The journey of the first, second and third Palotaka boys: Arrival at Palotaka (part 3)!
6 min readBy Kur Wel Kur
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“Those life coaches push us in to Maturity in days; contrary to our tradition where elders encourage the systematic and accumulative growth” (from our generation: The Generation)
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Our journey from Torit to Palotaka through Magwi, took us 8 hours; the road almost unnavigable as roads at Kathmandu in Nepal especially between Obbo and Palotaka. In our presence, Mr. Kuol Manyang warned the drivers about the roads; “I don’t mind when you reach the destination, 2 or 3 days after but drive them home safe” he added!
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Mr. Kuol had executed many dangerous orders and his strict and fierce supervision instilled fears in the hearts of many including us but seeing him so concerned about our safety in that particular time whispered otherwise to us, about the man whom critics described as a man without feelings! In doubts about drivers, Mr. Kuol took his orders into his own hands so he ordered his driver to lead the way in a desirable speed limit and the trucks with the boys behind. To ensure our safety, for every ephemeral river that crossed the road, he ordered us to disembark so the trucks would cross them empty
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His watchful eyes observed every move about the kids because the future of the country or the very existence of the course -a search for equality and justice or a country_ lied in their hands. “The decision of congregating the kids in two places: Pinyudu and Palotaka, might succeed or fail. If it fails, then our course perishes and if God guides this decision, through them kids, we will have our future, a country!” His mind explored
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God exists! Sorry to my atheist readers, but I have to confess to confirm a prophecy scripted in 2714 years ago by Isaiah. Though the chapter revealed nothing specific about South Sudanese, which makes it everybody’s prophecy. In April 19, 2005, Bob Westbrook, a Christian and Zionist, claimed that the prophecy is about Christians and Jews in US and so do the Ethiopians because some versions of the bible used the Ethiopia to mean Cush or Sudan! However, I selfishly or knowledgeably place it on the South Sudan:
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“…from a people tall and smooth, from a people feared near and far, a nation mighty and conquering, whose land the rivers divide….” (Isaiah 18:7 RSV).
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Disregard our current state (situation) don’t capitalise on it because our State (country) is still in God’s workshop.
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Feared translates understood or respected, with these translations in mind, the prophecy sits squarely on lost boys especially those who arrived in States(USA) because they sold the suffering within South Sudan to the world. The story hit headlines so a marine biologist studying penguins or drilling beneath the ice to study the impacts of climate change in Antarctica, reads the lost boys’ story! With all those unthinkable lost boys’ experiences and their thriving success in high pressure jobs in one hand and universities’ assignments, which starve the brains in the other, stunned the Americans.
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The Americans cannot believe the resiliency of the humans’ souls. They respected and understood the lost boys (the representatives or ambassadors of South Sudan). The reason behind this resiliency is what you’re about to learn in this article and others to come!
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Arriving in Palotaka at around 11pm, Mr. Kuol Manyang ordered the distribution of blankets; Palotaka is fortified by the Viewpoint Mountains in the east and the farthest mountains of Talanga that sends the snaking river to quench Palotaka land and vegetation. Palotaka was icy cold! Shivering uncontrollably, our teeth rattled helplessly.
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Palotaka greeted us with void; a place where many painted their future on papers, stood in ruins, classrooms’ and dormitories’ doors snapped off, the cemented floors in the buildings cracked so the wind airlifted the soil with weeds seeds into the cracks; the grass grew tall on windows and in some corners of classrooms and dormitories. A ghost town for sometimes, God knew how long!
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Ready to fumble our ways to sleep, the guardians made a daring announcement. “You’re in the heart of hearts of witchcraft so if you go dropping in the bush, your waste will follow you back; you and your colleagues will be forced to clean it with bare hands for a proper disposal! ” so don’t do it please.” they stressed. They feared a repetition of the Mission’s incidence (littering the place with faeces)
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we made our ways to sleep. Early the following morning, we couldn’t believe our eyes; the giant grasses or called them, the elephant’s grasses, towered over us. The dew not dripped but pouring as rain does! In a terrible cold, but we had to clear the grasses around our houses, the least snakes and spiders wiggled or crawled their ways to the houses for bites.
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No tools but sticks and fire, we would beat the grasses and then set them on fire after a day, though still green after battered down, about 60% of their water evaporated so they burned in a slow motion. Green grasses with blades as equalled as samurai’s sword sliced us; all those bacteria, which the grasses harboured, entered our bodies so scabies and other skin diseases increased by 50%.
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As we settled in the routines of learning lives’ valuable lessons, the guardians, SPLM/A trained 0fficers started installing the determination and the art of hard work in us by forcing us to work for them and ourselves. The UN brought the tools and tractors, so we started to toil the land so all the big trees in the field were reduced to stumps, which we uprooted in a week and we sowed corns, peanuts, tomatoes, sweet potatoes and elephant’s eggplants. In the middle of 1991, (the second Palotaka boys) the boys from Duk county and those of Twi East county arrived and occupied group four and five respectively.
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Three months after, the third group (boys from the Nuba Mountains; out of 99 tribes, only three tribes sent the boys to Palotaka. Imagine the distance of South Kordofan in South Sudan’s border with North Sudan and Palotaka in the border of South Sudan and Uganda, the ( 800 ) boys covered unimaginable distance. Their food supply not enough, they malnourished to a gravely state. They occupied group six, seven and eight. The final groups, 9 and 10 belonged to remnants of Pinyudu, those who decided to head to Torit and then to Palotaka instead of crossing the border to Lokkichioggio, Kenya.
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And those whom the boys from Moli Tokoro and Borongoli left behind because some of them suffered from parasites such as jiggers and guinea worms and those who couldn’t afford to trek to Natinga (Kabekenyang) because of general weaknesses. The eleventh group belonged to ’Ma-rek-rek ‘, so named because of the noise they made! Children from ages of six to nine years and some older (10 or 11) occupied this group.
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All the boys, having arrived, the SPLM/A officers (teachers), commenced the discipline training; the officers would teach us liberation politics or force to compose liberation songs before we go to beds. We would wake up at 5:30 a.m. for attendance; some of us would cry or refuse to leave their beds but the correctional boys would whip them to the attendance square!
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My people (readers), a mini military training! After the attendance, some of us would go to the “Akuma”(the government’s farm) or to teachers’ (officers’) farms around their houses. A practice, the officers called an ‘organised oppression’ or organised slavery if you wish to call it so!
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Lookout for letters of Palotaka’s life: the benefits and disadvantages of organised oppression to both teachers and children, education, sicknesses and parasites, corrected mistake, and the reason of establishing the camps (one within South Sudan and the other in Ethiopia).
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