Woman in Southern Sudan

WOMAN IN SOUTHERN SUDAN

In July, 1971, I began an open-ended journey, with only a fixed destination, Tanzania. After my flight from California to Europe, I was determined to travel overland, by whatever means available, which included some hitching but mainly boats, rickety trains, overcrowded buses, and exhaust-spewing lorries (trucks)—either in the cab or atop the overloaded goods the lorry was carrying. I wanted to experience Africans close-up, not viewing them from a distance or even separating myself from them with a first-class ticket. So most of the time I traveled third class, by whatever mode of transport was available. The trip had taken me south from Europe, across North Africa, then into the Middle East, before once again heading southward from Cairo toward Tanzania. By then, I’d been away for nearly two years. In April, 1973, I began what turned out to be the most difficult leg of the voyage.  

After a ten-day train trip, beginning in Khartoum and rolling south across the Sahara, I finally reached the end of the train’s line in the small town of Wau. It was just after noon on Monday, the fourth day since leaving Al Ubayyid, my previous stop. I’d heard that a lorry transported people to Juba, the capital of the southern province, my next destination, so I immediately went to the station to buy a ticket for the lorry. I learned that a lorry did, indeed, go to Juba—once a week, leaving Monday morning. Now I would have to wait in Wau for the next seven days. 

This was not upsetting—in fact, the train ride from Khartoum, indeed, my whole trip since leaving Aswan, had gone so slowly that a week here or there didn’t make much difference to me by then. I was quite happy to be stranded in Wau. All I needed was to get through Ethiopia before the rains came later in the spring, turning the roads into what people called “black cotton.” 

It was a week of delightful discoveries, meeting both Southern and Northern Sudanese and one African-American. Ernie was working off his alternative service to satisfy his conscientious objector status. He worked for Church World Service, a non-governmental organization that distributed food to various villages along the border with then-Zaire. He helped me find a place to stay—on the porch of two Northern Sudanese young men who ran a youth center.  

I spent most days sitting by the Bahr-el-Ghazal River, where I’d watch several hippos cavorting. Lined up like Radio City Music Hall Rockettes, they would submerge, then reappear, facing one direction, then repeat, facing the other direction, all in unison. Or, I’d watch three-feet-tall buzzards fight over who would win the prize piece of refuse at the local garbage dump. Or, I’d stroll through the smoky, dark market, where one day I bought a knife sheathed in a crocodile skin case, like those worn by Sudanese men on their upper arms. I enjoyed every minute of my stay in Wau. Or, Wow, as I thought of it.

Eventually, the wonderful week in Wau was over. I showed up at the station early; I didn’t want to miss the only ride to Juba that week. I gave the driver my ticket and climbed into the cab. I’d splurged on a more expensive ticket to ride inside, so that I could protect my pale skin from the broiling sun, instead of riding in the bed of the lorry with everyone else. Although the driver seemed friendly, he spoke almost no Arabic and no English at all, so we didn’t talk, gesturing instead when it was necessary. In the back sat about thirty men, women and young Sudanese boys, returning for their spring holiday, on their way to various villages that bordered the boundary between Sudan and Zaire, through the region which had recently ended the seventeen-year civil war with northern Sudan—essentially, northern Muslims versus southern Christians and animists.

We traveled on a nearly non-existent road, fording rivers, grinding over rocks, sloshing through mud, and sliding through sand. The trip was only 300 miles, but it took four days and at least forty driving hours, through a beautiful, thick jungle of mainly huge mango trees. They spread out over the road like gigantic opened umbrellas, protecting their tender fruit from the harsh sun. Now and then a family of baboons appeared, jumping up and down, shouting in objection to our disruptive presence. Wild boars, looking like undersized bears with tiny tusks growing out of the sides of their snouts, scurried across the road. Gazelles leaped through the open spaces. Behind thick foliage, colobus monkeys chattered insistently in high voices, their round eyes rimmed by a halo of white fur, long white hair draping down their black backs. Occasionally we rumbled past tiny villages, some still deserted by people who had fled during the war and others with only a few people and no stores.

From where the young boys were standing in the bed of the lorry, whenever they saw a mango tree, they would shout “Manga, manga, manga!” The driver would stop, the boys would jump down and, wielding long sticks, would beat the mango tree. Mangoes would rain down from the tree into the lorry bed. Then they would pass them out to all the people, including me. With no stores and only my small supply of bread and Laughing Cow processed cheese, mangoes were about the only thing I ate those four days. There was very little water. I learned to bathe in a half-liter of water and I drank hardly any. At night I would sleep on my grass mat beside the lorry, with the others huddled together in the bed of the truck or on mats of their own.

With the truce between Northern Sudan and the Southern Sudanese rebels recently signed, it was once again safe, at least for a while, for those who had fled to Zaire to return to their villages. All along the way I saw newly returned ex-refugees, building new mud-and-wattle, thatched-roof homes, clearing the land, and planting crops. Until their crops were harvested they were living mainly on mangoes or packages of food from relief organizations. They were poorer than any people I’d seen in Africa, not an easy comparison to make where so many were so poor. Many of the people had no clothes or wore very little. Bare breasts were common.

Once, we stopped at an opening in the mango forest to let some young boys off the back of the lorry. Several people came to watch our arrival, lined up about twenty-five feet from the lorry, staring at it and its contents, probably hoping it was a relief truck bringing them food. I got out and stood beside the truck to stretch my legs while we waited.

It was then I noticed one of the young women watching us. She must have been seventeen, or twenty at most. She was almost totally naked, clad only in a shabby gray loincloth which had probably been white at one time, wrapped around her hips, reaching not much farther than the bottom of her buttocks. Her breasts were small. Her hair was closely cropped and fit her head perfectly—very different than the cornrow braids with artificial extensions that most of the northern Sudanese women wore. Her skin was a dark chocolate, luminous and velvety. But it was her eyes that caught me—as dark and shiny as obsidian. I wondered how her eyes could look so bright after all the experiences she must have gone through. Had she fled to Zaire in fear for her life? How old was she when she left? Were her parents still living? What was the life of a refugee like in Zaire? Were there refugee camps? Dozens of questions about her life swirled in my mind.

Looking at her face, for some reason, I was so hypnotized by her simple beauty, and my thoughts of what she must have gone through as a refugee, that I couldn’t look away. She also seemed to be struck by something about me. Maybe she was wondering why a single white woman would be riding in a lorry in southern Sudan. Our eyes locked and we stared at each other, smiling, for what seemed ages. A strong urge came over me to walk across the open space and hug her, but I was too self-conscious; it didn’t seem my place to go toward her. However, after a few minutes, she came over to me and reached her arms out. I moved forward a step and we hugged. Then we stood there, holding hands, staring and smiling at each other, saying nothing as we had no common language, for a timeless moment, until the lorry was about to leave. It was as if the entire surroundings, the huts half-built, the tiny gardens, the red lorry beside me, disappeared, and only this young woman and I existed. 

That moment was one of the most powerful I’ve ever had. Maybe it’s because I’d been traveling in rickety trains and lorries for over a week, unable to speak to anyone because I didn’t know their language, and that woman came over to me when that’s exactly what I wanted her to do. She’d read my mind. It was as if we’d known each other all our lives.

In the days following, the moment haunted me. I finally realized why it was so powerful. Although I’d met dozens of people along the way on my overland journey through Africa, with whom I’d formed sweet friendships, I had felt an instant, wordless love for this young woman. It was as if I had to find the person most unlike anyone I had ever known to discover that which is alike in us, a connection of the heart.

Years after that, the memory of that young woman’s face and what she meant to me has convinced me that traveling as I had in one of the most forgotten parts of Africa provided me with one of the most valuable lessons of my life. Despite our differences, we are all alike. We all want human connections, to be accepted and cared about by others, regardless of our level of wealth, or lack of it.