by Cola Bilkuei
Over the next month the women cut their hair short and wore black as a sign of respect. The atmosphere in the village was different from anything I had ever known. The elders grew suspicious of each other, forming whispering factions. A lot of us did not believe he was dead. I thought it was some kind of joke – we were being tricked, and Mijok would one day turn up. Others were crying silently. My mother and her sisters shaved their heads and took off all their jewellery. They tied a mourning rope around their wrists and wore dark clothes. The village was quiet: at that time there was no singing at night.
Although our village had been razed to the ground, Mijok was the first armed soldier from our sub-tribe to have been killed in the conflict. There was no funeral because we were never able to recover Mijok’s body. The army said they had buried him somewhere, but were vague on the details. We had no ceremony of any kind. If we had the body of Mijok, he would have been wrapped and tied in animal skins, then buried about ten metres from the house in a three-metre-deep hole. We would have killed a cow or a goat, then cooked the meat on the spot, with everybody eating. As we didn’t do any of these things, I felt both an emptiness and a continuing disbelief that he had really died.
It was another month before Monyleck came home and discovered what had happened to Mijok. Monyleck barely had time for it to sink in before he was sent off again to help collect children from the surrounding area to train in Ethiopia, just as he and Mijok had done. If Monyleck was distressed about Mijok he didn’t show it – between being taught by our father to hide our emotions and his military training, he would have had a hard time expressing any strong emotion, let alone his reaction to the death of his closest brother.
By now Monyleck was devoted to his job and did as the army requested. He began recruiting children from around the area. He wouldn’t go house to house, but would speak to elders and family leaders, instructing them to pick a son to supply to the army. Monyleck’s role was to form them into groups and keep them together. Some families considered refusing, but if they did, Monyleck would harass them, and the SPLA would come and take their cows as punishment. He didn’t try to ‘sell’ the idea with positive arguments such as how the SPLA would feed and educate us. The threat of losing cattle or being punished was usually enough. Some children from our village were taken, but most came from parts further out. In total just under 1000 children from our area of 96,000 people would be taken away from their families, possibly forever, to train as soldiers for the SPLA. Our family was lucky, as none of us was chosen – this time.
About a year later, in 1987, the SPLA again went from village to village, this time taking one child from each family. The families weren’t given a choice – you had to give up a child or cattle were taken, arrests made and the child taken by force anyway. We knew that this time our family wouldn’t be so lucky. Little did we know, however, that it would be Monyleck who would be given the responsibility of taking one of us. I was about ten at the time and a prime target.
My father was aware that Monyleck wanted me to go, but there were many heated discussions before a final choice was made. No one was happy. Monyleck was forced into a position of having to choose one of us. If he left our family alone the army would consider him to be favouring us. They didn’t care that it was his own flesh and blood he was sending off to war. All they cared about was that he made up his quota and that the choice was evenly distributed throughout the villages. If he backed away from his responsibilities he would be killed and I would be taken anyway. I remember one night hearing my father and Monyleck arguing. We boys were sitting around one fire while the men were at another. I couldn’t hear what they were saying but I knew it was about me, and I knew my father tried to protect me from the choice Monyleck had to make.
I could tell that my mother was fearful of me leaving. She was still grieving for Mijok. His loss had taken the shine from her eyes. The only comment I heard her make to Monyleck about me going was late one night when, in a bitter voice, she said: ‘Why don’t you just eat him?’
I had always thought my mother was naive when it came to the war and what happened when children were taken away. Whenever she saw an aeroplane flying overhead she would say it was full of children being taken to America as slaves. Maybe to her that was better than thinking about what really happened.
Monyleck tried to dodge the brutal truth by insisting that this was my chance to get an education and be looked after by the army. My mother may have been naive in some ways, but she didn’t buy Monyleck’s argument. To make matters worse, he also wanted my younger brother Thonager to go. At first I was in favour of this. I thought that if Thonager came with me it would be easier for me to face whatever was ahead. But it didn’t take long before I realised he needed to stay with the family – it was bad enough that I would go, let alone a seven year old as well.
However, during the days that followed, I felt as though all my family’s attention had shifted to protecting Thonager. I began to wonder if they cared that I was the one whose life was about to change forever.
In the end it was decided that Thonager was too young, too impatient and too prone to crying. He would cry when he was hungry, he would cry when he was tired. It would also be safe to say that he was the laziest of us all. He would often be found sleeping or drifting off to sleep while he was meant to be doing his chores – not a good quality in a soldier.
And so, the decision was made. I would go to Ethiopia – without Thonager.
In the days leading up to me leaving, I remember there being a lot of crying as different women from the village came to visit my mother. A lot of them understood what she was going through – they had sons who would be leaving too. I remember my father’s frustration growing, and his temper shortened. He stopped talking to Monyleck altogether. I know that he was angry about what was happening to me, but I also wished that he could have softened and been kind to me in my last days.
Monyleck was busy preparing clothes for me to take: five pairs of shorts that he cut and stitched from a blue bedsheet. He told me how valuable they would be. I would be able to wear two pairs, while I could sell the other three along the way in order to buy food or, maybe even more importantly, friends to protect me.
Before I knew it Monyleck was leaving the village to prepare the rest of the group. He was to go to a temporary camp about two and a half hours’ walk away in a place called Biu. Before he left, he gave me the shorts he had made along with advice on how to stay safe on my journey.
‘Always do as you are told, keep your eyes open and remember that all decisions are now in your hands,’ he said. ‘You are responsible for yourself.’
Then, with as much care as he had given me his advice, he looked me straight in the eyes and told me: ‘If you choose to run, if you escape from the army along the way, I will make it my duty to shoot and kill you.’
I knew he meant what he said. Our eyes were locked together. It was the first time that I – and Monyleck too, I think – recognised the full gravity of the situation. Monyleck needed me to understand that this wasn’t a game. The furthest my imagination would stretch was to think this would be a quick adventure and I would be a big hero instantly. Monyleck could see this. He had to snap me into awareness of what was to come. He had even more at stake than I did. He would protect me as much as he could, but if I was seen to be favoured by him, or if I tried to run away, it would put him in danger from other members of the rebel army who would see him as weak. He was not the sort of brother who would put his own life at risk to save mine. That was what he was telling me. If it came to choosing between his own life and mine, he would save his own. After sitting in silence for a few minutes, he got up and left.
About two days before I was to leave, my family decided to pay a visit to the spiritual leader of our community. Beny Wian lived about ten minutes from us and had the largest hut in the village. His was the place that the people of our village would go to in order to connect at the highest level to our ancestors. He had inh
erited this position when Makuei Bilkuei, my great-uncle, had died in 1978. Beny Wian was one of Makuei’s nephews. As at the tree outside our home, sacrifices would be made here to please the ancestors. Many of us children were afraid of him. To me he looked frightening; it felt as though he had a power about him which, although he used it for good, was unnatural.
Beny Wian always wore a red sheet wrapped around his shoulders. His hair was a big afro streaked with grey. As usual he sat silently, knowing that everyone in the village was a bit scared of him, and carried a long spear, straight as a toothpick. My family and other members of our village prayed for my protection and safe return home. It still didn’t seem real to me: I couldn’t help feeling that the prayers were for someone else. It hadn’t sunk in that I was the one in danger. As the sacrifice was made I felt strangely safe, somehow more grown up and important, because so many people were looking out for me.
With Monyleck gone, time was speeding along. I can barely remember what happened in the last few days, but the night before I left is very clear in my memory. Perhaps that’s because it would be the last night of my childhood. I remember sitting alone in the yard where we kept our cattle, where I had spent so many days working and playing, thinking about was going to happen and how I would handle myself. I kept thinking of Monyleck’s threat. I could hardly think of anything else. My heart was racing and, to make matters worse, while I tried to say goodbye to my friends they were all talking about the things they would do the next day. I wanted to say, ‘But tomorrow I won’t be here any more!’
Preparations had begun for my farewell. People came from all around – about forty of them, from the extended Bilkuei family. They brought food, drums and a never-ending trail of advice about how I should undertake my journey. As the drums started beating, a friend of mine, Thon Bil, began to sing. He was the best singer in the village. Usually he would lead the singing, with everyone else repeating phrases in chorus around him. I was always envious of his voice. I wanted to be musical, to have some kind of talent, but I was too shy. Thon’s voice gave him a degree of leadership beyond his age and a respect that was otherwise hard to earn.
As his voice sang out over the village and the intensity of the drums built, the mood of the night became charged with grief. Women were crying, my mother was crying, and of course Thonager was crying! My father just looked angry, not with me but with the world.
My father was a superstitious man, so at the climax of all the emotional outpouring he chose to perform a ceremony to see what the ancestors really had to say about me leaving. To perform this ceremony he needed a special stick, one metre long, with a metal spearhead at one end and a ball-shaped knob at the other. It was carved smooth along the sides and had a string of beads tied at the neck of the knob. My father would throw the stick in the air, wait for it to land and see what direction the sharp end fell. If it fell with the sharp end facing him, I would return home safely. If the sharp end pointed away from him, it would mean that I would not return and therefore did not have the protection of my ancestors, despite all our prayers.
Everyone fell silent as my father quietly prayed before throwing the stick. With a steady hand he threw it into the air. Everyone’s eyes followed it as it flew up, twisted around, then fell to the ground – the blunt end towards my father.
It was not a good sign. Not one to give up, my father picked up the stick, told Thonager to fetch some water from the stream and continued to pray. This time his face was intense, his eyes wide open and staring at me. When my younger brother returned, my father blessed the stick by sprinkling it with the fresh water. He then splashed water over me in order to cleanse me and make me more acceptable to the ancestors. When he was done he was ready to throw the stick again.
For a second time the voices and drums fell silent and we all watched as the stick rose, then fell – blunt end towards my father. He was not a happy man. Still not willing to give up, he ordered Thonager to fetch one of our goats. He decided that the ancestors needed to know of his devotion to them, and if they couldn’t see it yet, they would by the time he made yet another sacrifice in their honour.
Thonager returned with the goat. It was as if the goat knew what was about to happen, and in its eyes I could see my own fear. The drumming started up again, layered with voices that could have come from heaven singing a traditional song of praise. I had witnessed many sacrifices throughout my childhood, but for the first time I felt for the animal about to die. The goat’s eyes were wide with terror as the knife, sharpened and ready, was placed against its stretched throat.
My father was begging the ancestors: ‘I kill this goat for you, to make you happy. Protect my son!’
I closed my eyes as the sacrifice was made. The goat’s blood was used to make a cross on my forehead. It was not a Christian cross; our religious education was purely traditional, bound up with our ancestors. The only ones in the family with any Christian education were my father and Monyleck, who had been taken to churches in Bentiu. Monyleck, christened Matthew, believed in Christian religion – after he had been to school, he thought our traditional beliefs carried something evil.
My father slit the goat across its stomach, then reached inside its still-warm body and removed undigested grass which he then sprayed over me. He did this so that the blessing, if given, would have a physical presence on my body. It would become a part of me, travelling where I travelled, and it would remind the ancestors of their promise to protect me.
The same water that had been sprinkled over me before was used to wash the stick. My father was now ready for his third attempt. A third failure would prove to him that there was no protection from the ancestors and I would be unlikely to return my father alive.
I could feel his desperation as he held the stick ready to throw. He held it by the neck of the sharp end, between his thumb and forefinger. His beliefs were my beliefs, so I, too, was anxious to see my fate revealed. With everyone’s eyes focused on it, the stick flew through the air, higher than before, taking longer to land.
As it fell, I was so tense I closed my eyes. No sooner had my eyes closed than I could hear what sounded like an eruption, voices screaming, cheering – the sharp end was pointing towards my father! I would go with the blessing of my ancestors.
The rest of the night was a strange combination of celebration over the blessing mixed with the realisation that the next day I would be leaving my childhood behind me for a life in the army. Almost everyone had advice. One by one, throughout the night, they came to share their wisdom with me. By the end of the night I felt so overwhelmed I didn’t know what I was thinking or feeling. All I knew was that my time had come so quickly that I had forgotten to ask my parents for more time to play. I knew that by daylight I would be a man, and I would no longer have room in my life for playing, for being a child.
The night grew still as friends and family started to leave. In the end it was just my parents and me. Thonager had tried to stay awake in an effort to spend as much time as possible with me, but his sagging eyes were ready for dreaming. In the quiet that followed, my father told me of how he had gone away to fight when he was young and how he was living proof of the protection and guidance that our ancestors provided. He had fought for seventeen years before returning home. I wondered if my journey would last that long.
I looked towards my mother. Even after all that had happened, I only wanted one thing: I wanted her to say I didn’t have to go. I could tell she wanted me to stay, but her silence told me that she was as powerless as I was. She just sat with a glazed look in her eyes.
I tried to sleep that night but all I could do was lie awake thinking about what would happen to me. My father might have survived the army, but what about Mijok? Where were the ancestors when it came time to protect him? As I thought of Mijok I wanted to run and hide, but the threat of Monyleck putting a gun to my head froze me to the ground.
By the time morning came around, I had talked myself into excitement. I had to think of it as an a
dventure. Today I would celebrate becoming a man.
As I prepared to leave, the rest of the village again joined my family. There was a lot of crying. Six of my cousins, as well as countless others from the village, would form the group that would escort me to the temporary camp where Monyleck was waiting. My supplies consisted of a jerry can filled with water, a blanket I carried in a nylon sack the army gave me, and the shorts that Monyleck had made. I was wearing nothing but the shorts and some cowskin slippers my mother had cut and sewn to fit my feet. A soldier arrived to take us to the first camp. He was given a thousand Sudanese pounds – a large amount, enough to buy four head of cattle – to look after me and my cousins: Bol, Wour, Angok, Chol, Ngor and Mayer. The blanket was meant to cover all seven of us.
I said goodbye to my grandmother, who as usual had my beautiful baby sister Athien by her side.
Everyone in the village thought my grandmother possessed magical healing powers and had a strong connection to our ancestors – strong enough that she could hear their voices telling her what would happen in the future.
My grandmother said to me, ‘Go, you will be all right.’
As she held my hand I felt calmer. Her powers helped to take away some of my fears. If she said I would be all right, I felt I would be. Athien smiled at me as if to confirm the deal. I smiled back and went to join the group to leave.
The sun was going down and everyone was already moving. There was an early winter chill falling with the dusk. It took me a minute before I realised we were walking out of the village. The other boys who had been selected were with us now. People were standing by the side of the track, singing and yelling out messages of support, telling us how strong we were, how brave we were, their voices lifting me out of my childhood and into my adulthood.
