Sometimes he visited his father’s tukul when he came home on Sundays—but never spent the night there. When he stepped outside, Ayuel could see his mother and his father’s three other wives coming in from the sorghum field. Deng and Aleer carried their mother’s hoes. The other women clumped close together talking. Ayuel stood there, hands on hips, and remembered what his half-brother Gutthier told him when Deng had been selected for the boarding school: My mother thinks it isn’t right that Deng goes off to school while my older brothers work at the cattle camps.
He’d accused Gutthier of being jealous.
“How could anyone think bad of Deng?” Gutthier had said. They never mentioned the subject again.
They both took pride in their father’s position as district commissioner, judge and main leader of Duk’s 8,000 people. Ayuel thought of his father now as he waited for his mother and brothers. The clan had built him a very fine office in the Sudanese style with a pointed thatch roof, and he served as the go-between from the Sudanese government in Khartoum to his people. Once a year, they gave him supplies to distribute: blankets, mosquito nets and food. The government in the North paid him enough money to buy cows, which represented Dinka wealth. He collected the taxes and, if there was a crime, he set up court under a large oak tree.
That night in the boys’ tukul, Ayuel and Aleer hung on every word as Deng told of his adventures. Because of his high intelligence, the government had chosen him to go away to the boarding school where he studied Arabic, mathematics and geography. Tonight, he taught them some of his new knowledge and promised to draw a map of Africa for them tomorrow in the dust. Aleer went to the Arabic school in Duk and seemed to understand all this better than Ayuel.
In the village, Deng had always been the best wrestler. Everyone admired him for it. “At school it’s a very important sport,” he said.
“Do you win all the competitions?” Ayuel wanted to know.
“Well,” he said, looking down and rearranging his crossed legs on the woven mat. “I win a lot of them. But others are very good too. Remember the wrestling match I took you to, Ayuelo?”
“Of course,” Ayuel said. “How could I forget that? You showed me some good techniques.”
The week passed quickly. Deng spent time alone with Aleer and then with Ayuel, according to the schedule of their chores. The last day of Deng’s visit, Ayuel went for a long walk with him. Before they left the hut, Deng said, “I have a present for you, Ayuelo.” Whatever it was, Ayuel knew he would treasure it.
Deng reached into his backpack and pulled out a rolled-up cloth. “Here.” He threw it at him, grinning broadly. “Just something I bought for you in Bor.”
Ayuel caught and unrolled it. “A T-shirt!”
“Not just any old T-shirt.”
Ayuel went outside to look at it more closely. “Is that a picture of Maradona?” He held it up and studied it. In the image, the famous soccer player from Argentina was kicking a soccer ball toward the goal.
“Yes, it’s Maradona. He works hard and never gives up.”
Ayuel slipped the T-shirt on over his bare chest. It hung to the bottom of his shorts. He felt proud. “I want to be just like you,” he said.
“Be the best in your generation, among your age-mates. Be a champion. Don’t ever give up,” Deng said.
Ayuel felt a little taller and held his head high. The blazing sun dropped low in the sky as the two boys walked down the dusty path that led away from the compound of tukuls. Their shadows stretched out in front of them—one longer than the other. Grasshoppers jumped from the dry grass with each step. Deng seemed to have urgency in his voice as he spoke advice to his brother. Ayuel listened and remembered. Especially his repeated words: Don’t ever give up.
The day after Deng returned to boarding school, Ayuel watched Aleer leave as part of a large group of nine to twelve-year-old boys from the village. They drove the huge herds of cattle, about one million in all, to better grazing grounds. They would be away several months. Because the long-horned animals were all important to the Dinka tribe, the boys had to protect them from lions and hyenas. Their owners drank the milk, mixed with blood siphoned from the living cows, and used the dried dung to make campfires. A man’s wealth was measured by the number of cows he owned, and a bride’s worth was calculated by how many cows she could bring to her family at marriage.
Ayuel knew that at the cattle camps the boys slept in huts, called geth, and sat around fires at night singing and telling stories. The supervising men would teach the boys Dinka ways. There would be fierce competitions: spear-throwing, wrestling and dancing. At cattle camp, a boy became a man. Ayuel could hardly wait to be old enough to take off on such important adventures. He longed to be on his own and make his own decisions.
Now with both brothers away, he was the oldest child at home and already had more responsibilities. He took over Aleer’s old job of finding new grazing each day for the three cows kept close by. Early in the morning, he helped his mother milk the cows. Then, after drinking a big jug of milk, he would be gone until late in the afternoon. He always carried a sharpened spear with him for protection and a stick to prod the animals.
Except for the large plastic bottle of water he took along, he had nothing to drink or eat until evening. Again, he must sleep in the hut with his mother and sisters. He was too young to stay alone in the boys’ hut because of the danger posed by wild animals.
Days became hotter as the rains diminished at the beginning of the month of Kol. Ayuel returned from his day’s work, tired and thirsty. He tapped his cows with his long stick to make them go into the pen of upright poles tied together. They moved sluggishly, but obediently. He closed the gate and fastened it. Milking would be done again later in the evening. The new responsibility with the cattle made him feel proud, yet he felt fearful all alone out in the pastures, especially today.
His mother was grinding grains of millet with a mortar and pestle in front of the cooking hut. He wandered over and sat in the shade of the tukul. She smiled at him and handed him a calabash gourd of water from the well. She had been waiting for him. He drank until his stomach felt tight and uncomfortable. Beans for the evening meal simmered in a pot over the charcoal fire. A ripe melon lay on a stone slab next to fresh fish ready to broil. The baby slept contentedly on a straw mat under a mimosa tree while nearby his little sister, Achol, played idly with pebbles.
“I thought I heard guns today, Mama.” Ayuel shaded his eyes and faced the huge orange ball of sun, filtered through the dust-filled air.
She pounded the grain harder. “What time was that, Ayuel?” She didn’t change expression or look at him.
“It was about noon, I think, because there weren’t any shadows.” He didn’t want to worry her, so he added, “But the guns sounded far away, and then I didn’t hear them again.” He knew something about the civil war with the North.
“Well, that is good.” She stopped pounding and looked at him with a nervous smile. “Your father will be home soon. He wants to take you into Bor sometime—to the souk, the big market. We need to buy some things, and it will be fun for you to see all the different kinds of merchants and the items they sell.”
She began pounding again, making the fine flour for bread. Ayuel watched her work. She wore a loose cotton dress that fell just below the knees. It was blue with some kind of large yellow flowers. A multicolored scarf was wrapped in a turban around her head. Even though she had given birth to five children,