CHAPTER 18

The days didn’t matter anymore. They were all the same. They walked for three days, then another three. They walked early in the morning to beat the sun and rested during the hottest hours, then walked again at night. They slept on the ground, close together for protection. They were starving and beyond thirst, and when the fatigue was so numbing they could not go on, Emmanuel found rotten fruit from a cape fig tree and they devoured it. He cajoled a bag of peanuts from a Dinka farmer, along with a gourd of water. Another farmer, one of the Nuer tribe, cursed and threatened them with a machete. They slowly walked on, listening always for the sounds of trucks and soldiers. Ten or twelve days after the massacre they joined another group of refugees and word filtered back that they were going to Uganda. Beatrice did not want to leave her country—she had never left it before—but Emmanuel had heard more than once that the camps were more dangerous in South Sudan. Rebels raided the settlements, killing and raping, and taking what little food there was. He became convinced that Uganda was where they should go, and the more he talked to the other men the more he was certain that they were going in the right direction. Uganda was keeping its borders open and trying to help the flood of refugees, but its camps were being overrun. So many were fleeing South Sudan, desperate to get away from the violence. Ethiopia and Kenya were also rumored to be safer, but they were much further away.

They walked on, weary and hungry, hoping to see the border just around the next turn. There were over a hundred of them, almost all women and children, one long sad parade of misery. Most were barefoot. Few carried belongings. None had food or water. Near the border a large crowd had stalled where the road was blocked by a row of tents. They rested beside the road as Emmanuel went to gather information. People kept coming by the hundreds.

Beatrice pulled James and Chol close to her on the ground and looked behind them at the endless line of refugees. There had to be food and water in the camp. Why else would so many be drawn to this place?

They spent the night there on the ground, and early the next morning moved forward. When they passed through a checkpoint they learned that they had now left their homeland. A sign in English read: “Welcome to Uganda—Rhino Camp Refugee Settlement. ” A man in a uniform directed them to a tent where they joined a line to be processed. As they waited, Beatrice asked the man if there was any food and water. Her children were starving.

He smiled and nodded and said there was food and water, just beyond the tents. At a table, she gave another officer their names and said they were from the village of Lotta. She asked if anyone had seen Angelina, but the officer shook his head and said, “No, we’re taking in a thousand a day and we can’t keep up. ”

“Please look for Angelina Sooleymon, please. ”

He nodded as if he’d heard this before and entered their names in a registry. He asked if she had any documentation. No, she did not. She explained that everything had been lost when their house burned. She had no money, nothing but the filthy and ragged clothes they were wearing. From the tents they shuffled on and were directed to a long line of starving people waiting behind a large truck. Beatrice could smell something in the air. At the truck, workers were dipping ladles into large vats and filling tin bowls with hot porridge. Others were handing out plastic bottles of clear water. The refugees waited patiently, dazed and in disbelief that they were finally getting food and water. Beatrice thanked the workers and sat with her boys beside the truck to eat and drink.

· · ·

After a week in Coach Britt’s basement, with warm family meals cooked by his wife, and hours of video games with his children, Samuel moved into his dorm room on the NC Central campus in south Durham. It was modern, more like an apartment than a dorm room, and not far from the athletic complex. He would share it with another basketball player who was expected in a few days. Lonnie moved him in, then walked with him to the football field and locker room, and introduced him to his new boss, T. Ray. For the unheard-of wage of $7. 25 an hour, the state minimum wage, whatever that meant, Samuel landed his first job—assistant equipment manager of the football team.

“Football players are a bunch of pigs, ” T. Ray growled as he walked Samuel around the expansive locker room. “Right now you’re the lowest man on the pole so you get to help clean the locker room after every practice. Then you’ll help with the laundry, then you’ll spend every afternoon on the practice field doing whatever else I tell you to do. Got it? ”

“Yes sir. ”

“Report here at eight each morning and we’ll get to work. Coach Britt says you need all the hours you can get until classes start, right? ”

“Right. ”

“Okay. Welcome aboard. I’ll introduce you to some of the assistant coaches. The players will start arriving in an hour or so. They’re pretty rough on equipment managers, at least at first, so don’t take it personally. ”

Samuel nodded but had no idea what to expect.

“Here’s Rodney, your new best friend and head student manager. ”

Rodney welcomed him on board, gave him a proper team polo and shorts and told him to change clothes. Rodney was impressed with his state-of-the-art Reeboks. From there they went to one of the many storage rooms, and together loaded a cart with freshly cleaned practice tee shirts, jerseys, pants, and socks. Each article had a uniform number marked on it. Using the team roster attached to a bulletin board, Samuel began placing the practice uniforms into each individual locker. Rodney showed him the right way to arrange things just so. The work was light and easy and Samuel was thrilled to be so close to a team. His practices would not start for another month and he had no friends on campus, other than Rodney.

He was also thrilled to be earning $7. 25 an hour and grateful to his coach for securing the job. He had no money and needed the income. All of his meals would be in the student cafeteria, but he had to purchase a service contract for his new cell phone, plus a few other incidentals. As soon as possible, he planned to start calling the two dozen aid organizations he had researched online.

After practice, he found the library, then the Wi-Fi, and he figured out the printer in a copy room. He began printing color maps of his country and those around it, and piecing together a large collage of an area roughly three hundred square miles. He pinpointed the known refugee camps and settlements within the grid. And he read, article after article, newspaper and magazine stories, and reports filed by the United Nations and an impressive group of NGOs.

With no internet service in his village, he had limited skills with his laptop, but he was learning quickly. If finding his family depended on his technical skills, he would not rest until he mastered the internet. It was a gargantuan, uphill struggle, and he had only the slightest clue of the challenge. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that he believed he would find them, somehow, some way.

At night, he covered one wall of his room with maps and made notes on them. He read online for hours. For his entire life he had heard stories of the diaspora of the South Sudanese but had never grasped the enormity of the crisis. Four million people, one third of the country’s population, had been displaced by decades of wars, with half living in camps and settlements inside the country. The surrounding countries were absorbing the other half of a massive and unmanageable overflow. There were 900, 000 in Uganda, 200, 000 in both Ethiopia and Sudan, another 100, 000 in Kenya. Other South Sudanese had scattered even further from home, all in search of safety and food. Bidi Bidi, the largest settlement in Uganda, now held over 200, 000 refugees and was beyond the breaking point. The governments of these countries were doing all they could do, and appealing for international help. It was arriving, but there was too little of it.

Eighty percent of the refugees were women and children. The men were either dead or off somewhere fighting. Only Syria and Afghanistan had more refugees. One United Nations study predicted that without a meaningful peace agreement, South Sudan would soon displace more of its people than any other country.

Working late into the night, Samuel marked the location of each refugee camp, and there were dozens of them.

In some of the older settlements in Uganda and Kenya, the refugees were given small tracts of land to grow vegetables and construct shanties. Some residents had been there for years and had lost hope of returning home. Makeshift schools were being run by aid workers. In the camps, which seemed to be newer and less organized, the conditions were often far worse. Cholera outbreaks were common. There was little or no health care. The refugees lived in tents and huts and began each day with the quest for food and water.

When he was exhausted, Samuel said his prayers and asked God to save his family, whatever was left of it.

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