Walk Toward the Rising Sun

by Ger Duany

  Back in New York, out of the blue, I bumped into Brownica, a friend and fellow South Sudanese model living and working in the city. She had recommended me for an acting gig in an upcoming movie. I got home to find the script for The Good Lie already there and my girlfriend in the middle of reading it.

  From the very first page, I felt that this was something I wanted to be part of. It had a kind of emotional and psychological pull on my entire being. The script spoke to me, from the storyline to the sentiment, and the characters came to me naturally. The entire movie was playing out right before my eyes, as if I had been involved in its conception. It was while reading the script that I remembered a conversation I’d had ten years ago with Bobby Newmyer, a producer of Training Day, about doing this exact kind of movie. Unfortunately, Bobby had passed away before we could act on it.

  I started walking around the apartment, moving from one room to the other, as though possessed by some spirit. I went into the bathroom, locked myself up, looked in the mirror, and, deep in thought, faced my reflection. I then walked out and stood in the middle of the lounge area, seeing and feeling myself acting out a scene, revisiting a familiar moment of a life I’d once lived. If anyone had been watching me at that moment, they would probably have thought I’d completely lost my mind.

  The script had triggered something in both my mind and my body, and I knew no other way of dealing with it. Luckily, I was now alone in the apartment, as my girlfriend had left to run errands, so I had the freedom to act crazy. The moment I came back to my senses, I opened my computer and saw a new email alert. Mindy Marin, the movie’s casting director, had written to me, introducing herself and telling me they had been looking for actors and, having received numerous recommendations on my behalf, were interested in speaking to me.

  We talked on the phone, and she mentioned that the film starred Reese Witherspoon. I did not know who that was, which seemed to excite Mindy even more! I quickly auditioned for the three roles for Sudanese men, and my audition tapes were sent to Philippe Falardeau, the movie’s director.

  After a couple of days of anxious waiting, I received an email asking me to contact Philippe immediately. I took a break at my job at an Equinox gym and made a Skype call. Philippe and I instantly hit it off, the way Mindy and I had.

  He told me that in 1994, while I left Akobo on my journey for America, he was getting caught in the crossfire between the two SPLA rival camps in Torit and Nasir while on a visit.

  I was taken aback by his extensive knowledge of the area, including his understanding of the inner workings of the SPLA. He even knew the names of some SPLA generals who were lesser known beyond the borders of Sudan. Philippe wouldn’t stop talking about Akobo, where he had been working on documentary projects.

  I was soon on a plane to Los Angeles to audition solo, then it was back to New York to await further communication. Once Reese Witherspoon was available to audition, they flew me back out. Philippe pulled me aside and said that even if it wasn’t an actual part, there would still be something for me in this movie about my country.

  But I knew Philippe wanted me to put my all into the audition—I could hear it in his voice. I was introduced to Reese, who was kind and courteous and made me feel as though we were long-lost friends. The rest of the crew also treated me like I was already part of the team and auditions were just a formality. There was a sense I got that the crew felt like I could be even more useful to them than just as a cast member. They kept asking questions whenever I told them about my journey, from being a child soldier to walking the New York fashion runways.

  In a few days, I got the call: they had selected me to play Jeremiah. I was at a loss for words. This was a big part—bigger than the ones I had auditioned for! Because I wasn’t reacting to the news in any way, Philippe explained that Jeremiah was meant to be someone persuasive, someone who convinces people that there’s a God. Philippe said he might not believe in God, but that when he saw me being persuasive, he thought he could be convinced. That’s why he’d picked me.

  Still unable to catch my breath, I just thanked Philippe and Mindy for the exhilarating news. Within a week, I flew to Atlanta and got down to work on the film. My friend Emmanuel Jal was also cast in the movie, as were two more South Sudanese actors, Arnold Oceng and Kuoth Wiel. We shot in Atlanta before proceeding to Cape Town, South Africa, where we filmed many of the Africa-based scenes. We also shot scenes in Nairobi and in the Kakuma refugee camp in northern Kenya, giving the cast and crew a feel for what life was like for refugees.

  I took every opportunity to recount my experiences growing up. Because of this, the cast and crew took the film more seriously, and the director and producers brought me and Emmanuel on board as consultants to ensure the story was told accurately.

  Throughout filming, I beamed and sometimes cried whenever I recalled wrestling with my brothers Duany, Chuol, and Oder and my cousin Wunbil in the black, incredibly fertile earth on the banks of the Nile, the same black color of our skin. I, the boy who never truly had a home, had now become a man at home all over the world. Wherever I went, I carried my blackness, the color of my homeland—a constant reminder that peace and rebirth were possible. I had built myself a remarkable life, starting with nothing but hope.

  Being part of this incredible film and having the producers respect my expertise on South Sudan—its politics and its people—was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Once again, I felt deeply connected to my past and community. I had gone from being a small boy caught in a web of unspeakable violence to a respected voice on the struggles in my homeland. Once a child soldier wielding an AK-47, I now saw myself as an ambassador of peace, armed with a hopeful story of triumph, which I was eager to tell anyone willing to hear and learn from it.

  With the establishment of the new government of the Republic of South Sudan under way, many of my contemporaries from the Sudanese diaspora were moving back home. Those outside government set up shop in the private sector, including business, academia, and the media. There had been a running joke that South Sudan was a country without a state. Now the work of state building had fallen upon us, and everyone was rolling up their sleeves.

  But despite all this good energy, there arose murmurs about corruption and excess. The joke that started making the rounds was that other African countries had corruption, but South Sudan had pure looting. A new, flashy South Sudanese elite was forming, known for their selective largesse and over-the-top lifestyles. The general feeling among civilians and government officials was that it was taking longer for ordinary people to reap the rewards of independence. The perpetual promise was that once systems were established and functioning, the people in the villages, like Akobo, would get a taste of our newfound milk and honey. But oil money was leaking.

  I was in Juba in March 2012, when what appeared to be the new republic’s first political and economic crisis came knocking. Sudan and South Sudan engaged in territorial clashes over oil, which led South Sudan to shut down oil production, heavily curtailing its revenue and resulting in loss of life and property. Peace prevailed months later, and it was back to business as usual, though some serious damage had been done.

  More cracks started emerging within the SPLA, pitting South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, against his vice president, Dr. Riek Machar. There had been serious teething problems in transforming the SPLA from a liberation movement into a properly functioning political party, and there was a growing sense that the president, being its de facto leader and commander in chief, was trying to lock out any competition for party leadership. Soon the power struggle within the SPLA took an ethnic turn, with the Dinka president retreating to his ethnic base to drum up military support in preparation for what seemed like an inevitable confrontation with the Nuer vice president. And there were also other figures jockeying for the SPLA’s top leadership and the country’s presidency, including the much-respected “Mama” Rebec
ca Nyandeng, Dr. John Garang’s widow.

  I was leaving Nairobi for New York on July 23, 2013, when I received news that President Kiir had dismissed Dr. Machar from office. I immediately sensed trouble brewing, knowing how ethnically dicey my country’s politics were. In December 2013, President Kiir accused Dr. Machar and ten other leading SPLA figures of plotting a military coup to oust him. Dr. Machar denied involvement and fled Juba, only to reemerge, leading an armed splinter group within the SPLA called the SPLA in Opposition.

  This set the stage for the start of a new civil war, largely viewed through the prism of a renewed Dinka-Nuer rivalry, one ethnic group dominating the government forces and the other dominating the opposition forces. Long-winded international mediation led to the signing of a peace accord in August 2015, which saw Dr. Machar’s return to the vice presidency in a power-sharing agreement. But the peace didn’t hold for long. Dr. Machar’s home in Juba, among others, was flattened by government forces, resulting in hundreds of deaths in what seemed like targeted killings of the Nuer. A new phase of the war broke out, with Dr. Machar and other leading SPLA figures fleeing into exile. A tenuous peace agreement was later signed, and Dr. Machar was sworn in as first vice president of the unity government, officially ending the civil war. But sporadic fighting and occasional atrocities continue today.

  To me, it was like the ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail. We were back to square one: war and suffering.

  Shortly after I finished shooting The Good Lie, I received a phone call from my old friend Jangjuol, whom Paul had sent back to Akobo. Trying to retrace his steps back to Ethiopia and find a way to America, Jangjuol had found a group with which he could travel to Walda, where he would survive a season’s cattle rustling and the abduction of several children. He had then received sponsorship to immigrate to the United States, just like the rest of us had. He now lived in Salt Lake City, Utah, with his wife and five children.

  I hopped on a plane and met his warm and bubbly family. Afterward, Jangjuol and I had a moment to ourselves. We sat outside an Ethiopian restaurant, just like we did back in the day, while eating injera with shiro and thiem, cubes of seasoned meat. I told him I had recently spoken to Garang Barjok, the only one of our boyhood friends I hadn’t heard from in a long time. He had seen me on television doing an interview, and though he was now a colonel in the SPLA, he burst into tears seeing how much trouble I’d gone through in order to speak about what we all went through.

  Jangjuol and I laughed about how difficult adjusting to American life could be, how far we had come, and how it was all worth it. Then, suddenly, Jangjuol stopped midlaugh.

  JANGJUOL: Believe me, brother. I paid for this with my soul.

  I related to what he was saying. Being a refugee forces you to remake yourself a thousand times in a thousand different ways, despite your trying to hold on to some piece of yourself that you think makes you you. That night, as I sat there with Jangjuol, my heart was filled with warmth and gratitude. Despite everything, we had both managed to carve out our own place in a world that so often made out like it didn’t want us. We’d survived, become our own men, and found our way back to each other—and ourselves—walking toward the rising sun.

  I would like to thank my father and mother, who brought me into this world and cultivated intrinsic value within me during Sudan’s civil war. I am grateful for my siblings, some dead and some alive. I think of you in all that I do, knowing that you watch and pray over me.

  I am indebted to many of my friends. You know who you are. I would like to thank filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu and her husband, Dr. Anthony Gikonyo, of the Karen Hospital, for your invaluable support to my family during my wife’s risky pregnancy and the birth of my firstborn son, Hoaw Ger Duany.

  I would like to express my appreciation to my co-writers, Garen Thomas and Isaac Amuke Otide. You are both blessed with the unique gift of storytelling and a keen intelligence to navigate through my many years and capture the essence of me. I am lucky to have had Garen Thomas and the great effort she made refining raw and unfiltered material.

  To my literary agent, Todd Shuster, who encouraged me to tell my story. And that’s what education should truly be about: human stories.

  I am grateful to Chris Myers and Michelle Frey for advising me on the importance of process. It is a privilege to team up with the smartest people in the literary world. Thank you to editor Arely Guzmán; copyeditors Artie Bennett, Iris Broudy, Amy Schroeder, and Nancee Adams; managing editor Jake Eldred; publisher Melanie Nolan; designer Angela Carlino; and Yvan Alagbé for the spectacular artwork. Also, thanks to the publicity, marketing, and social media teams, including Mary McCue, Kristopher Kam, Jules Kelly, Kelly McGauley, Kate Keating, Adrienne Waintraub, and Kristin Schulz. Thanks to my publisher, Alfred A. Knopf and Make Me a World, under Penguin Random House, for always lending me an ear. This memoir would not be possible without your support.

  I am amazed as I look at the incredible amount of change that has occurred in my four decades of life. I am grateful for what I’ve been granted thus far and I look forward to years ahead. I welcomed my firstborn son into the world in 2019. His journey will become a part of mine, and mine a part of his. In this book, I have opened up to share with you the many horrors and difficulties I faced on this long journey, from my time as a child soldier and refugee of war to the countless times I should have died but somehow survived. I’ve come to learn that all experiences are equally important. I’ve had some success, thrills, and triumphs on my journey. The good could not exist without the bad.

  I have worn and exhausted many labels throughout my life so far: “War Child,” “Refugee,” “Lost Boy of Sudan,” “Immigrant,” “American High School Student,” “College Athlete,” “University Graduate,” “Fashion Model,” “Hollywood Actor,” “Activist,” “Speaker,” “UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador,” and now “Author.” These labels represent how others have seen me during different parts of my journey. As you read about my life as a whole, with all its ups and downs, I think you will realize that I am simply a person, like you, who has collected an abundance of suffering, hard work, hope, positive thinking, faith, good luck, and success, and mixed all these ingredients into a life that I hope is continuing to positively impact humanity.

  After that horrible day of separation by the Nile, it took nearly twenty years before I finally returned to Greater Akobo to reunite with my family. Three years later, I returned to the Kakuma, Ifo, and Itang refugee camps, where I had come from twenty-nine years earlier. But this time I was there as a Hollywood actor filming The Good Lie, a major studio project that closely mirrored my own life in countless ways, with famed actress Reese Witherspoon. The experience of being back in a refugee camp was therapeutic, but it was hard to process at times. Why? My horizons had broadened. My perspective had changed along this journey. I was a very different man, and yet I was still somehow in touch with little me from my past, the innocent boy who loved his family, his people, and the simple village life; the little boy who could find inspiration and possibility in the dark Sudanese mud waiting to be molded by a pair of creative hands.

  I pray these stories about my journey will engage, entertain, and galvanize you. May all of our journeys continue toward the rising sun.

  © 2020 by Emmanuel Jambo

  GER DUANY is a survivor of the tragic exodus of an estimated 20,000 Sudanese children, often called the “Lost Boys of Sudan.” Born in the town of Akobo, Ger was caught up in Sudan’s north-south civil war and was forcefully recruited as a child soldier. At the age of fourteen, he managed to escape to neighboring Ethiopia and, after time in refugee camps, was eventually resettled in the United States.

  Today, Ger is an actor and a model and has been appointed a UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) Goodwill Ambassador. To learn about Ger’s work to help refugees around the world, visit GerDuany.com or follow @GerDuany on Tw
itter.

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