Mennonite Central Committee

First Person: Parkiela John

From the May–June 2008 issue of “A Common Place”

I was about 17 when my family fled our village near Rumbek, southern Sudan, because of the war. We went north to Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. After 22 years, we traveled home because the war was over.

Life was not OK in Khartoum. We were living among our enemies. To have money for food, we made liquor out of sugar and sold it illegally. The police would arrest us, beat us and put us in prison.

I had six children while we lived in Khartoum. When the peace was signed, I decided to bring these children back to their land. They should come and know their people and their people should know them. These are their children.

Last July, we traveled back to Rumbek by bus. My brother’s four children came with us because my brother died in Khartoum.

Now that we are here, the children will learn the tradition and culture of our people, the Dinka. They will learn to raise cattle here, unlike in Khartoum, where they were far from cattle. When my daughters are married, their husbands will give us cattle according to the Dinka tradition.

My youngest daughter doesn’t even know the Dinka language, only Arabic. So that is why I brought her home.

But life is worse here now than before the war. We haven’t been able to grow crops, such as sorghum or peanuts, because the rains haven’t come. So, I catch fish in a swamp and sell them to buy food. Basic foods like sorghum cost twice as much here as they do in Khartoum.

There is no health center in our community. When my children are sick, I take them to a clinic in another village. Sometimes there is no medicine at that clinic, and I have to take them to a hospital farther away.

I haven’t enrolled my children in school yet, but I will next year. Currently, children have school outside under trees, but people are beginning to construct buildings for them.

I am glad that we came home, but the war hurt our community.

When we were here before the war, people loved each other. When the war came and people scattered, people lost their love for each other. That is what is different. It is because of poverty. If we had what we needed, we would gather together to eat in each other’s houses. But neighbors can’t share food now because there is too little. The lack of food, the poverty, means there is a lack of love.

I hope that life will change after the rain comes and we can start to grow crops again. 

Parkiela John, right, lives with her six children, her parents and other relatives in a village near the town of Rumbek, southern Sudan. MCC provided medications at a nearby clinic through a partner organization, Church Ecumenical Action in Sudan.