sit down to rest against a tree trunk, Thiko puts her head on my shoulder. A gentle wind whistles through the branches, rustling leaves, lulling us towards sleep. My eyelids are feeling heavy when the air around us suddenly grows thick. Nothing obvious has changed but something is there that wasn’t a few moments ago.
Then comes a rumbling noise.
I nudge Thiko and she jerks up sharply. ‘What?’ she says. ‘What is it?’
But there’s nothing to see. I can’t figure out where the sound is coming from, or what it could be. It sounds a bit like the feet of a thousand wildebeest running across the savanna, except the ground isn’t vibrating.
I grab Thiko’s hand and pull her up. ‘Come on, we have to get back to camp.’ All I can think of is Mama asleep on her reed mat and Nyanbuot keeping watch over her.
As we race through the jungle it strikes me that here we are again, on the run. The rumbling is louder and closer now. Is it a plane? A bomber? The canopy blocks all but little pieces of sky. Would the Sudanese government attack a refugee camp? If they have no problem bombing schools, they could bomb anything, I think.
When the rumbling becomes a roar that sounds like the wrath of God bearing down upon us, I know for certain that there are planes, even though I can’t see them. What is happening back in the camp?
And then suddenly, when we’re almost out of the jungle, there’s silence. But only for a moment. It’s interrupted by a whistling sound. I push Thiko down beside the base of a tree, shielding her as best I can. Her face is pressed against my chest and my mind reels as I wait for the moment of impact. Her fingers dig into me. It feels like time has stopped. The whistling continues, but there’s no explosion.
At last I open my eyes.
‘We’re alive,’ Thiko says, raising her head.
Then it comes, a thud. Followed by another, and another. And more. But still there are no explosions. The sound of the engine is fading and the whistling has ceased but we stay huddled under the tree. At last Thiko gets up and pulls me up after her and we start walking back to the camp.
As we draw nearer, there are voices, people shouting and singing songs. I strain to listen. It’s a happy song, a song about food.
‘The plane from the UN!’ I exclaim to Thiko. I’ve heard rumours of a plane coming. ‘Dropping off supplies. Come on, quickly now.’
We run past the camp boundary to an open field where the grass is shorter. It’s littered with blue bags and a stampede is rushing for them. UN workers are shouting orders to get in line but no one takes any notice. People are pushing and screaming and clawing at each other, trying to rip things out of each other’s hands. I stare at those food bags and I desperately want one, but I think I’d be crushed before I could get to it. Thiko and I hover on the edges of the throng, waiting for a chance.
‘There’s plenty for everyone!’ shouts a worker standing nearby, a young woman with long golden hair that shines like silk. She moves with the vigour of someone who’s had a good night’s sleep and a proper meal. ‘Get in line!’ she shouts. ‘You all have to make a line!’
No one listens. When the woman goes forward she becomes trapped in the throng. She turns and tries to squeeze her way out but the crowd is too thick, they shove her aside. She’s going to fall. Someone bumps into her and she bounces into someone else and that stops her from falling. A man pushes in and I think he’s going to help her get out but he pushes right over her. She falls on her knees. No one stops to help her. Everyone just wants to get a bag. A woman who has one drops it as she escapes the crush and it splits open when it hits the ground. People swarm on the contents, devouring them right off the dirt like a pack of snarling hyenas.
Thiko grips my hand. I hope Mama and Nyanbuot aren’t in this horde. People are yelling and kicking each other, pulling hair, attacking anyone with a bag. I know if I managed to grab something and run, no one could catch me, but I’m afraid Thiko and I would get separated.
We keep to the outer edges as people continue to fight. I see a man punch a woman in the face and take her bag as she collapses. Others trample over her to get to the man, to steal what he has stolen. Corn and beans and sorghum lie everywhere, the bags ripped to shreds. The sweet scent of the corn makes my stomach rumble unbearably.
In the scuffle a small bag has ended up nearby. No one else has noticed. I won’t have to leave Thiko on her own for long if I go after it. So I run for it, but just before I get there an older man snatches it. He backhands me as he runs off. I hit the ground hard and he doesn’t look back.
Then Thiko is there, helpi
ng me up. ‘This is madness!’ she cries. ‘Look at that man over there.’ She points to a large man standing guard over two bags, wielding a stick that he swings at anyone who comes close.
And then I see a little boy crawling through the crowd, weaving his way in and out of the churning legs. How did he get there? He must be one of the ‘lost boys’, with no parents, because no mother or father would let their child near this field. Above him, two women are wrestling over a bag. It falls and lands right in front of him. He dives on top of it but before he can get up, the bag is yanked out from under him. He hangs on as a man lifts the bag up, taking him with it, shaking the bag violently until the boy goes flying off.
I can’t believe what I’m seeing. It’s like a battlefield. The UN workers have retreated, powerless to do anything as the fighting goes on. And the trampling and the screaming and the snatching from others.
Eventually, when all the bags are gone, the crowd disperses. Thiko and I, along with some others who have stayed out of the fray, go in search of any spillage that might have been missed. We brush the ants off a few kernels of corn and eat them.
The field smells like blood. We come across a couple of dead bodies. One is a woman curled in the dirt, face bloodied. Her arms are cradled close to her, holding something. It feels wrong but I tug it free. It’s a gourd and inside is corn. Thiko and I eat a few pieces and then I hide the gourd under my shirt and we head back to camp.
Two men come walking towards us. One of them is Dinka, I can see the tribal marks on his forehead. He’s tall, with thin legs like a bird, and he walks with a commanding stride. I can tell his friend is not Dinka, his skin is too light, and as he gets closer I see his oversized red eyes, like a possum’s. They’re full of pain and trauma, and his face is caked in dirt. They’re not carrying anything. Maybe they were looking for food in the jungle and missed the food fight.
I tell Thiko to walk in another direction, away from the men.
