If You Can’t Believe It, You Must Live It!
By Mawan Malueth, Juba, South Sudan
June 28, 2015 (SSB) — Giraffe city is at the heart of the most decorated state of western Bahr el Gazal, the dawn of the Saturday 20th June 2015 morning in Wau was greeted with the claps of the burglary bullets at the outskirt of the town as the police disturbed the citizen week end with stricken movement in and out of the town when a man was shot dead that night. I jumped out of my bed to figure out what the day was and what was happening.
First of the all, the day reminded me of the five years I spent in the refugee camp, celebrating this calendar day of the year was not a choice but by default as a refugee, not for good ones but to pray if one God would grant peace to my country so I cloud return home and indeed he did. And I was the first amongst those who applied for a voluntary repatriation. Now, why am I being awoken again in my country? What happened again? I know there is useless fighting across the country, but has it arrived to Wau too? Am not sure. Could it be another rebellion? No. Could it be misunderstanding between the deceased and the culprit? Another No. So, what is it then? It is a BIG Economic crisis! Believe it or Live it!
Yes, I had a few survey around the town and the street is healing up, in fact, any town would require road repair under normal circumstances, but this town that used to be very busy is sending home the traffic police because there are no vehicle moving. The town honestly looks deserted. One could drive with less attention because; there are no many pedestrians on the road neither. Where did they go?
I don’t Ooh… because am here. June every year is a planting season and as most subsistent farmers use very ordinary and ancient method of farming, they always come to this place (in picture) to buy Maloda for the cultivation and it is the peak market point for the blacksmiths in Wau town.
This year, no body, it is empty, there is no business, which simply suggest no one comes to buy them and when no one buys, it means either they could not afford or they have improved their tools and might have gone for better machines. The later could be a sign of relieve. And its opposite is an obvious tragedy and a big human error which is most difficult to reverse.
Any trader who would have brought in security pad locks stock really got a good market because 80% of the shops are locked and no sign of any movement around them for the last two weeks or more. The economy is crippled and witnessed by the prices of the foodstuffs. I dropped to Sukjaw and I found a woman crying, real TEARS flowing. This is true! Allah Wahid! She came to Wau in a relative vehicle that was going to Kuajok with 500 SSP, in her plan, she was coming to buy a bag of sorghum and goes back the same day.
On her arrival to the market, the 50kg bag of sorghum costs 470 SSP at the shop and 5 SSP more to take it to the bus park and 45 SSP for transport home and another 50 SSP for her fare too. And she rests her journey. She has no phone, no home to go in the town and she can’t afford to go back home.
Few of the restaurants I knew are not functional. The school children walk with less energy and interest in the school. Needless I mention the rise of the hard currency. With these few statistics, one may not wonder why Central Bank has added on the fence and cut the nearby trees and improved their gates security. This is mitigation on the inevitable crime that may prevail across the country too as is the case now and this simply answered what was going on that morning and why?
I really don’t want to believe that God has a hand also in this man made crisis starting from fighting to economic sanctions and now to natural sanction of STOPPING the rains. There is no hope that things may change soon after the next harvest festival. This is an eve of another makurup (famine) and a tip of an iceberg that needs a serious stand up.
Mawan©2015; The Author is an Economics and Business Administration student in Catholic University of South Sudan and reachable at mawan887@gmail.com
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