OH, THAT’S A GOOD GIRL
There were many people on the bus to Khartoum, but I was traveling alone. The road wasn’t good and it took two days to go two hundred miles. It was a nice trip, but I was a bit tires so I would sleep sometimes. When people would take a break to pray or to eat or anything I would just go down with them for air.
I didn’t know anything about my destination, but when I arrived I felt a bit safer. It seemed like a clean city with with nice buildings, not those huts we had in Abyei. Khartoum is bigger and nicer than the South. Once I got off the bus, I asked where to find the Roman Catholic church of St. Peter and Paul. It was in Amarat, close to the airport. I went to the church and gave them the letter. They didn’t say anything. To this day I don’t know what was written in that letter. They just kept asking me about me and my faily and what happened. They said they were very sorry, and they would take me to school there. They got me money to buy some food and clothes for myself.
I met a girl from the Shilluk tribe named Angelina, and we became very good friends. She was the same age as me. I showed her where I lived, and she showed me where she lived, and then I moved and lived with her, east of the airport. They lived in a hut covered with plastic sheets and a big room built with mud and a big space outside.
Angelina was living with her family. Her father was dead and her mom was married to another man. She had younger siblings and older ones – a younger sister called Regina and four boys. I was very happy at school and with this family of nice people. I became another member of the family. They spoke a different language than me so I didn’t understand them. But Angelina knew Arabic so I could speak to her.
School was good; I was happy; the teachers loved me; it was excellent. The other students were a mix of Arabs and people from the South, but I don’t remember them. Angelina was my only friend and the only one I talked to. We wouldn’t say much. She didn’t want to sit and talk about boys, and I was very shy as well. The kids would make fun of Angelina. She would get upset and angry. Angelina is a bit tough, and sometimes she would beat other children. Sometimes when many of them would come and beat her back, I would defend her.
After school, we would work with her mom and try to make some money, and help ourselves. We would go to houses and clean and get paid a few pounds. We would brew alcohol and sell it in the home. You get a big plastic container, cut the top off, and you fill it with dates, water, yeast, and sugar. You heat it with fire, punch little holes, and let the water go into a pot underneath. You leave it for three day and it’s ready. Everyone would come drink it – Southerners, Arabs, people from Darfur. When Muslims would come, they would take it and drink it at their home. I never tried it myself, even to taste for cooking. If I wanted to know if it was strong, I would put it on a plate and light a match. If it flamed, it was good. If not, it was bad.
I was happy then. I used to talk a lot about my family, but I couldn’t find anyone to guide me to them. Part of me wanted to go back to the South and just find my brothers again or just run into my mom. I was almost eleven years old then.
I went to a government school for middle school, and to church for Christian education and to pray. I lived with Angelina’s family still. People would see me living without my family, and they wouldn’t say, “Oh, that’s a good girl.” They would look at me badly.
