Seed of South Sudan

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

e-ISBN: 978-1-4766-1497-7

© 2014 Majok Marier and Estelle Ford-Williamson. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

On the cover: Majok Marier standing amid sorghum grain near Pulkar, South Sudan. Plants were sustenance on much of the journey.

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
  
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
    
www.mcfarlandpub.com

To the many refugees who died fleeing along the paths and in the camps where we lived in Ethiopia, Sudan, and Kenya and to those who continue to suffer in conflicts in Africa.

Acknowledgments

Map of Majok Marier's Journey

Map of South Sudan

Preface

Introduction

One:
Don't Drink the Water

Two:
Walking in the Wild

Three:
Where Was the World While We Walked?

Four:
Seed of Sudan

Five:
Fleeing Ethiopia

Six:
Kakuma Refugee Camp

Seven:
Change Is in the Air

Eight:
America's Struggle Ends Sudanese Airlifts

Nine:
A Dinka Finds a Bride

Ten:
The Beginning of Many New Things

Eleven:
Stories of South Sudan

Twelve:
Celebrities and Friends of South Sudan

Thirteen:
Infrastructure

Fourteen:
South Sudan's Future

Fifteen:
Warriors in a Different Kind of War

Appendix: Aid Groups in Ethiopia and Kenya

Notes

Bibliography

List of Names and Terms

I wish to thank those who helped me on my African journey:

Yar Chol Gueny, my mother; Alek Chol Gueny, my aunt; Ajok Mabor Malek, my wife.

Dut Machoul Beny, my uncle on the journey; Kau Riak; Akec Rang; Mading Amerdit; Kolnyin Nak Goljok; Chol Dhukpou Welken; Chol Wang Gar; Chier Malual Mayom; Mangar Maker Anyar; Langudi Poundak Reec; Laat Poundak Reec; Garang Ngong Malok; Bol Maliet Kumo; Chol Bayok Yiak; Laat Deng Reec; Mading Cheny Malok; Matur Riak; Matur Chol Makerlit; Ayat Deng Ayat; Agar Matak Awur; Majur Akol Acipia; Nyier Malek Nyach; Mapuor Mabor Pur; Makuol Akuei; Amal Madol Athieu; Manyang Mawut.

Mapour Majok Daung; Ngor Kur Mayol; Bol Deng Bol; Thiik Ayai.

Ater Akec Malek; Toul Ayat Mabil; Mabor Kau Akec; Daung Deng; Makuei Jok; Nypen Abbas Tong, Lost Girl.

Atak Juac; Akec Awolich; Matoc Kout; Madong Mading Ater; Mayom Maker; Malual Marier Maliet, my eldest brother; Abol Marier Maliet, my brother; Lela Marier Maliet, my sister; Mading Arialgu Maliet; Achol Makoi; Maker Amala Maliet, my cousin (father's brother's son) ; Nyakor Manyang Mager, cousin's daughter; Mabak Machar; Mamer Tur; Mou Malong; Yai Malek; Mangar Ayii; Laat Mathou; Awan Magal Ater; Marik Ngang Marik; Deng Akoon Deng King; Makoi Cithol Kotjok; Malek Cithol Kotjok; Juac Gor; Bishop Yel Nhial; Father Madol Akot; Father Mathiang Machol; Lual Deng Majok; Chier Arop; Chol Machol.

And those who have especially helped me in America:

Mama Gini Eagen; Father Greg Kenny, CMF; Father Jim Curran, CMF; Father Jose Kochuparampil, CMF; Janis Sundquist; Helen M. Coelho; Ann Mahoney; Jennifer Moore; Jennifer Mann; Judy Maves; Bill Snodgrass; Elizabeth Crosby; Mary T. Steele; Patricia Shafer; Suzy Blough; Cyndie Heiskell; Mustafa Noor; Lutheran Services of Georgia; Corpus Christi Catholic Church, Stone Mountain, GA; Mothering Across Continents.

Western journalists in the bush country of southern Sudan in the 1980s reported seeing long lines of young boys walking in groups, sometimes very large groups. Overcoming language barriers, they asked the boys who they were. Piecing information together, the journalists learned they were boys whose villages had been burned by the Sudanese Army, and they were on the way to safety in Ethiopia. Aid workers eventually found them gathered where they'd been told to go—in refugee camps, or later, just in large fields that could accommodate the huge numbers where aid workers would then set up a camp. They were skeletons, only skin and bones, and when they arrived in one newly created camp, Panyido, they began dying of exhaustion, hunger, and disease.

Eventually there were tens of thousands in Panyido Refugee Camp. And then that one collapsed in 1991 during a rebellion in Ethiopia that toppled the Communist dictator. So they were forced on the paths again, to other camps.

Before events in Somalia, Rwanda, and even Darfur—suffering and death on an unimagined scale—southern Sudan was embroiled in a civil war the tragedy and scope of which the world was only learning. In 2000 and 2001, refugees from Sudan began arriving in U.S., Australian, and Canadian cities and towns. They'd acquired the name the Lost Boys of Sudan, after the orphan boys who followed the fictional Peter Pan in J.M. Barrie's play. National and local media in Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Nashville, Kansas City, Phoenix, Jackson, Mississippi, and many others wrote articles and produced news stories on these men, and some women, who'd come to live in their midst. Now, 13 years after their arrival, the civil war that cast them onto uncertain paths, the longest civil war in African history, has been settled. These men, and the many fewer women who came, can now carry on in their new lives.

This book tells the story of these young people through the eyes of a young Dinka man who was seven when the Sudanese Army attacked his village and he fled east to find safety. Majok Marier is now 33, and his story is told to share the day-by-day experience of his survival story and to bring readers up-to-date on his life and on those of others he met along the way. The account of Stephen Chol Bayok is also included, along with the stories of some of the many people who helped these young men in a world so far from their experience that they continue to be in wonder.

In addition to first-hand accounts, other resources, including news accounts and books on the conflict in Sudan have been consulted to provide understanding about this particular country and its culture, especially the customs and traditions of the Agar Dinka, and how Western, European and African nations have figured in the events that brought the men here. Majok's account is shown in Roman text, while text written by the co-author (as well as a short contribution by Stephen Chol Bayok) is in italics. In addition, sections providing information about people who helped the young men and historical background on South Sudan are indicated in the Table of Contents.

This is the first major work by a Lost Boy since the new nation of South Sudan was formed in 2011, and it includes recent news of several of the Lost Boys and their current lives. The scars of the journey are still there, but there are many lessons for people from other countries in this story of persistence and courage in the face of horrible odds against survival.

—
Estelle Ford-Williamson

It was the end of the rainy season, the start of the dry. The long grasses our cattle grazed on were beginning to harden, and their green was draining away. Gunfire erupted; I could hear the sound of tanks and soldiers attacking our village some distance away, and smoke circled in the air. The war we'd been hearing about—a war on every southern Sudan village in a vicious attempt to control our people—had come to Adut Maguen, my home. With that fateful day, everything changed in my world, and a 14-year journey to find safety began.

I fled, and was joined by others: my great-uncle, a cousin, and two other boys, Matoc and Laat. We walked for months before finding a refugee camp, but that was not the end of our misery. Through the many changes and difficulties, my family's strong bonds and traditions kept me going, though there were many times it would have been easy to give up. The opportunity to come to the United States provided a safe home, but challenges followed as well. When the war finally ended and my friends and I made plans to return to find our families, I was prevented by not having travel documents arrive in time. I began writing this book so that I could deliver a message on paper I was not able to deliver personally to those in my country, especially the young.

This book details my life, but also the lives of other Lost Boys in order to update this story for the many who became interested when we first arrived in America. It shows the importance of tribal culture in helping us survive. It shows how we have become good Americans, but with a strong passion for those at home and a determination to build a new South Sudan through the knowledge and skills we are gaining here.

The book is also a call to correct the wrongs in Africa, to ensure that what happened to us does not happen to future generations. There are those who still suffer in active conflicts as well as in refugee camps, and we hope to help them.

South Sudan is a country with an economy based on cattle keeping and a society based largely in rural villages. Changes are coming. Oil is being developed, much-needed infrastructure is growing, but the growth will be guided by the culture's gifts: respect for what our elders tell us, working within the traditions of the cattle culture, consulting to avoid conflict, and believing we can develop our country and its rich resources while still treasuring and enhancing people's lives in the small villages.