The journey of the First Palotaka boys (part two)
By Kur Wel Kur
“…Arrived at Torit in Eastern Equatoria, we headed to Mission, a suburb which missionaries resided back then…”(part one).
We settled into concrete, corrugated irons and tiles roofed houses, which almost all of us not familiar with, those permanent houses amazed us (remember, the development in Equatoria was/is nowhere in Jonglei state), since our parents introduced us to the art of cattle rearing at tender ages or our conical grass thatched huts occupied our minds. We would play with electricity lights switches, how one touch would either turn on or turn off the lights. We would play under the modern and man-made lights contrary to natural light, the moon, until the operators turned off the power, that when we could fumble our ways to our sleeping corners.
Just finished their training, the SPLM/A cadets awaiting their respective assignments, resided in Mission too. The noise we made in howling after the operators switched off the lights, kept them awake as if their bodies absorbed caffeine from the coffee. Their knowledge about us held them without complaining, they understood that we lack discipline; they knew that we were few days(no days left) away from settling into a routine best known by SPLM/A as ” an organised oppression “!(the description of “an organised oppression”, detailed in part three)
As we stayed in Torit, we littered the land with faeces like droppings of wildest beasts in Serengeti; the hydrogen sulfide emitted by the faeces, corrupted the fresh air of Equatorian tropical forest. The area affected, grew every day and night by a kilometre; our health worried the locals, guardians and missionaries because any contagious disease could attack and wipe out the majority among us!
The general hygiene became a problem as some children decided to neglect themselves, out of habits or being so young to care for themselves, stayed without showering for days; some could manage a week without a drop of water on their heads. So the lice infested our few clothes we owned. Some clean children could wash their clothes and stayed naked until their clothes dried.
One morning, the authority informed us to stay around in the vicinity of our accommodation because one of the high ranking commanders would come. We collected the mangoes seeds and leaves around the accommodation compounds. Around noon time, the high commander, William Nyuoon Bany showed up; his guards flooded the area of Mission.
Converging in a semi-circle, we poised as if media cameras spied on us. A slender 6 something, foot tall, smooth dark skin man, paced into the semi-circle, tapping his right calf with his prestige stick, his guards stood as curtains between us and him. He raised his left arm and folded his fingers into a fist, and forced the air out of him with the Liberation slogan: Jesh al-Hamar (the red army) oyeee x 3, then invited a silence for a few seconds, he signaled for a translator.
He began his briefing in Arabic; he narrated the history of our country, Sudan; how Arabs think the country with everything in it, belongs to them. “Jesh al-Hamar, you must be willing to study; you must not dive into nostalgia, thinking about your parents, relatives or cattle; we must defeat the immigrants in all fronts” he sighed in anger!
“I know and am seeing it, you lack clothes and blankets; Jesh al Hamar, you must be on the lookout for patience because without it, all lives will end in seconds; so alongside patience, welcome persistence and everything else will follow,” he lectured! CDR. Nyuoon Bany informed us of our first uniform and he left; before we dispersed, the translator (one of our guardians) expressed to us of William’s position, a third cornerstone in the SPLM/A, he whispered.
Though flimsy and the cold could penetrate through them (the uniform) like mosquito nets, we received that uniform as a blessing and a progress towards civilization. The guardians distributed the uniform to the majority of boys who had no clothes and a few among us, who possessed some clothes received nothing.
After a month, we became restless and dead bored, so we began to loiter; some of us would fake sickness so on our way to the hospital, we would see the traffic of the free population of Torit and smell the fresh air in town contrary to our caged state and foul air in Mission; some of us would sneak into the forest to gather the green (unripe) mangoes; Some of us would wander to the forest and trespass the private properties of the locals; the locals complained to the SPLM/A authority. The authority gave orders to the guardians that nobody should leave without a permission and if anybody does leave without a permission, then he must be whipped.
So whipping began at Mission in Torit; whipping became part of us; it molded us into who we are today (most of Africans’ kids learned the hard ways-through whipping-!) Though flogging harm, some children especially those whose lives depended on cattle since their mothers weaned them from breast feeding, adopted whipping and viewed it as normal.
Those children, the writer of this article included, straight from cattle camps received ‘butts whipping’ all day, every day; but they would sneak out still! So the guardians introduced other form of punishments such as fetching fire woods and carrying water from the river; these punishments got us sitting without thinking of sneaking because women used to do these types of jobs; we pictured them as “humiliating jobs”.
Two months spent, SPLM prepared us for our last journey; before we departed To Palotaka, the authority reshuffled and grouped us (four groups of over 800 children) because we lived in Bomas (mostly related children in the Boma and the relationship reduces as you move up the hierarchies) and payams (administration hierarchies in South Sudan: Boma-Payam-County-State- Country) so some us end up living with strangers, who became closest friends in the end.
So if you scoop a handful of lost boys in world today, a probability of 95% will favour their knowledge of one another. In reshuffling, some of us came in contacts with scabies victims; composing of skin bumps and blisters, scabies produce rashes. Scabies always affect the fingers’ webs. The scabies victims had troubles taking care of themselves as they couldn’t handle things with ease, even bathing was a problem; they lacked medicine.
On the 24th of December, 1990, the group one and half of group two boarded three medium trucks (Nissan) and all soldiers (guards) in Cdr. Kuol Manyang Juuk’s headquarter with Mr. Juuk (the current minister of defence in South Sudan), escorted the children to Palotaka…
To be continued…….
Lookout for part 3
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