“They called us The Lost Boys of Sudan.”
Achol was the oldest of twelve children. His father raised cattle for a living, and his mother was a farmer. His family’s life was a typical life until civil war broke out in Sudan in 1987. Achol was only ten.
You might have heard about the Sudanese civil war that ripped through my homeland, killing 2.5 million of my countrymen. You might have read about us or seen a movie about us. We were famous for a while though we didn’t know it. They called us The Lost Boys of Sudan.
My name is Achol, and I was born in 1978 in Bor, South Sudan. I was ten years old in 1987 when civil war broke out in Sudan and decided to leave home. You might be asking yourself: why would a ten-year-old boy leave his family behind and set out on his own? But it was something that happened all the time. Young men and boys were known to leave home in search of opportunities or if there was a crisis. They would travel in packs for security, ranging in age from 7 to 17, and go to the neighbouring towns where they would stay for up to three months before going back home. On the day that I left, I had little inkling of what lay ahead of me.
We numbered in the thousands; some estimates put us at 20,000. We trekked through the wilderness. All we knew was that we needed to get to Ethiopia. One by one, the boys started to drop off. Dehydration, extreme hunger, and even wild animals that preyed upon those who were too weak to escape. Sometimes we ate mud or drank our own urine just to stay alive. It was brutal. I wanted to turn back, go home, but I was already too far out. The days bled into each other; the sun the only sign that a new day had begun.
By the time we got to Ethiopia, we had covered a distance of 1000 miles. In Panyudo, while the animals no longer hunted us, new challenges replaced the old ones. Many more boys succumbed to malaria, yellow fever, and diarrhea. I remember being sick for six months straight. The makeshift hospital had no beds, and there were severe shortages of medicine. We laid on the ground or under the trees waiting for death. Much to my amazement, I survived. Somehow my body found a way to beat whatever was ailing me. Without much food available, the boys had to figure out how to eat. There was a river next to the camp, so we made fishing hooks, then went down to the river each day to catch fish. A fish sold for around 3 cents which was just enough to buy a meal or a new shirt to replace a worn one. No fish, however, meant no food.
Some days I would sit alone with my thoughts, wondering why life was so cruel. Did my family think of me, or did they assume I was dead? Were they alive or dead? Had I made a mistake in leaving home? But being subsumed by hypotheticals was a luxury I didn’t have; it all came down to survival. For three months, we fended for ourselves, some days being fruitful, other days not. Then the UNHCR appeared almost like a dream. The aid workers put up a hospital, schools, shelter, and provided food. The security also improved, and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t worry about dying.
In 1991, our lives were upended again when Ethiopia experienced its own political crisis, which led to war. The agency workers withdrew, leaving us on our own once again. Fearing for our lives, we left the camp and ran towards home. With the heavy rains pounding the area, it took us a week to get to Pochala in South Sudan. But we were simply wandering in and out of war zones. In one place we stayed six months then fled to another where we stayed five months. When that area was captured, we fled towards Kenya. Many boys were killed in the crossfire and aerial bombardment that specifically targeted us. I didn’t know why we were being targeted. We stayed in Lokichoggio for five months then we were transferred to Kakuma in mid-1992. I had become accustomed to the idea that peace was fragile. You couldn’t bank on it because it could disappear just as quickly as you could blow out a candle.
I was now 14 years old but had grown up very quickly. I had experienced so much hardship, but life marched on and it was up to me to keep up with it. I got into farming out of necessity. I didn’t know how to farm, but my desire to do something was stronger than my fear of failure. I talked to the agency officials who ran the camp and was allocated a small plot of land where I planted collard greens and okra, which I then sold to camp residents. The food rations that were distributed to the households were not enough to meet their needs, so I had a ready market. With no formal banking system, I built a wooden savings box where I stored my money. I made about $12 a week, spending $2, and saving the rest. I also enrolled in school, so during the day I would attend my classes then after, tend to my farm. My farming business was the one good thing that came out of all the darkness I had been through.
The other good thing was in 1995 when my family arrived in Kakuma. As happy as I was to be reunited with them, I was saddened to learn that four of my sisters had since died. They had been killed in the civil war in 1991. My family stayed in the camp until 1999 then returned to South Sudan. I stayed behind because I was in school and finishing that was very important to me. I knew I would miss them, but it was enough to know that they were alive. Farming attracted a lot of entrants and with time became competitive. There was a common well where we sourced our water. Many times, when I would go after school, I would find the water had run out. My crops suffered, as did my income, now earning just $5.60 a week, less than half of what I was earning before. But I had to keep going. This business is what kept me in school, is what gave me purpose. I completed secondary school in 2004 and went full-time into farming. By then, I had saved $5,000, which I used as capital to set up a shop within the camp. Business was good until 2008 when repatriation of South Sudanese refugees began. Peace, at last, had come to our homeland. Many of these refugees were my customers, so when they left, the farm and shop folded. A part of me was excited about the future that South Sudan held for us. My countrymen who had fled to all corners of the world were returning to be part of this new country; to help rebuild and restore it.
But I decided to stay in Kakuma rather than return home. I had made something of my life in the camp and was not ready to abandon it just yet. I had also met a lovely lady and our plans to marry were moving ahead. My parents and brothers were living in Bor at the time, so I left the work of dowry negotiations to them. They delivered sixty cows to my wife’s family thus cementing our union. I finally had the companionship I had desired, no longer the little lost boy of Sudan.
I sometimes wondered if I should go home, but like all the times before, peace didn’t last. By 2013, the unity government was unraveling. My father was killed that year as violence again erupted. I was relieved to be safe in the camp with my wife.
I enrolled in a course in pharmacy that was offered by the IRC. It was a six-month course which kept me busy and engaged my mind. Later in 2015, I saw a job advertisement for a South Sudanese interpreter to work with the UNHCR. I applied for the position and got it. Now, five years on, I’m still working as an interpreter and am the proud father of three children. I earn $60 a month, which is not a lot of money, but we make it work.
At 41 years of age, I have been living as a refugee for 29 years. Kakuma is my home. Though life in the camp is chockful of challenges, at least there is peace. Here, my children, who are in Class 5, 3, and 1, can go to school which is much more than I had when I was their age. I worry though about their future: how they will be able to advance themselves academically because I don’t make a lot of money? There are not too many opportunities for professional growth here in the camp. Unless I get into some other business, I have to contend with my meagre salary for now. I don’t have a bank account, so I use my M-PESA account to buy food and general supplies. When I first learned to use it, I felt how incredibly empowering technology could be. I thought back to my wooden savings box and how much life had changed since then.
The schools have closed now because of the pandemic, so my children are at home with their mother. They enjoy going to school, and the boredom at home is wearing on them. If they were in South Sudan, perhaps they would visit their grandmother or cousins like children often do. They don’t have a good opinion of their homeland, a fact that saddens me. I wonder how much South Sudan has changed since I was last there as a boy. I talk to my mother and brothers every chance I get, though not as frequently as I would like. I cling on to life as hard as I can though there are many times I have wanted to give up. I made it somehow, and as long as there is life in me, then I shall do my best to live it.