Lost Boy, Lost Girl: Part One: Peace

Protecting our precious cows from predators is a constant problem.

The entire village honored my great-uncle. The hunters took the lion’s body and cut off the tail, paws, and mane. They gave these to Aleer-Manguak’s family as tokens of respect for his brave deed and his self-sacrifice.

The family hung the prizes in their luak, a round Dinka cattle pen with a thatched roof.

Almost from birth, a child is taught the values of the Dinka, which my great-uncle had in abundance.

At the time I had no idea how much I would have to live by these rules just to survive the ordeals of my life.

Aside from the occasional marauding visit by a lion or hyena, my childhood years were peaceful and fun.

He knew our traditions and our values and was called upon to settle disputes.

They lived happily for centuries, drinking milk and using cows as currency.

The year follows seasons of rain and drought.

That’s why the Dinka lived in isolation until the nineteenth century, when British explorers and missionaries began pushing through the swamp.

I didn’t go to school. The only schools were in the biggest of villages, far away, or in the northern part of Sudan, where people spoke Arabic. Instead, I learned what I needed to know through the rituals of storytelling.

My family—my father, my mother, my little sister, Tabitha, and I—lived in a compound with another family.

Despite the sweltering heat of the Equator, Sudanese people spend most of their time outdoors when it’s not raining.

My father was a policeman, but early in the morning before he went to work and before the scorching sun was very high in the sky, he and my mother would take Tabitha and me with them while they worked in a garden they had not far from our house.

Besides my tribe, I also belong to a clan. This is like a large, extended family whose members help one another.

Before Christianity came to Southern Sudan, people there believed in witches, and they thought that illnesses came from being cursed or bewitched. Those beliefs still lingered when I was a child, even in cities like Juba.

Before Christianity came to Southern Sudan, people there believed in witches, and they thought that illnesses came from being cursed or bewitched. Those beliefs still lingered when I was a child, even in cities like Juba.

So my mother, in her desperation, hired him.

When my parents were children, there had been a war between the southerners and the Arab Muslims who dominated the government in Sudan.

That war ended with a treaty, and for ten years peace had kept life calm and allowed people to settle and prosper.

The southern people were angry with the Arab government about a number of things. One was that the government planned to build a canal into the great swamp called the Sudd.

Most important, the government had imposed Muslim law on the whole country, even though we black Africans of the south weren’t Muslim.

Men in the south who were fed up with policies that favored the north formed the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, and fighting flared in the countryside between the SPLA, as we called that army, and local militia groups that the government had backed.

Men in the south who were fed up with policies that favored the north formed the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, and fighting flared in the countryside between the SPLA, as we called that army, and local militia groups that the government had backed.

Men in the south who were fed up with policies that favored the north formed the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, and fighting flared in the countryside between the SPLA, as we called that army, and local militia groups that the government had backed.