Political crisis

The President of South Sudan and his Vice-President have been at loggerheads since before I arrived here.  On Sunday, things came to a head and there was an attempted military coup in Juba by supporters of the Vice-President.  The news even reached the BBC.

Monday passed without incident although people were tense, as it turned out, with good reason.  There is a barracks in the town, and they feared that there might be clashes there between the two groups.  Other than these forebodings, and a 6pm curfew, nothing happened in Nimule.

On Tuesday things were quiet during the morning.  Pastor Abdullah gave a particularly appropriate reading and soothing sermon on the subject of ‘If God is for us, who can be against’.  He said that nobody should go out of the compound.

Later I sat and taught some children in a shady spot with a sleeping three year old on my lap.  Then, when we had had enough, I carried the sleeping child to bed.  I was followed by an eight year old carrying my books and glasses.  After depositing the little one, I went back to retrieve my books and glasses from my pupil.  She was still outside.  Suddenly some teenagers ran towards me and staff started shouting in Madi.  I looked and saw tall, thin soldiers with oversized guns coming through both sets of gates.  The army is largely Dinka, who are a very different physical type from the Madi.  For the first time I saw things through their eyes.  It was sad to see how the Madi stereotype of Dinkas is being reinforced to the children at the home through nobody's fault.  My poor pupil was panicking and stumbling and had dropped my glasses.  I went back outside to get my glasses.  Then I walked behind my pupil so she could feel that there was someone safe behind her and helped her indoors. 

My first feeling was of sheer fear, but thankfully this passed really fast.  The next thought I had was a ridiculous one: ‘Thank goodness lunch has been prepared before this happened – we won’t starve!’  I think most people reacted in the same way as everyone went immediately to get their food.  As we did so, the soldiers were silently circling around outside in a very sinister fashion, checking the school buildings and church and the surrounding homes outside the compound. 

This situation carried on.  At one point, soldiers came into the home itself and checked every room, including mine.  When they came to my room they asked if I had any visitors, which seemed a strange question at the time.  Since then I have been told that the reason for the search was because they had heard that one of their opponents had escaped from Juba to Nimule and was directing operations from our immediate area.

I spent most of the time while we were inside the home telling the children stories to try to de-stress them.  To give you an idea of the length of time, we worked our way through The Princess and the Pea, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Tortoise and the Hare, Cinderella, the Three Little Pigs, The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Sleeping Beauty.

Then, as suddenly as the soldiers had arrived, they left.  The matron, who comes from Uganda, was very scathing.  She said if it happened in Uganda, the soldiers would be arrested for carrying guns into a children’s home.

Later, when the staff were eating, Pastor Abdullah told us about his experience.  He did a comic impression of a stupid Dinka who speaks very bad English and asked ignorant questions about the obvious.  He told us that the commander saw some of the older children, who are in their teens, and was amazed that they were still at the home.  The soldiers’ eyes lit up at the sight of our beautiful teenage girls.  One soldier asked if he could marry one of them.  The pastor said that if he wanted to marry one, he had to go through him and the marriage must take place at the Cornerstone church.  He was joking about it, but I doubt if it felt funny at the time.

Apart from the initial panic, the children behaved very calmly.  At morning devotions the next day, I congratulated them on their courage.  My opinion of Pastor Abdullah has also gone up.