I am a 28-year-old African, particularly South Sudanese, woman currently residing in Nashville Tennessee. In the process of graduating at Tennessee State University in the field of Human Resource Management.
This is my second year in the USA where I came in as a transfer student from Uganda. Since my country has always known wars after wars even before it became South Sudan, many of us have lived as refugees in different countries within Africa and even outside the continent. I am a South Sudanese that grew up in one of the refugee camps in Uganda, in the camp of Alere 1 cluster I in Adropi sub-county in Adjumani district, Uganda Africa. There was war back home in my country which was not the first, so the people of my country had to flee for their dear lives and though some did not make it, those that made it took refuge in the countries such as Egypt, Kenya, Congo and Uganda. And though some were able to escape from their country, most families did not make it as a whole. Some family members died on their way others just got missing and others especially the men remained to join the rebel group which later became the army.
So, my family took refugee in one of the camps in Uganda and that’s where my entire life has been. The refugee camp called Alere one in Adjumani district was fairly good because the citizens of that area were Ma’di people and we were Ma’di, too. I was almost two at the time. My mother joined later with me but at first, only my two sisters were the ones that came to Uganda. My mom had remained in Sudan (before it became South Sudan). My sisters managed to escape, but my mom couldn’t at first but later made it with me. My Dad did not because he remained in the army and my other sister’s where about was never known until 2009 when we got to hear from her. It would be so long to write the details of how life is in the camps and how my family survived each day, but I can say by the grace of God, I have managed to come this far. By the time I was ten years old I learnt a lot about immigration. I learnt that I originally was from South Sudan, a neighboring country of Uganda where we took refuge.
I never got the opportunity to join school until I was twelve years old.
As I was growing up, schools were not so many and with very poor conditions and a very few qualified teachers. Most of these teachers were just parents that wished the kids and youths are able to get some education but they themselves never really had the qualifications of being teachers since most were not professionals or school dropouts. There was no single university in the district and up to now there is no single one in the area. Children had and still have no role models to which they can look up to, most parents are uneducated so life of education was foreign to most children. The education system in Uganda is not the very best especially the ones in the camps but I guess being the last born to my mom gave me an advantage.
At a very young age I had to learn how to do everything too, so that we were all able to survive. My mom really struggled to give us a meal each day by working in the Ugandan citizens’ farms, brewing of local alcohol, and a lot much more. My big sisters never left her to suffer alone, they moved distances on foot to do barter trade, fetched firewood and grass and sold them to be able to get school fees. My sisters, due to the hardships faced, were not able to complete their high school. It became very hard to afford school, but their dropping out didn’t stop me because my sisters did everything they could to ensure I studied. They sent me to study in Kampala (the capital city of Uganda). While in the camps in Uganda, I was in primary four grade and the year I left I was to join primary five grade, but because of the poor standards back in the camps, as I joined Kampala, I was taken back to primary two. It was really bad because I only knew one English word which was ‘YES’ even when it is the official language, which is why I am still in a degree level even when I am 28.
When I came to Kampala I saw a different life, and realized my life and that of my family would be better if only someone studied, and now that someone had to be me.
Many things changed in our lives especially my family, because we did not have our dad around, my other sister went missing, life became very hard. And since my mother was very poor, my sisters had to drop out of school. I so badly wanted to change our condition, wanted to give my mom hope. I wanted to live the kind of lives my mates were living, so I endured all the bullying, name calling and a lot from the town kids, lost all self-esteem but I never gave up.
(I didn’t mean to put this here but whoever gets to read this, please if you ever have a chance to raise a child, talk to them against bullying, this thing made me lose self-esteem so bad that it is something I still struggle with even today).
To cut the whole thing short on the role played in my education, I can say my mom and sisters have sacrificed all they had to for me to be where I am today. My mom has never been to school, but that lady is the real hero for me. As I mentioned earlier, my earliest education memories weren’t the best, but still there was fun. Since there was nothing like technology whatsoever in the camps during my time, we had a lot of funny activities to do during breaks which was interesting and also one, kept me out of trouble, two, it helped me forget whatever was going on.
One thing you should all know is in the community where I come from, child disciplining was not only for the parents but everyone in the community, which included teachers but for some reasons I feel they took it too far. However much I tried to keep out of troubles, I got so many canes/whooping from school for late payments of school fees which was equivalent to less than a dollar. That was money my family could not even have in months, and I also got so many canes for failing to trim my hair since my mom and sisters were always busy, sometimes they could get back home late in the night and it would be dark to cut my hair or sometimes we never even had the razor/ a pair of scissors to use. But I was so good in most games in that every time we played during breaks, everyone wanted me in their group, so that always felt so good and I enjoyed the favor, so in the camps, school was all about the fun for me.
My greatest challenge was low self-esteem. In Kampala, I was called names in school and was bullied so much just for being a little darker than everyone else. The name calling got into me so much that I felt out of place, the most ugly, unwanted. This is something that has affected me so much that even though it was in my primary school, I am still dealing with it till now. Unfortunately, even before I started school, we were neighbors with my cousins and one of them always made me feel so different for being very dark, so up to now I really find it hard to accept myself too. See life was never easy for my family, we had losses at home, my family was not just broke but very poor. We barely had food each day. Even as a child I could do heavy labor and all but that never got into me so much than bullying did. But I always kept my grades up, was very good in sports, very disciplined so which put me in the good books of teachers this helped me a little.
Mrs. Ludingo is my most influential educator, she was my primary seven Math teacher. If there was ever anybody that believed in me, it was her. I hate the fact that I don’t have her contact and don’t know her whereabouts, but this lady was God sent. She was a mother figure for me in school, advised me, encouraged me, believed in me and always defended me. I don’t know if she just loved me for no reason or she saw her young self in me, I was also good in maths and she had only girls and my mom too had only girls, which unfortunately was seen as a curse from where I came from and where she came from to0, so it was so easy for the both of us to talk freely to each other despite the age difference.
Higher education has had both negative and positive effects on me which would be too much to put here, but one thing I would like to mention here is the fact that it has made me believe in myself. Because my journey has been very tough but the fact that I have made it this far gives me hope and...
I pray it gives more hope for young girls, especially in the ones from my community that they too can make it if they persist through the thick and thin.
If I was to write a book it would be ‘SAVE A FUTURE’; because my struggles have never been easy but I keep pushing for a better tomorrow, trying to save a future for my family has been my goal. I always tell myself to keep pushing and that even if my mom, sisters and me, never get to eat the fruit of my labor at least my children or nieces and nephews will and if not them maybe someone else just by my example.
My main reason to be the first one in my family to attend college was to give a chance for a better life for my family, prove wrong all those that think girls are useless and cannot make it in life, and also for the fact that I have always had my family that will do anything to make me achieve my dreams.
As a transfer student, things have not been very easy since I had to be retaking some classes. It’s been a bit complicated that’s why haven’t graduated yet even when am done with my classes as far as I know. Right now I am working but unfortunately have not got something in my field yet or anywhere close guess with the lock down it just got worse but I pray by God’s grace I get something soon for experience and also that I may be able to start graduate school my August.
Read more about Joyce and reconnecting with her father in her narrative below.
MY FAMILY’S UNTOLD STORY
When I clocked ten years, that was the first time I saw the man I call father. Life never really was fair to my childhood. I grew up as an orphan yet was not, due to the wars that happened time and again in my country South Sudan, never had the opportunity to stay in my own country. In 1994 my family fled from South Sudan to find refuge in Uganda and so I grew up not knowing much about my country. In the refugee camps where we stayed life was a hustle and I was told that my Dad was never around because he was in the army back home and since there was no means of communication we only had to hope that he was a live. As if living without knowing my Dad was not enough, I had to grow up knowing that I was an outcast only because I was a girl, something that never was my choice or fault. And yet it was my mum that felt the most pain, as it is always with mothers feeling and worrying about what their children go through, my mum was always warried about what we were to eat, and how we were treated in the community for being girls. Hers was worse because she had to bear insults from both men and women and the stress was too much on her which forced her into becoming a drunkard, so my two elder sisters had to become our parents and when a kind uncle decided to pay for my sisters’ tuitions for primary and secondary schools I was left alone to help my mum and it caused me my education. We had to do farming for ourselves and also go do a “lejaleja” which means we had to go to someone’s farm that needed help and do whatever they wanted for a barter trade (exchange of our labor for what we needed such as salt, soap and other items that we could not get from farming). Before I was ten, I could do what adults were able to do, pain and suffering was part of life, one meal a day was a blessing.
“Nya-moi”[1], () my Dad called from the other end of the phone, “ you know that if am to narrate to you the key events in my life, you would be writing books. And I don’t want to waste your time and airtime”. There was a silence of about fifty seconds, and I said HELLO, to find out if he was still on with me. “Onata pere’to’pere,”[2] Dad sighed and continued “you know that used to be your grandma’s everyday saying,” and gave out a heavy breath and it was so heavy as if he was just next to me. I wish you had the chance of meeting her, she was a very wise woman just like your mum though they never got along but I know deep down she loved your mama and was just trying make her a strong woman. Anyways what was that your question again?” But even before I could reply him, he said, “Nothing good really other than wars both physical and emotional it’s all I have known.
“Some of the things that I went through or others that you know went through wasn’t really because of the general war that happened but some really was due to the relations that I have. But before I start with that let me start by letting you know why I joined the army. I was just a young man who loved his family but really not mature enough to handle and defend my family, your mum was going through a lot because she was bearing only girls and to make matters worse, the kids were dying one after the other.”
“Do not get me wrong because I loved my girls and wife, I never thought that it was a curse but the stress of everything going on just devastated me to the point I just had leave home because I did not know how to stand up to those making life a living hell to my wife as well I knew she was hurting and I did not want to watch her go through everything when there was nothing I could do. And now she was insisting that I married another woman that would make me a man, one who would give me boys.” Dad continued telling me everything in details. “Actually after we had lost two children, the pressure was already to much on me from both the society and your mum, and when it came to three children, I almost lost it myself so I had to give in and starting accepting the women my family brought for me but not only didn’t I love them but each one of them never loved me too, they just I guess wanted to annoy your mum maybe also because of the few cattle that I had and they wanted to make their families rich from the dowry they would get. I really was not rich but I was working as a gateman for a very big organization then and had cattle that was all. Things got worse each year, I lost everything, each woman left me just after paying their bride price and your mum left too for some time and I was left with your three sisters alone, I stared to drink and smoke like crazy, became so violent and aggressive but your mum came back because of her children and because she knew that that was not really me.” He paused, for awhile cleared his throat and went on narrating everything.
“Things became normal for a while again but still there was pressure on her for not giving birth to boys to cut the long story short, we lost five children before and one after you and I just though I was going to lose all of you but I wasn’t going to be the one burying my own children any more so I left for the army where I knew chances were that I won’t come back but even if I died your mum wouldn’t have to bury me either but God kept me a live but there was no communication and we were not being paid, I served in the army for thirty nine years before I could ever receive my first salary that was so recent when I even manage to found my way home and even when things got better first.”
At this point I couldn’t help myself from crying unstoppable and neither did my Dad at the end of the phone the other side but he never wanted me to know he was affected by the memories so he went silent for a while and here a lot was running through my mind, questions that I couldn’t answer as well as answers to some questions I never asked. The scares and the wounds that I thought were healing all opened up again, the sufferings and pains I went through, I was back at it but this time worse because am just imaging what my family went through even before I was born, how my existence alone was both a blessing and a curse to my parents, a blessing because at least I survived death when everyone thought I wouldn’t, I mean apart from our first born the other four who died were my sisters all before me, our second, third, and fourth are survivors like me but between the fourth and me all died, yet my never gave up still tried in search of a boy, a curse because I was a girl once again, a pain and reason for more torture to my parents from everyone around them. “Did you say it’s an assignment about events right?”
Dad broke the silence and zillions of thoughts running through my mind. I couldn’t speak just gave out a heavy sigh and he just continued “ While about the wars and stuff, when I left for the army, your mum was chased away from my family and so when a cousin of mine came back from there USA, after finishing his studies, he preferred to go and live with your mum (he came to live with me and as your mum left he left with her), so even when he was her brother in law still she took him in as her own son. So Kenyi Martin your uncle, since also joined the army but it was safer for him since he was educated and he was a member of parliament just as you know, am sure you have learnt about him in school and all his posts and what he did for the country, he was close to most of his collogues that were Nuer, which didn’t please the Dinka people, am sure you also know the details of all that as to why the Dinkas and the Nuer people don’t get along, so again since Joseph Lagu is also a distant cousin of mine and is the one that started the ANYANYA rebellion (the first Sudanese Civil War, 1955-1972), the Madi tribe became a target and most especially my own clan because they thought Kenyi would convince all your uncles and cousins to join the army and they say am acting as a spy, yet I joined the army even when he was still in school. That’s one of the main reasons for his death, why most of your cousins were killed, why am also arrested time and again and why there is always attack on us. Now what hurts me most is that your mum’s clan mates are also suffering because my brother lived in their land and also most my nephews and cousins suffer and die for what they don’t know about. So if am to talk of all the events in my life, they have been events of war, either physical or emotional but nothing I could brag about.”
I couldn’t tell what or how I was feeling, just sat there on my bed for so long even when we finished our call. “ udu alu, ke’eyi’ ni me igni”( it takes only one frog to mess up a whole stream) this proverb came to my mind, so many of us are suffering because of just one or two relatives of which they really did not even commit a crime, I started to remember all the people that were killed, how some of my relatives were reaped, and how some went missing till now and we don’t know of their where about, life is really unfair.
But now, am even more determined than ever to change the story of my family, yes am only a girl but am going to make sure to prove everyone wrong that thought girls are useless. As the only person to have reached the leave of education that am at in right now, in my family, I will make use of education to change my family, clan, tribe and the country at large. I only wanted to stop at a bachelor level but now I am determined to even by the grace of God to get my PHD as a girl child I must be the start of change that I need to see.
[1] this is phase used for a lady from the clan of Patibi in the Ma’di tribe which I am from [2] (it’s an old Ma’di proverb whose direct translation is we have to dodge everything including locusts but the meaning is never give excuses this proverb is mostly used in my tribe because since my people have always known wars, sometimes they got comfortable and didn’t fear or tried looking for refuge in case when they heard gun shots and maybe thought could be just someone hunting but sometimes ended up being killed because they thought it was a harmless shots so this saying was simply used to say even if it was just a housefly or a stone that seems to come at you try avoiding it because you never know).