Trouble Tomorrow

by Terry Whitebeach

  23

  ONE PARTICULARLY HOT day, as the teachers sit fanning themselves at a staff meeting, the discussion turns to dealing with the challenging behaviour of some of their students. Caning is the traditional solution, both for bad behaviour and if students fail to recite their lessons correctly, but this isn’t working for some pupils. Then there are the fights that constantly break out in the playground; these often result in serious injuries and are a great cause of concern. How are the teachers to prevent playground fights when the children constantly witness the violence of adults in the camp?

  ‘Nothing we’ve tried has worked,’ one teacher says dispiritedly.

  ‘These students are angry, and without hope,’ a senior teacher says. ‘Their lives have been destroyed by the conflicts of their elders. Some may never recover.’

  Obulejo nods. What hope can there be for homeless, stateless, hungry children, trapped in Kakuma as they are, with one hundred and seventy thousand other desperate souls, and everybody at each other’s throats?

  There seems to be no solution, but after mass one Sunday, Obulejo hears talk of a new program being run by the UNHCR. His ears prick up. Something called P-E-P. What can it be? He edges closer, to learn more.

  ‘What is this P-E-P?’ he asks one of the elders.

  ‘Peace Education Program,’ the elder tells him. ‘It teaches a way of living that does not lead to fighting. We all know that if children are surrounded by violence they will learn to be violent themselves, but the peace education program shows people how to solve conflicts with co-operation and respect, not fighting.’

  Everyone starts to talk at once. The babble is deafening.

  The elder holds his hand up for the crowd’s attention. ‘When they met with us they told us, “Having experienced so much conflict, you are the experts on peace.”’

  There is a collective indrawing of breath, a soft ‘Ai-eeh’.

  Obulejo is avid to know more. And when flyers appear, calling for people to be trained in peace education, he is one of the first to apply.

  At the interview, his heart sinks a little when he is introduced to the panel members, a white woman from Australia and two Kenyans. Are foreigners to be in charge? Foreigners have ruled his fate since he left Sudan. But no, the elders have been consulted, and it is at their request the peace education program is to go ahead.

  Three questions are put to Obulejo: ‘What is your understanding of peace? Why do you want to do this training? What will you bring to the program?’

  Obulejo considers his answers carefully. ‘The thing that brought me into the refugee camp is war,’ he says, ‘but we all want peace. And to have peace, all of us need to participate. Peace to me is a process to which all people contribute. And that’s why I feel I have something to contribute.’

  The interviewers nod. Next he is presented with an imaginary scenario of a violent conflict, and asked how he would help the people involved find a solution.

  ‘A woman is asking for help,’ he is told. ‘She goes from person to person, but no one will help her. Some brush her off without a word, others become angry. They shout at the woman, “Go away! You are bringing trouble to us when we have troubles of our own.” The woman continues to cry for help. She has lost her child, but no one will help her. Hearing the shouting and weeping, other people approach. One man is shouting at the woman to go away, she is not his countrywoman. Another accuses him of being hard-hearted. People begin to take sides and a fight breaks out.’

  The interviewer pauses. ‘Now how would you help the people to find a solution?’ she asks Obulejo.

  ‘What I would do . . .’ Obulejo begins hesitantly, then pauses, gathers his thoughts and continues more confidently. ‘Well, if I didn’t know how the fighting started, I would talk it through with the people involved and get a sense of what exactly caused them to argue. I would ask them to listen to what the woman was saying and see if there was any way they could help her.’

  ‘Good. Yes,’ the white woman says. ‘And would you then come up with a solution for them?’

  Obulejo is silent for a few seconds. At last he says, ‘Well, I’d ask them what they think. “Is it good if we keep on fighting each other? Will that fighting help us or help this woman?” I’d try, with my knowledge, to help them find the solution. I’d get to the solution through what they think and want.’

  The interviewers consider his answer for a few moments, then smile at Obulejo. They thank him for attending the interview.

  ‘We will let you know our decision as soon as possible,’ he is told.

  Within a week Obulejo learns that he has been accepted into the training program. He is overjoyed.

  Memories of his flight to Kenya, his struggles in both Kakuma and Dadaab, his successes and failings flash past him. But what rings even more clearly in his mind are Moini’s words, spoken so often through all the years of Obulejo’s growing up: that everybody should be treated as though they were family. Perhaps this peace education program will show them how it can be done.

  The training sessions take place when school ends in the early afternoon. The first day, Obulejo and his fellow trainees gather together under a dusty flame tree. Mondua is among them, Obulejo notices, feeling suddenly self-conscious and even more anxious about the program. Whatever the trainers have in store for them, an added pressure for Obulejo will be his desire to make a good impression on Malia’s sister.

  When they are told that everybody involved must first make a promise to be open and honest, Obulejo’s heart skips a beat. What the trainer is asking is impossible. There are people here from many different tribes and countries. All have been involved in conflict. To be open and honest among enemies is pure foolishness, surely?

  When he looks up, he sees the trainer smiling. ‘From your perplexed expressions, I realise many of you will think this is not possible,’ she says. ‘But, believe me, there can be no peace without it.’

  She asks each member of the group to recall an occasion in their lives when they co-operated with, or received friendship from, someone outside their own family, and to think about how it felt, and what resulted.

  ‘Now turn to the person next to you and tell them the story,’ she instructs.

  Obulejo’s mind instantly flies to Dadaab and setting up the Hotel Bombay with Maku, then to Deng helping him, Ochan and Loding escape from the Rebel barracks and guiding them across the Kenyan border, but when it comes time to swap stories with Nhial, the Nuer man with whom he is partnered, he finds himself recalling instead the day he broke one of his front teeth when he was just a young boy, back in the mountain village.

  ‘Despite the tension between the Lotuko and the “foreigners” who lived and worked on Lotuko ancestral land, the children of Ma’di and other tribes had many Lotuko friends,’ Obulejo tells Nhial. ‘My best friend was Riti, a Moro boy, and we used to go fishing with our Lotuko friends all the time and play soccer together when we weren’t doing chores. Sometimes we had play fights, and we also used to dare each other to do things – climb tall trees or hop from rock to rock or straddle a tree trunk across a wild stream.’

  Nhial smiles. Perhaps he is thinking of his own childhood back in the Nuer lands.

  ‘Well, one day Riti challenged me to rock-hop across a really fast-flowing river. I remember that day so well. I took a flying leap and landed on a rock that was covered in slime and my feet slipped out from under me. Smack! I came down on my face on the rock. Didn’t I yell!

  ‘I thought I was a goner but the others jumped in to drag me out. Riti got to me first, though, and half dragged, half carried me home, apologising all the way. I’d smashed one of my front teeth and ai-eeh, didn’t it hurt! The Lotuko boys rushed ahead yelling for help and when Riti and I got there they just stood round like stunned owls while Mama Josephina patched me up and shouted curses at them.

  ‘I remember my father being angry at first but when Mama Josephina kept on about my broken tooth and “those treacherous and foolhardy Lotu
ko boys”, my father said that far from being treacherous the Lotuko lads had shown me true friendship and it was in fact Riti who had led me into trouble, and did she blame the Moro, as well as the Lotuko, for her son’s troubles, when Riti and the other boys had cared for him like a brother?

  ‘“I forbid you to teach our children to speak badly of the Lotuko, when we are guests in their land,” he told Mama, “and remember, if you try to keep a son swaddled in his mother’s skirts forever he will never become a man.”

  ‘When I met up with Riti again in Torit,’ Obulejo continues, ‘we greeted each other as brothers. Riti touched his own front teeth and pointed to my damaged tooth and said, “Oh, so sorry,” again and again in such a sad voice that I almost felt it was Riti who had been injured, not me.’

  ‘Thus are the bonds of friendship formed from misfortune,’ Nhial remarks, when Obulejo pauses.

  Obulejo nods.

  Nhial then gestures towards a Dinka trainee deep in conversation with a Nuer man. ‘And it is true that friendship between enemies is possible.’

  When Obulejo goes home that night his head is spinning with ideas and possibilities. He feels both inspired and confused, and today was just a taste of what’s to come.

  He and the other trainees are required to participate in many different activities – brainstorming sessions, role-play, games and practical exercises.

  The trainers encourage them to give each other support and to work as a unit. Obulejo finds he is soon able to lose his self-consciousness about the impression he may be making on Mondua: he, along with everyone in the group, is too intent on learning how to create this new possibility – peace.

  At first, some of the exercises seem rather childish to Obulejo, but he soon discovers that even skipping requires a high degree of concentration and co-operation. When two skippers trip in a tangle of rope and tumble into the dust, Obulejo and his group have to work out how to improve. They finally get a smooth rhythm going and six people have successfully skipped through the whirling ropes when the instructor calls a halt.

  Obulejo and his partners grin at one another, triumphantly.

  ‘Well done!’ they tell each other.

  ‘You turned the rope smoothly and regularly.’

  ‘You jumped high and did not trip.’

  ‘You made room for the skipper entering.’

  ‘You ran out skilfully and did not tangle yourself in the rope.’

  ‘You swung the rope high and in a good easy rhythm.’

  Obulejo observes a similar jubilation among other groups of skippers. It’s such a simple thing, but it has everybody smiling and praising each other, even those who are a little out of breath.

  Next they play a relay game: the person at the head of the line runs out the front and throws the ball to the next person, then runs to the back of the line. Each team member must follow suit. Obulejo’s team includes men and women of various ages and from four different tribes. They quickly learn that if they want their team to win they must be helpful and encouraging rather than critical of one another.

  Another time the trainees are asked to stand in a circle, facing the male trainer in the centre. He tells them he is going to name an activity and then invite all those who enjoy that activity to step forward into the circle.

  ‘Basketball.’

  Smiles pass between group members.

  ‘Those who enjoy basketball, step forward,’ the trainer calls out.

  Obulejo is among those who step into the circle. So is Mondua. The two exchange a smile.

  ‘Look around you,’ the trainer says. ‘See who is in this group with you. Notice who also shares your love of basketball.’

  Obulejo looks around. He sees some familiar faces, but one is a great surprise. The serious, sedate mathematics teacher, Mrs Hokkeina, is a basketball lover!

  ‘Now step back to your original place in the circle.’

  ‘In this activity you have given your attention to what you have in common with others,’ the trainer says, ‘not to your differences. You can see the things you share with others, and the many different groups you may belong to.’

  On the way back to his shelter that day, Obulejo finds himself humming the cwa song, which he first heard as a tiny child. The familiar words spring to his lips.

  ‘Cwa iyo Eriani cwa

  Ka merek te Eriani

  Ooh cwa iyo Eriani

  Cwa ote mereke ca Eriani’

  Lightheartedly he follows the song’s rhythm once again, calls to the imaginary person, Eriani, to come quickly, because the weaver bird is eating her seeds. Mama Josephina sang that song as she went about her chores, and when Obulejo danced to it, Mama Josephina laughed and hugged her small son.

  Obulejo remembers the great tree that grew close to his home in the mountains: there were dozens of cwa nests hanging from its spreading branches. He never succeeded in counting them all. He used to shin up that tree and call out to Riti and they would shout back and forth to each other and the weaver birds would fuss and flap and dive at them: how the friends laughed!

  Obulejo is still humming as he enters the shelter. No one is home, and no meal has been prepared, but nothing can dampen Obulejo’s spirits today.

  He has discovered that he is connected in many ways to a whole lot more people than he had imagined. No need to fret because the household is changing. Ochan will always be his friend, and he will always be grateful to Maku and the others for the time they have spent together, whatever tensions may have arisen.

  New possibilities are opening up. He is learning that it is possible to make peace, even in a refugee camp.

  But best of all, Malia likes him; he is sure of it!

  24

  OBULEJO’S DAYS ARE almost too full, now, with daily chores, teaching his classes, attending mass on Sundays and peace education training after school three days a week on top of everything else. It’s a struggle at times to fit it all in: the only thing he could possibly cut out is choir, but that would mean no music during the week and missing out on seeing Malia. She’s always surrounded by her friends but most days he can get a few words with her, and when they sing together his heart soars. He really, really likes this girl.

  He’s excited when Father Angelo obtains permission for some of the young people in the choir to sing at a special service in Nairobi. It will be great to get away from Kakuma even for a few days, and he’ll be with Malia for three whole days, albeit under the watchful eye of Father Angelo and the other chaperones. He is bitterly disappointed when he learns that Malia’s uncle refuses to allow her to go on the trip. Perhaps her uncle has heard about her friendship with Obulejo and wants to make sure it goes no further. He must be careful. Malia’s uncle is notoriously hot tempered. Obulejo does not want to get her in trouble. Or himself, either.

  He must focus on his many other activities, and be patient. Hold his feelings for Malia in a secret corner of his heart.

  As the peace course continues, the trainees are presented opportunities to make friends of former enemies, face difficult issues without resorting to violence, and join with others to work out solutions to problems as a group. Obulejo is always glad when Mondua is assigned to his group: it makes him feel he’s just that little bit closer to Malia.

  He has no trouble understanding and grasping the concepts presented by the trainers and often finds himself impatient with those who struggle with the ideas and practices. He is surprised how irritated he is made by the views of some of his fellow trainees.

  He tries earnestly to listen carefully to them and speak calmly and courteously, but at times he finds it hard not to interrupt or challenge a fellow trainee, and sometimes he has to fight down the urge to slap that person hard! And when it’s a senior man or woman, he feels guilt and shame at his impatience with them.

  Like all Ma’di children, he has been drilled from earliest childhood in laru – respect – addressing all adults as auntie or uncle, deferring to the elders, accepting their views on all matters an
d following their instructions without hesitation or question.

  But in his life as a refugee he’s had to abandon some of those precepts, and learn to look out for himself even when it means trespassing on the rights of others or ignoring their needs. Besides, he realises, the ways of the elders have not necessarily created peace, but have sometimes kept the clans and tribes in conflict.

  He feels ashamed of these new thoughts, but he cannot deny them.

  This peace education is more complicated than it seemed.

  One afternoon the trainer presents them with a new challenge.

  ‘I’d like someone to give us an example of an actual conflict, one that is going on right now, where you live,’ she says.

  A schoolteacher, Mrs Gisemba, volunteers.

  ‘The problem began in class,’ Mrs Gisemba says. ‘I did not see the incident, but I knew that two Acholi boys, Kidega and Olum, were involved.’

  The Acholi speakers in the group waggle their heads when they hear these names, and one quickly translates for the rest of the group. Kidega in Acholi means ‘not wanted, born of a mother hated by her husband’s family’, and Olum means ‘born away from home’, a name given to many of the children in the camp.

  Mrs Gisemba continues. ‘At first, neither boy would explain what had happened. But later Olum told me that Kidega had snatched his pencil and when Olum tried to get it back Kidega first of all denied he had taken it and then he slapped Olum and said he would beat him if Olum said anything. Kidega is much bigger than Olum and most of the smaller children are scared of him.’

  Obulejo feels a rush of sympathy for the smaller boy.

  Mrs Gisemba goes on. ‘The next day I learned that Olum had gone home crying, without his pencil, and told his family what had happened, and his father immediately confronted Kidega’s father, and defended his son. Kidega’s father, to defend his son, called the other man a liar and demanded that the insult be withdrawn. Olum’s father refused. Other family members and clansmen got involved then and now real trouble is about to erupt.’