Walk Toward the Rising Sun

by Ger Duany

  The fighting spirit had stayed inside Oder. And as much as I couldn’t bear to admit it, I felt he would leave us at any time to go back to the front line. The war was not subsiding, and Oder was, first and foremost, an SPLA first lieutenant.

  My cousin Gasim Gam walked with a little limp. Oder and Gasim would always spend time together, mostly talking late into the night.

  One evening during dinner, Oder regaled us with the story of his shoulder injury, and the conversation between him and Gasim right after it happened.

  GASIM: Oder, my brother, sometimes I don’t feel I am man enough because God reduced me to the one-legged man among his ten siblings. It’s holding me back. I cannot even fight on the front lines with you.

  ODER: Who we are is not the sum of our parts. All we need is educational opportunities, not strong legs to run on along the dangerous Sudan terrain. I was shot in the collarbone in Jokau Town’s battle, but I did not escape simply because of my physicality.

  GASIM: And what about me?

  ODER: God has made it so that each of us will have our day in the sun. We all have our own strengths and will have our own vocations. You might be a lecturer in higher education, and a role model for young Ger.

  GASIM: Your strength doesn’t come from your muscles, does it? It comes from your mind.

  Sometime after Oder’s return, as was routine, a large number of people were bathing at the Baro River. Without warning or reason, a seemingly frustrated soldier opened fire and started shooting indiscriminately. Before anyone could blink, hundreds of guns went off from all directions of the camp. In the ensuing melee, I was hit over the head with a brick. I passed out, and when I regained consciousness, the first sight I came across was that of my six-to-seven-months-pregnant stepmother, Nyagieng Chich, who was badly injured, together with my young cousin Gatriay Juch, who had suffered a bullet wound. He died due to lack of emergency medical attention.

  We mourned for a long time. Meanwhile, some semblance of traditional justice was meted out—their killer was executed by a firing squad. At that point, I realized that Itang was no island of peace, for, like everywhere else we had been, human life remained cheap, taken away by a random bullet.

  I formed my own little group, a pack of cousins, and began getting into up to seven fights a day. I was trying to follow in the footsteps of my brother Oder. But soon everyone was telling him that I was becoming a rough kid, fighting people older than myself.

  One of my classmates and good friends, Gol Tut Khor, stuck to me like glue because he never wanted to fight, and I didn’t mind boxing anyone who presented a problem. He was fond of what little arithmetic we learned and was the diplomat of the group. His reluctance to fight sometimes made me back down from unnecessary bouts—but maybe not often enough, because when word got back to Oder that I was causing trouble, he let me hear about it, in no uncertain terms.

  Things got even worse when I started in with the gun talk.

  ME: You know, I want a gun of my own.

  ODER: You don’t need a gun, Ger.

  ME: I do! I need to protect myself and our family. You have a gun somewhere; you’ve used it too. And everyone respects you.

  That did it. Oder got so worked up, I could swear he was at the point of physically harming me. He pinned me to the side of a building.

  ODER: I didn’t want this life. It was chosen for me. Stop being dumb, Ger. More proof that you need to go to school, not the army.

  That stung.

  ODER: Ger, you can end up a soldier like me, if you want to. You can become a farmer too, or a businessman like Dad. You can really be anything you want. All you need is an education.

  The implication, which Oder didn’t dare speak about aloud, was that the life of a soldier was a worst-case scenario. Our father believed in the SPLA cause so strongly that to suggest one of his sons not grow up to fight in the liberation war was to commit family treason. Oder, as the eldest son, who matured the very year the civil war began, had to fight. He had no choice, but I think Oder hoped that by the time I, who was eight years his junior, matured, I could forge my own path and be my own man. Not Dad. Not Tut. Not Oder. Just me.

  ODER: There are reasons to fight, Ger. I’m not going to lie. Do you think our land has always had a dry season, and our people have always had to migrate to Upper Nile? No, it’s because of the dams the Egyptians built on the Nile to steal our water. Arab treachery!

  ME: I want to fight!

  I screamed it, desiring only to grow up quickly and prove myself to him, to everyone.

  ODER: You think you do, but why fight when you can’t win? The Arabs have all the oil—they even have our oil!—and American support. We have a worthy cause, brother, but we can’t win.

  ME: What do you mean, we can’t win? Dad’s a fighter. He’s fighting for us all. He would never fight for a lost cause.

  ODER: What if I punched you here? Then here?

  He thwacked me in the ribs. He was playing, but it still left an impression. He quickly added a light jab to my nose.

  ODER: Then here, and here, and here!

  I giggled as he play-boxed me with blows from every direction.

  ODER: Your hands aren’t tied, but you can’t win against me, Ger. You’re too small, and I’m too big.

  ME: I’ll fight harder!

  I can’t believe how young I sounded, how young of mind I was.

  ODER: Yes. That’s what I’m going to try to do, little brother. That’s what Dad and I must try to do.

  Something was eating him up. I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t want me to become a fighter. He would tell me how close Havana and Florida were—that Cuba was in Latin America and only ninety miles from the United States—drawing me in. But then he’d say I would only be able to go to those places if I went to school and got an education, not if I became a soldier like him.

  Still, my rule was that no one touched my sisters, brothers, or cousins, because I was their protector. Every day after school, there would be kids fighting. I would make sure I didn’t miss any fights, whether I was participating or on the sidelines cheerleading. I enjoyed these skirmishes and treated them like they were a game: if I just got curious about someone, I’d immediately want to fight them.

  My trick was never to show weakness, even if someone beat me up. One of the kids I had beaten up held a grudge against me, and one day while I was minding my business on the playing field, he appeared from nowhere and punched me in the nose. I fell down and almost passed out. But not too long after, I got up.

  ME: Who punched me? Show your face!

  No one wanted to reveal who he was. So in not wanting to show weakness, I burst out laughing hysterically, despite the pain and bloodied nose.

  ME: Didn’t hurt. Now, who wants to feel real pain?!

  I wouldn’t cry, no matter what, and this terrified everyone around me. After that, people either were my friend or just left me alone. It was an open secret on the playground that crossing my path wouldn’t be pleasant. I had become a product of my environment and circumstances, taking in the effects of war and building a defense mechanism for myself and my family. And I was not going to let a little thing like the crippling fear I felt defeat me.

  I GOT TO ENJOY THE company of my brother for almost a year and a half. Then, in the middle of the night, Oder came and woke me.

  ODER: Wake up, Ger. Tonight you are once more the eldest son of all the family in Itang.

  The moment I opened my eyes and saw the somber look on his face, I knew he was leaving. He sat me up and looked me straight in the eye.

  ODER: Ger, I want you to know that I will either kill or get killed in the Nasir fronts. But trust me on this: Don’t grow up to be a soldier like me. Get an education. Make something of yourself.

  Without any other word, Oder then slipped off into the darkness, leaving me alone, half-awake and half-asleep, to repeat hi
s heavy words over and over in my mind. I was unsure if I would ever see him again or if I would be able to heed his advice, given that in the deep of night it felt like a dream. But the weight of Oder’s words as he passed me the torch left me awakened to a new, more terrifying reality.

  THE ARRIVAL OF EACH YEAR‘S dry season demanded all able-bodied villagers herd cattle about a hundred and fifty miles to the Upper Nile Valley, where the animals could graze green, fertile grasslands. My older brother Duany, my younger sister Nyakuar, and I would urge the cattle along with gentle taps of a stick, while Mum carried the twins in the dieny balanced on her head.

  We became a caravan of herders as we picked up people along the way, a train thousands of bodies strong. Usually we would come across friendly faces—people who would take you in if you were in trouble, almost like extended family, even if you were a stranger. But there were plenty of times we would encounter town busybodies…or worse. That was even the case when we walked through our own village of Liet.

  MUM: Look away, Ger. These people have the evil eye.

  My mother would take the extraordinary step of covering up my baby sister, Nyandit, to shield her from their gaze.

  MUM: We must keep her safe. She is more vulnerable and susceptible to those who would do her harm. Protect her at all costs.

  ME: Okay, Mum. I promise I will.

  I wasn’t exactly sure what evil Mum saw in these people, except for maybe jealousy or envy. But as we journeyed toward the Greater Upper Nile region, most of that pettiness fell away, since we were all in the same boat—traveling together for the same purpose: survival.

  There, we united with other neighboring villages in a kind of huge summer camp, where we danced, sang, gossiped, played, and celebrated the bounty of the Nile well into the starlit evenings. This journey, which we Nuer people call “way of way,” defined the rhythm of our lives, with our summer camps having been there for centuries, giving us the opportunity to meet up once a year with our ethnic families, whom everyone knew by sight and through story. On top of that, the group of thousands became an extended family. Every child was your brother or sister, and every adult your parent, or at least your auntie or uncle. It made making mischief a lot more difficult and, in turn, a lot more fun.

  But once the wet season came in West Akobo, our family would walk home again. And this particular year was the hardest of all. Not because the trek was made any more difficult by the heavy rain that overflowed the Nile River, but because of the other thing that awaited us once we got back….

  Good-byes now came regularly. Oder, gone. Then Chuol. And next came my twelve-year-old brother, Duany. Although he headed for a different SPLA base—in Dima, Ethiopia, where they were trained as child soldiers from the battalion of Zalzal—the end result was the same: more loss and heartache.

  His departure immediately elevated me to the eldest boy of the family, a responsibility I took seriously. Now eight, I was charged with safekeeping my younger siblings, the way Oder had taken care of me. I continued doing my best to babysit the twins and look after Nyakuar. I enjoyed the responsibility, but also, I just loved those babies.

  The twins had been born between eleven and midnight during harvesttime, around October or November. The boy twin, Both—a traditional name for a male twin meaning “leading”—was loud and assertive, mischievous from day one. Mum always had to get up in the middle of the night to deal with his crying, but when she shushed him gently, he usually turned docile as a lamb. Each evening, Mum would sing this song softly to her little troublemaker:

  A joyful little boy who was never a sinner was forgiven.

  Are there any boys who were to come to God?

  So let’s all go to God to wash our sins together.

  A joyful little girl who was never a sinner was forgiven too.

  Are there any girls who were told not to come to God?

  Let’s all go together, let’s all hold hands together.

  O Jehovah, hear my prayers.

  Even though I am constantly breaking your commandments,

  Even when I miss your path,

  You still continue to forgive and guide me.

  And when judgment day comes, take my soul to heaven,

  And let my body return to earth.

  I’d close my eyes and listen to her soothing voice; it was as though her lilting words wrapped around me like a blanket and lulled me to sleep as well.

  The girl twin, Nyandit, which means “second person,” was the opposite of Both. I spent long minutes looking into her bright brown eyes and admiring her wide forehead. She was silent and keen and stared back at me, like she could not only read all the thoughts in my head but also understand them. Like she knew where my life was headed and wanted to tell me all about it, but the pesky reality of her being a baby prevented her from divulging it.

  Her hair grew in yellow, like mine, and I loved that we had this in common.

  MUM: Ger, you and Nyandit have the same straight teeth, but she has a perfect gap. Too bad for you after your baby teeth fell out, Ger.

  I think Nyandit held as special a place in my mother’s heart as she did in mine. She was so sweet and cute, Mum used to take extra precautions to protect her, such as covering her when someone looked at her wrong.

  At times, I was charged with taking the twins to the Pibor River to bathe. I could barely restrain Both from jumping from my arms and plopping into the water. A dip in the river was a treat, and he loved the feel of the current brushing against his skin like satin, engulfing his whole body.

  For Nyandit, it was the opposite. I tried to lower her down into the waves, and I quickly realized that was not going to happen. Her body shook and quaked and shivered as though she’d been bitten by a snake, and she clung to me like a cat would if you even thought about putting it in the same room as a tub. When I grabbed her teensy wrist to try to release her unimaginably tight grip, I felt through her pulsating veins her heart pounding, as resonant as a kettledrum.

  ME: Nyandit, let go, please. It will be okay. Look at Both! He is enjoying the water.

  But she wouldn’t budge.

  ME: Water is our friend. Nothing exists without it. Water means life. Plus, you must bathe. You stink.

  I resigned myself to sinking lower into the river so Nyandit, who was almost strangling me with her arms double-wrapped around my neck, could glance her foot off the surface and I could tell Mum she at least touched the water this time.

  When Both was fully clean, I brought the twins to the riverbank, removed my maroon shirt, dipped it in the river, and washed Nyandit that way. We had that battle every time the twins were due for a bath. Eventually, it became more of an amusement for me, but it never got funnier to Nyandit. Other than this one irrational quirk, she was the most docile, agreeable being you could ever meet.

  According to my culture, twins are special. They are classified as part human, part bird, because just as a bird lays two or more eggs at one time, twins are a double blessing. Additionally, we liken twins to angels because they are innocent, harmless souls, fragile and vulnerable, requiring extra respect and care. They are also seen as messengers from ancestors passed on who bring news, such as of rain, tragedy, drought, famine, or, in Both and Nyandit’s case, a great harvest.

  It is thought that the second person out was created first in the mother’s womb but didn’t want to go first. I could see this being the case with Nyandit. She was not the adventurous one; she was more interested in Both testing the waters, so to speak, before she’d take her own little baby leap of faith. And that was fine with me. If ever an eight-year-old could feel like a father, I did. Nyandit was that special to me.

  I FELT EMPTY AND DEJECTED after Oder left for the front line, but Itang provided some stability. We’d been moving around like nomads, and Itang gave me a sense of belonging to a physical place, somewhere I could consider home, even if just f
or a while. I played soccer with my age-mates and went to the beach in the afternoons and evenings, performed mock military parades and learned the alphabet. This gave me a sense of progress, like I was getting somewhere in life. The SPLA, on the other hand, gave me a sense of hope for the future, since there was talk that once we were older, we would be taken to school in Kenya, something that I looked forward to. And by now we had built homes and were no longer living in huts. It was the first feeling of permanence that I’d had in a long time.

  On occasion, I would practice my karate in camp, which was another way to keep Oder’s spirit with me, even if I wasn’t allowed to discuss how he was. There was a man named Gatdor who saw me training by the bank of the river and struck up a conversation with me.

  GATDOR: Where did you learn to do these stunts?

  ME: My older brother showed me. I’ve been training ever since.

  GATDOR: Do you think you could outmaneuver a machine gun with your fancy footwork?

  ME: Not the machine gun, but maybe the man firing it.

  Gatdor laughed. He thought me a bit cheeky but didn’t take offense. After that, he was friendly and would ask me what I had done to be better in the long run.

  ME: I am loaded and ready to deliver.