Village memories

November 2011. Heavy traffic reverberates in my head, banksia and eucalyptus trees bend and sway. The spring air is inviting, like the sorghum harvest around the village I left twenty-five years ago. The sun soothes. I stretch in a green plastic chair on the apartment balcony.

As I gaze at skyscrapers and lofty buildings forming a horizon, mental images rewind. My thoughts return to my long-lost, long-abandoned village, Thana’tim, in it’s savannah landscape some seventy kilometres from the Nile river. Harvest is delighting all – villagers and their dogs and cats – as variety and freshness bring excitement. The air is heavy with the raw crisp smell of beans, maize, groundnuts and, of course, sorghum the main crop. Cattle moo and livestock bleat, overjoyed as harvest hay becomes abundant. I see myself herding cows and shepherding family livestock, shoeless, wearing a tiny brown sheet and holding a two-metre pine rod. My thoughts zigzag down my memory corridor – past and present collide.

Dad’s wives lived in their own compound of two or three huts standing some 200 metres apart and in a row. A fifth compound included a luak. The buildings were dad’s pride, the product of his sweat and blood. Luaks, doom-shape cattle houses some twenty to thirty metres wide were, perhaps Dinka’s latest innovation. Often built using acacia tree poles and sticks, then thatched with savannah grass. In the wet season, cattle and other livestock sheltered inside, tethered to thick wooden pegs anchored into the ground. Safe from the lions, hyenas and leopards that roamed villages by night, scavenging, and hunting stray animals. By day, these predators hid in tall savannah grass. All hell breaking loose when encountered. Village men, armed with spears, often triumphed.

Each morning, my younger brothers; Gak and Dau and I collected, dried and heaved cow dung. Set alight to smoulder, the smoke suffocating flies to the comfort of our cows, goats and sheep. At nightfall, mum burnt leaves of lang (a bitter tree) to repel mosquitoes in our grass-thatched and mud-walled hut. Mum narrated to us folklores.

‘You’ll herd the cattle. Cattle are us, and we’re cattle sons.’ I obeyed dad’s cattle-driven mantras. All Dinka sons were schooled in cattle herding. For a Dinka man, cows defined life and existence. You did not object to dad’s pronouncements. Time and again, he roared and was quick to grasp a cane. His presence was frightening, and bone-cracking.

I was in a state of euphoria, consumed by burning sweet-bitter longing when my door bell sounded. I went to the door. ‘Hi Mabior.’ ‘Hey Pakak.’ I opened the security door. ‘What are you doing?’ ‘Basking on the balcony. My veins are warm. It’s rejuvenating.’ Pakak laughed and joined me on the balcony. ‘Dan Murphy?’ ‘Sounds good. Ajak and Garang may be here.’ Saturday typified our inner-circle socialisation. We walked downstairs to my black Holden Astra. Half-an-hour later, we were back in our apartment. As evening approached, beer bottles ran dry as the barbecue sizzled. Our memories flowed. My mind travelled to Pinyudu, the godforsaken camp of nostalgia and death. My home vividly resurfaced, a savannah of black clay soil with a few, widely-spaced trees as if a bulldozer had stripped it of its vegetation. Later, our voices grew quieter. Heads slowly rocked back. Silence echoed in the surrounding trees.

In the dead of that night, I again saw myself following my cows, herding them to green pasture, singing up-lifting songs of pride and social hierarchy. Dad was an enthusiast, passionate, pastoralist and a devotee of sorghum production sufficient for his extended family and to trade. His village title, the ‘epitome of hard work’ was perhaps his saving grace. He didn’t mince words when expressing his thoughts – a regime defined by sweat and blood.

In summer, as dryness raged, large cracks in the clay soil swallowed savannah grass. Grass-thatched huts appeared like anthills in the shimmering waves of heat. Cracks swallowed the legs of brown antelope stampeding through villages, as they migrated to the Nile wetlands – delighting hawks and vultures. My siblings and I played in the moon’s light. We rejoiced as stars shone in the crystal clear sky. Touch-and-run games and rope-skipping in barren farmlands soothed our hearts. Fear of lions, hyenas and leopards no longer lingered in our minds. People would prey upon them, rather than they on people. However, snakes laid ambushes in these cracks. I hated snakes. A sighting provoked a must-win war. The village boys had no mercy on these deadly creatures. We knew people who had died from snake bites. The snakes knew we were merciless. They were creatures to be exterminated – they were cursed.

As the plip-plop of rain began, vegetation, including savannah grass sprang up. Snakes scrawled from their summer niches. Frogs lived on the edge, limiting their excitement as they could. Scorpions and spiders were on the move too. Nights loomed scary as darkness thickened. White pelicans, hamerkops, African fish eagles, marabou stocks, guineafowl, and bulbuls arrived flocking, singing and chirping. The floods had come, bring with them insects and mudfish.

Distant sounds of mortars pounding pestles as village women crushed sorghum grain, accompanied their singing of traditional choruses in alternating tunes. The smell of excitement was in the air as seeds of hope were planted. They fetched water in the backyard pool and curly smoke later rose above huts.