|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
Hard life with hope
special to Called and Sent
By Micah Albert PHOTOS
Before the boys take the cows out to graze, they rub the powdery ash on themselves and the cows for protection from the unrelenting sun, 125-degree heat and the incessant tsetse flies. By 8:30 a.m. the sea of cattle begins flowing out of camp.
Maluk and five others in the Dinka tribe shoulder their AK-47s as they head out in search of grass for the cattle to graze on. As the temperature continues to climb, they stay on alert for anyone who might steal the cows. Three weeks ago three other boys were killed trying to protect the cattle from thieves.
Maluk and the others are greeted by the boys at the camp who spent their day caring for calves or taking milk to families in neighboring villages. Maluk finally lets his guard down and hangs up his AK-47. As he heads to a water hole to cool off, Maluk and the others are followed by half a dozen younger boys who admire them for their courage.
War continues to rage in the Darfur province in the north, but the southern Sudanese refugees are beginning to make their way back to their homeland after a peace agreement was reached in January 2005.
The war has left an educational void two generations deep in the Dinka tribe. Relief aid has focused on supplying basic needs for survival, but there has been no opportunity for children to get an education. Children are hungry for
knowledge. They practice math by smoothing out the dirt and writing out math equations on the ground with their fingers.
Maluk says he "hopes to one day go to school." But for now, he rises each morning and begins his daily routine at the camp, as he has for years. He and rest of his tribe are excited about living without war, and this gives them hope.
special to Called and Sent
A hard life with hope
Empowering Lives helps kids recover from civil war
 |
|
Micah Albert photo Dinka children practice their math in the dirt in a cattle camp in Sudan. Civil war in Sudan has decimated the education system, leaving thousands of children with no formal schooling options. |
KOLMEREK, Sudan -- Every morning, 18-year-old Paul Maluk wakes up under a cow skin he uses as a blanket.
He is surrounded by thousands of towering horns, mounds of burning cow dung and the overwhelming sound of cattle. At 7 a.m. the temperature is already 97 degrees; the air is filled with hot, suffocating ash. Maluk and 80 other boys at a cattle camp in southern Sudan near the Ethiopian border begin the day's routine by collecting, spreading and burning cow dung.
Before the boys take the cows out to graze, they rub the powdery ash on themselves and the cows for protection from the unrelenting sun, 125-degree heat and the incessant tsetse flies. By 8:30 a.m. the sea of cattle begins flowing out of camp.
Maluk and five others in the Dinka tribe shoulder their AK-47s as they head out in search of grass for the cattle to graze on. As the temperature continues to climb, they stay on alert for anyone who might steal the cows. Three weeks ago three other boys were killed trying to protect the cattle from thieves.
After walking for miles and guarding the cattle, Maluk and the others head back to the camp. There was no trouble this day. The cows pour into the dirt camp by sunset and systematically make their way back to the same wooden peg in the ground where they were tethered the night before.
Maluk and the others are greeted by the boys at the camp who spent their day caring for calves or taking milk to families in neighboring villages. Maluk finally lets his guard down and hangs up his AK-47. As he heads to a water hole to cool off, Maluk and the others are followed by half a dozen younger boys who admire them for their courage.
After a dinner of milk, rice and beans, the best part of the day begins. Under the stars, the sound of laughter, drums and music fills the camp.
The largest tribe in the country, the Dinka number several million. They are a pastoral people, and cattle represent their monetary system. The camps are the hubs of Dinka society, a place to reinforce cultural traits and pass down traditions from one generation to the next.
Laughter and music have not always been an aspect of the camps. When the last civil war broke out in 1984, the camps became a safe haven for children fleeing the war. The children disappeared among the thousands of cattle, surviving for months, even years.
Camps of boys and cattle became targets of the northern government of Sudan. Many camps were destroyed and thousands of children were killed in the 21 years of civil war that ended in 2005. More than two million people were killed and four million displaced in what the United Nations described as "the worst humanitarian crisis in the world."
War continues to rage in the Darfur province in the north, but the southern Sudanese refugees are beginning to make their way back to their homeland after a peace agreement was reached in January 2005.
Two years after the peace agreement, recovery from the war in southern Sudan is slow. There is a lack of infrastructure, medical facilities and clean water, and gas is $8 a gallon. Recently, Empowering Lives International, a ministry in California, began helping youths like Maluk and his friends. ELI is providing education to more than 120 children and supporting more than 24 orphans.
The war has left an educational void two generations deep in the Dinka tribe. Relief aid has focused on supplying basic needs for survival, but there has been no opportunity for children to get an education. Children are hungry for
knowledge. They practice math by smoothing out the dirt and writing out math equations on the ground with their fingers.
Maluk says he "hopes to one day go to school." But for now, he rises each morning and begins his daily routine at the camp, as he has for years. He and rest of his tribe are excited about living without war, and this gives them hope.
There is a confidence that despite the enormous challenges the Dinka face, Maluk and other Sudanese like him will move forward with certainty in a new era of Sudan.
Born and raised in California, Micah Albert has covered Sudanese IDP & refugee camps, HIV awareness in Kenya, active war zones in Sudan, and the volatile Kivu region of DR Congo. His work has been internationally recognized and award-winning. His honors including recognition from BBC News for his coverage of Southern Sudan.