CHAPTER 19

Beatrice and two other women from their village had managed to stick together and vowed to continue to do so. Three women with eight children, ages four to thirteen. They slept the first night at Rhino Camp in a field on the edge of the sprawling settlement. At dawn they began walking toward the center and soon found a food distribution point, a place where trucks rolled in with vats of warm porridge and rice. The line was long and slow-moving. The women, desperate for information, talked to other women as they waited. They learned there was an area on the far side of the settlement where aid workers from many countries operated under large tents and handed out clothing and medicine. There were a few doctors but getting to see one was difficult. James was having fevers and needed to see a doctor.

The women wanted to bathe and find better clothing. They were wearing rags, and their shoes had been abandoned days ago. After breakfast, they drifted with the crowd, past rows of flimsy dwellings, ramshackle lean-tos, and dirty tents. They noticed small fires where women were cooking and saw hundreds of teenage girls hauling water in pots on their heads. They stepped over a narrow creek choked with sewage and waste, then saw another long line and joined it. There was a food truck far ahead, and food was their priority. Their first days in Rhino Camp were spent waiting in long, slow lines for food, and sleeping on the ground with their children pulled close.

· · ·

On August 11, Samuel woke up early and wished himself a happy birthday. He was now eighteen, but he was not in a mood to celebrate. He knew that he would go through the entire day and keep his secret to himself. He said his morning prayers and ached for his mother and family.

After he showered, his phone rang and he grabbed it. Ecko Lam was calling to wish him a happy one, and they talked for half an hour. Ecko was still in South Sudan and would be returning home soon. Samuel was thrilled to learn that his coach was in Rumbek, meeting with the military, looking for Beatrice and her children. But the news was not good. According to survivors in Lotta, the people had fled in all directions. Some had been hunted down and killed by the rebels. The nearest camp was the Yusuf Batil settlement in the state of Upper Nile, a hundred miles from Lotta. There were many camps, some run by the government with basic services, others created by hungry people desperate for protection. In the government camps the refugees were registered and received better care, but it was still the old “needle in a haystack” scenario. Ecko planned to use his time gathering information and making contact with aid groups and military leaders and would report back when he returned to the States.

He wanted to know every detail of Samuel’s first days on campus, and was delighted to hear he was working and loved his job. Classes would start in two weeks and he was eager to make friends. The football players were nice enough but it wasn’t his sport. He longed to get in the gym and start practice.

When the call ended, Samuel sat on his bed and had another good cry. And he thanked God for people like Ecko Lam.

· · ·

The unquestioned leader in the clubhouse was Devon Dayton, a burly middle linebacker from Charlotte. He was loud, funny, cocky, and always carrying on some nonsense with his teammates. He was also intimidating, as were most of the large young men. Samuel had never seen so much bulk in one place.

As the locker room bustled with early morning preparations, Samuel walked through with a stack of clean towels and Devon called out, “Hey you. ” He was sitting on a bench with two other heavy linemen and seemed irritated. Almost a thousand pounds of muscle and beef.

Samuel set down the towels and walked over.

“What’s your name? ” Devon demanded.

“Samuel Sooleymon. ”

“That’s a mouthful. Too many syllables. Where you from? You talk funny. ”

“South Sudan, ” Samuel said timidly. Others had gathered around to enjoy the moment.

“Where’s that? ”

“I think it’s in Georgia, ” said another.

“Africa, ” Samuel said, waiting.

Devon said, “Well, my gym shorts were still a bit damp when I put them on this morning. You know what it’s like running around out there in wet gym shorts? ”

Samuel had watched practice for two days and knew that all gym shorts would be soaked with sweat within the hour. “Sorry, ” he said.

“Samuel Sooleymon, ” Devon repeated loudly. “Can you spell it? ”

“I can. ”

“Okay. Walk over to that chalkboard and write your name. ”

Samuel did as he was told. Devon and the others studied the name with disapproval. One of them said, “That’s pretty weird. ”

Weird? The roster was loaded with some first names that Samuel had never seen before and wasn’t sure how to pronounce.

Devon said, “We need to shorten it. How about Sam? Just plain ol’ Sam? ”

Samuel shook his head and said, “My father didn’t like Sam. ”

“I got it, ” another one said. “Let’s go with Sooley. ”

“I like that, ” Devon said. “Sooley it is, and Sooley, from now on, I prefer dry gym shorts in the morning. ”

A coach barreled through the door, screaming, and the team suddenly lost interest in changing names. They scrambled out of the locker room and when they were gone, Samuel erased his name from the board, picked up the towels, and put them on a rack. T. Ray told him to hustle up and get the bottles of cold water to the field.

Football was a strange game. Its practices were organized mayhem as a hundred players covered the practice field and did drills while half a dozen coaches yelled and blew whistles. The morning sessions were noncontact and primarily conditioning, brutal calisthenics as the sun grew hotter, and enough wind sprints to cause the heavier guys to collapse. After two hours, the players returned to the locker room, stripped, showered, and left their dirty clothes in a pile for Samuel and the other equipment managers to wash, dry, fold, and place neatly in the lockers. After a long break for lunch and rest, the players were back for an hour with their coaches—offensive linemen in one room, wide receivers in another, and so on. At three, they suited up in full gear and walked back into the sun.

Samuel and two other equipment managers tidied up the locker room, then hurried to the field to resupply the water and sports drinks.

At first, the full-contact drills were frightening, as three-hundred-pound brutes tried their best to kill one another as their coaches yelled at them to hit even harder. Indeed, the hardest hits, the bone-jarring collisions and vicious tackles, excited the coaches the most and drew the wildest cheers from the other players. Samuel was thrilled that he played basketball.

After three hours of violence, and as the players melted in the heat and humidity, the head coach finally relented and blew the last whistle. Samuel hurried to the locker room to clean up. The mood was much quieter as the players dragged themselves in, stripped, and headed for the showers. They took their time getting dressed. They would break for dinner and return for more meetings that night. Samuel was working ten-hour days and counting his money.

As he scooped up a pile of filthy practice jerseys, Devon yelled, “Hey, Sooley, over here. ”

Samuel stepped over, anticipating a gag of some variety. The team quickly bunched around Devon, who said, “Say, look, Sooley, we know it’s been a rough summer for you, and we know today is special. Since you can’t be home to celebrate, we figured we’d do it here. ”

A wall of bodies opened and Coach Lonnie Britt stepped forward with a large birthday cake, complete with candles and the words “Happy Birthday Sooley” scrawled in maroon and gray, the team colors. Like an amateur choir director, Devon waved his hands and the team sang a boisterous rendition of “Happy Birthday, ” most of them deliberately bellowing off-key.

Samuel was stunned and speechless. Devon said, “We’re glad you’re here, Sooley. We know you’re playing the wrong sport, but we love our basketball players. Most of them anyway. ”

Coach Britt handed the cake to Devon and hugged Samuel, the kid with the big smile and very sad eyes.

· · ·

Beatrice and her little gang spent the third night on the ground but under a large military-style tent with a hundred others. After two meals that day, the hunger pangs were subsiding and the children were coming to life. The future was bleak and the past too painful to dwell on, but maybe the worst was behind them.

As she huddled with James and Chol and waited for them to drift away, she knew it was the middle of August. Samuel was turning eighteen, somewhere, and she prayed for his safety.

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