by Majok Tulba
I look at her, hoping she will understand, and say, ‘We’re really hungry.’
‘I’m sure you are. Show me your card and I’ll fill up your bowl.’
‘We . . . we don’t have cards yet. A man told me we’d be getting them soon.’
The smile on her face falters. ‘This food is for those who have cards.’
‘But ––’
‘Get out of the line if you don’t have a card!’ someone behind us shouts.
My heart sinks. We’re not going to be given even a little.
‘When will you have cards for my family?’ Nyanbuot asks.
‘I don’t know, dear. Maybe if someone dies you can have their card. Now hurry along, you’re holding up the line.’
Nyanbuot runs off crying.
‘You shouldn’t have said that,’ I tell the woman angrily.
She barely glances at me. ‘There are hundreds of children in the same situation you’re in.’
‘We’re not hundreds of children,’ I say. ‘My name is Juba. That’s my sister Nyanbuot.’
‘Please just let me do my job.’ She hasn’t stopped her ladling.
I think I hate that woman.
I catch up to Nyanbuot, take her hand and lead her towards the jungle. ‘Come on,’ I say. ‘I bet we can find some berries. Maybe I’ll find another rat.’
This brightens her spirits and we spend hours searching. All we find are three mushrooms.
‘These look okay,’ Mama says when we take them to her. ‘Not poisonous. Let’s cook them.’
Nyanbuot gets water and Mama boils the mushrooms and we share a tiny bowl of mushroom soup.
Several days later, Chieng, Majok and I are wandering around at the edge of the camp, beyond the tents and shelters. There are few people here. When we hear a loud noise I look over to see that a UN truck has overturned a short way off.
I don’t wait for my friends. There might be food on that truck, and if there’s any to be salvaged I will make sure that this time my family gets some. I sprint over to find the truck lying on its side at a crazy angle, dangling over a steep ditch. It looks like it could topple right in at any moment.
Then I hear someone screaming for help from the cab of the truck. It sounds like a woman’s voice.
The windows are wound up and dusty but I peer in. It’s the mean blond woman! Blood is trickling from her nose. She starts when she sees me staring in at her. I recall the words she said to Nyanbuot and consider, for the briefest moment, leaving her here. It would be justice for her and her harsh dismissal of my family’s needs. But that won’t bring me a ration card any sooner.
‘Please help me,’ she yells. ‘I can’t undo the seatbelt and the door is stuck!’
The door is nearly horizontal and the handle is hard to reach. I brace myself and give it a tug but it only opens a few inches. I’m worried that if I tug any harder I’ll lose my balance and fall in the ditch myself.
Majok and Chieng are here now and both have a go at opening the door. It shifts a little further. It might be enough for her to slide out, I think, if she can just get her seatbelt off. Carefully I position myself over the door, with one hand on the roof to prop myself up, and I reach my other hand in through the gap, groping for the belt. I get my fingers around it but I can’t undo it, and the woman won’t sit still. The truck is wobbling dangerously.
‘You’ve got to stop moving!’ I shout at her. ‘Don’t panic!’
She calms a little. Other people have arrived now, and one leaves again immediately to get help. Someone warns me that I’ll end up in the ditch with her and the truck if I don’t move off it, but I keep tugging on the seatbelt and after what seems like a lifetime it suddenly releases.
The woman shrugs off the belt and repositions herself in the seat so that she can push against the door with her whole body. I move myself out of the way and she forces it open enough to get an arm and a leg out. A group of us manage to haul her out the rest of the way and place her on the ground.
The truck remains where it was, perched over the ditch, and she’s still shaking when a UN Landcruiser pulls up. Two men and two women get out, the women with first aid kits. When they’ve assessed the scene one of the women says, ‘I’ll tend to her. You take care of the boy’s cut.’
Only when she says this do I become aware of a pain in my left arm. The gash is raw and red.
‘G’day,’ says the second woman as she puts her first aid kit on the ground.
‘G’day,’ I repeat, although I don’t know what she’s said. But it sounded like a greeting.
‘Can you let me see your arm?’
I hold it out gingerly, then screech as she examines it. ‘Ow, that hurts!’
‘I’m sure. But you’ll be okay.’
‘Juba!’ Chieng is waving at me frantically, motioning for me to come with him. I glance at the nurse, who is hunting in her kit, head down, then I get up and run over to Chieng. I ignore the calls of the nurse, who is now yelling at me to come back.
Chieng leads me to a cluster of shrubs where Majok is waiting. He looks cautiously over his shoulder, as though fearful of being followed, then drops down on one knee and scratches in the dirt and pulls out a biscuit pack.
I gasp. It’s BP-5 Compact Food. I know that these are the biscuits given to weak adults and malnourished children. They can be eaten straight or mixed with water to make a porridge. Trust Chieng to find a way to get hold of them, but right now I’m just glad that he did.
He tears open the package. There are a lot of biscuits, plenty for Thiko, Nyanbuot and Mama as well. We eat our fill and then head back to our tents to share the rest.
We’re nearly there when we meet Thiko. ‘What happened to you?’ she asks, looking at my arm.
‘Juba saved a lady,’ Chieng says. ‘He pulled her from a truck that was about to fall into a ravine.’
‘It wasn’t really a ravine,’ I say.
Thiko’s eyes widen. ‘You can tell me all about it later,’ she says. ‘But first, that arm doesn’t look good. Come with me.’
I follow her back to her tent, where she wets a piece of cloth with water from the jerry can and cleans my wound. Then she rips another piece of cloth and ties it around my arm. I try not to wince as her fingers secure the fabric.
‘That lady was lucky you were there,’ she says.
I smile. My arm doesn’t hurt any less but I don’t think I need to see another nurse for it.
Next morning my arm is throbbing. I unwrap the cloth and leave it off to let the skin breathe for a while. Mama tells me I need to go to the clinic and have it treated properly, and when Thiko comes to check on me she insists we go together. Once we get there we find a line, of course, and we must wait.
Life in the camp is all about waiting. For water, for food, for a ration card, for anything at all. Waiting and wanting. When nothing comes from all this waiting, people swallow mud and pull bark from the trees. Those who eat mud get sick. They vomit, even though there’s hardly anything in their stomachs to throw up. They die. This happens all over the camp. I wonder how long it will go on, how much longer people will be able to endure it.
Our football match is the only thing we have to look forward to, but Philip has decided to postpone it because of the events in the camp. Still, I don’t let my arm keep me from practice, though I have to be careful. At least it’s been properly cleaned and bandaged now.
And then, at last, a familiar sound fills the air and a plane makes another drop. There’s a lot more food this time, it seems, and the UN workers are better prepared. After the last drop, Mama heard that no one had been expecting the sudden increase in refugees arriving at the camp, and that was what led to the riot. Now there are peacekeeping soldiers with guns who make everyone stand in line.
But as usual, only the people with ration cards can stand in line, while those of us without hover on the outskirts, hoping that chaos breaks out again, that people will fight and there’ll be an opportunity to dash in and snatch somethin
g.
The peacekeeping soldiers make sure that doesn’t happen. I know it’s wrong to wish for disorder, but it’s my only chance of getting food. I watch for a while as the lines move slowly, as people shuffle forward, and when I see there really will be nothing for me I turn away.
I’m heading back to our tent when I see the woman from the truck sitting alone on the ground. She looks as though she’s not very comfortable. As I walk by she calls, ‘Hey!’
I stop and look at her but say nothing.
‘Come here,’ she says in a kind voice. ‘Sit with me.’
I seat myself next to her and she says, ‘Are you okay? I haven’t even thanked you properly for helping me, so I want to thank you now . . .’ She stops and looks a bit embarrassed. ‘I know you told me your name but I’ve forgotten it, I’m sorry.’
I tell her again and she says, ‘You’re the bravest boy I ever met, Juba.’
I shake my head. ‘I’m not brave, Miss.’
‘Patricia. And yes you are, you are brave. Not everyone would be prepared to do what you did, not even grown men.’
How can a boy who used to be afraid of rats and snakes be brave? I wonder. But I don’t say that. Instead I say, ‘Maybe I was just in the right place at the right time.’
She smiles. ‘I thought you were going to leave me there. Not that I would’ve blamed you, the way I spoke to you the other day.’
‘I thought about it,’ I admit.
She looks closely at me. ‘What made you change your mind?’
I shrug. ‘I can’t remember now.’
‘Well,’ she says, ‘I also want to apologise to you, Juba. For my behaviour at the food line.’ Her gaze moves past me to a group of little kids playing in the dirt. ‘You know, when I saw the news stories on TV of children with swollen bellies and flies covering their faces, all I wanted was to be able to help. I wanted to make a difference, but . . .’
She stops and takes a deep breath. ‘I didn’t think it would be easy, but I had no idea it was going to be like this. I honestly didn’t think I was going to survive my first day in this camp. I woke up early, but not as early as the people who were already waiting for us to bring them food. It was the dry season then and the dust was horrible, it was swirling everywhere, around everything, like a live thing. It was mocking us. There was no food left in our store. How can you tell starving refugees that there’s no food?
‘I couldn’t sleep my first night here,’ she continued. ‘I already wanted to go home and I lay on my mat wishing I was somewhere else. I didn’t know how I was going to cope here. I couldn’t bear the sound of the children crying. I had made a mistake. I should have been back home. I asked myself what the fuck I’d been thinking coming here.’
I flinch at the harsh word. I remember one of my classmates getting into a lot of trouble when he said it in front of Miss Ayen.
‘Watch your language, Miss Patricia,’ I tell her, and she smiles again.
‘Sorry, Juba. But we talk like that in America.’
‘Is that where you’re from?’ I ask.
‘Yes. New York City.’
‘How long have you been here?’
‘Fourteen months.’
That’s a long time to be somewhere you don’t want to be, I think. I hope I won’t be here for that long, but who knows?
‘Don’t you want to help children anymore?’ I say.
‘I do, I still do want to help.’ She’s nodding vigorously. ‘But I don’t feel like anything I’m doing is helping. I have to wonder what the fu–– I mean, what I’m doing here if it’s not making a bit of difference.’
‘It is making a difference.’
She stares at me. ‘How can you say that? Did I make a difference to you? If I did, it was only to make you feel worse. I was cruel to you when I should have been kind, and then you came to my aid.’ She looks away again.
After a while she says, ‘I miss the sound of my son’s laughter.’
‘You have a son? Really? How old is he?’ I can’t imagine how she can be here when she has a son at home.
‘Yes. He’s back in New York. He’s six years old. I spoke with him recently. He wants me to come home. My ex-husband does too. I miss my son so much. I even miss my ex-husband.’
‘Then why do you stay?’ I know how her boy must be feeling. ‘I could barely sleep when I was in the jungle without my mother. A boy needs his mother.’
Patricia looks like she’s going to cry. ‘Sometimes I think I’ll never be able to sleep well again,’ she says, as though she didn’t hear my question. She looks broken and tired, and I wonder what it must be like to have a family somewhere safe and not be with them. To feel that you have to be here instead.
‘I close my eyes and this is all I see.’ Patricia gestures around her. ‘It’s all I hear. No matter how bad things were in my life at home, it was nothing compared to this. Absolutely nothing. This is beyond anything I ever imagined, the suffering.’
I know about wanting to un-see what you’ve seen. But you can’t, and I tell Patricia that. And that she’s got to not think about it. ‘It’ll make you crazy otherwise,’ I say, and I wish I had better wisdom to give her. Grandpa would have known what to say.
‘I think I’m already crazy,’ she says. ‘Listen to me – telling you my problems when they’re nothing alongside yours and those of your family. I just didn’t want you to think I’m as heartless as I might seem.’
‘It’s the Sudanese government that’s crazy,’ I say. ‘They bomb schools and refugee camps and burn villages.’
She gives a bitter little laugh. ‘That’s beyond crazy, it’s deranged.’
We sit quietly for a few minutes. Then Patricia says, ‘Thank you, Juba.’
‘You already thanked me,’ I say.
‘I mean for listening. It helps. You’ve helped me yet again.’
I stand up and stretch. ‘You’re welcome,’ I say. And I mean it.
The day of our football match finally arrives, and while we’re all excited I know Chieng is also a little sad. He wants more than anything for his mother to be here to watch him play, but he still has had no news of her. Every time there are new arrivals in the camp, he and I go to see if his mother is among them. Now his hope is running down.
‘I think my family is gone, Juba,’ he said the last time we headed off to check and came away disappointed yet again, and it took me a long time to answer him. Having someone go missing and not knowing what happened to them is so hard. It leaves a big hole in you that can never be filled.
‘She’s alive,’ I said at last. ‘She’s somewhere searching for you. You’ll find each other.’
We’re raising dust now as we walk to the football field, Chieng and Majok and I. My arm has healed well. Bol joins us and declares that his and Chieng’s team will win. Chieng agrees wholeheartedly, his competitive nature overcoming his sadness.
‘I don’t know about that,’ Majok says.
‘Oh, we will.’ Chieng, with his spirits bolstered, is supremely confident, and while I’m happy to see this I wonder if it’s genuine or if he’s just trying to intimidate me.
‘Are you planning to be goalkeeper?’ I ask him. ‘Because if you are, then I’d say we have a good chance at winning.’
Chieng scoffs good-naturedly. ‘What’s that supposed to mean? When was the last time you kicked a ball past me? I’m the best goalkeeper in the camp, Juba!’
We reach the field to find that already there are dozens of people gathered in anticipation. My constant hunger and frustration dissipate in the face of these people who’ve come to watch us. I am part of something, with these other boys, and it will also take these spectators’ minds off their daily lives. We’ll all be able to lose ourselves in the game. The crowd will get caught up in it and cheer when someone does well, and groan and grit their teeth when a mistake is made.
‘This is great,’ Majok says under his breath, more to himself than to me or Chieng. His eyes are shining and a smile curves the cor
ners of his mouth.
People keep coming. Thiko and her mother arrive and sit with Nyanbuot and Mama. I wave and they all beam and wave back wildly. I can see Bagic and Koko sitting on an ant mound.
Philip has us warm up, and then I go with Majok’s team to one end of the field and Chieng and his team take their shirts off before going to the other end. Philip has chosen the starters for the match and I am a midfielder. I’m the link between the offence and the defence. If I have the opportunity, I can kick a goal.
As we take our places the spectators start to clap, even though we haven’t done anything yet. I’ve never had so many people clap for me before. I smile and wave to the crowd as if I know them all. This must be what it feels like to be famous. Having people who don’t even know you looking at you and smiling and clapping. It makes me a bit nervous about failing to perform well in front of them.
Now Philip gestures to a young boy standing at the boundary. The boy runs onto the field holding a bag and Philip opens it and pulls out a ball. A real football!
And it’s like when a baby is born in a family. The arrival of something precious. We players grin from cheek to cheek. Some come forward to touch the ball, as if to make sure it’s real. Philip has done the impossible and somehow got hold of a proper football. There’s no time to ask how before he gets the game under way.
It soon becomes obvious that no one in the crowd has picked a team to go for. They’re going for everyone. The ball gets kicked this way, they cheer. It gets intercepted and kicked the other way, they cheer. They’re just happy to cheer at anything.
For the first few minutes, I don’t even touch the ball. I chase after it but it’s always kept in play. Finally I get a chance to kick it to a teammate and manage to do it accurately. I can’t believe how differently a real football behaves. As the game goes on I’m beginning to sweat. We’re all playing much harder than we do at practice.
When a player from Chieng’s team goes to pass the ball to a teammate I run towards him, and when it rolls in my direction I put a foot out and stop it. I dribble upfield, sidestepping the opposition. They anticipate I’ll go one way, I go the other. I’m faster than most boys here. I’m running and dribbling the ball and it’s so much easier to do with a real ball. I catch sight of Thiko out of the corner of my eye as I rush past and she’s jumping up and down, yelling something I can’t make out. I’m trying to get the ball past the attackers waiting to tackle me.