Burning the Zariba (A Chapter of A Sword for the Lord) (541 hits)
Category: Quotes & StoriesRating: 1.6 on 8 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Klinge (View user info) at 2004-03-11 03:04:31 EST
His hands slit tightly against his rifle and he pointed it upwards as he had been trained. He would not have the joy of igniting the thermite, the foolish slave traders had allowed so close to their fort, but he would fire the first phosphorus grenade when the signal was given. His headset commanded him softly and he squeezed the trigger. The rifle felt good as it pushed back against him, the woosh of the launcher met his ears and his eyes followed by a brilliant arc and a plume of thick white smoke.
He cried as he watched the zariba burn. He cried tears of joy as he saw the jallaba try to escape one by one from the burning fort, and one by one he saw the jallaba's heads, or torsos or both explode in a misty spray of blood that in the night looked as black as his skin. He looked around him and saw the flames dance in the eyes of his compatriots. The white men were not crying, the white men were not smiling, but then the white men did not have the memories.
He was named monyyak at birth, as were many of the Dinka born in 1983. Man of the drought was an appropriate name, and times were hard. They watched their river shrink down, but his families cattle stayed alive. The cattle were everything to his family, and looking back now he saw that their importance had no counterpart in America. When he took a boat out for the first time on water and a storm came up, he clung to it and his hope rested with it, but the boat did not nurture him. The cattle provided everything. The milk which was used for butter and ghee, and the meat that was offered whenever a cow died or was sacrificed gave him life. The hides of the cattle warmed them and provided bedding, and the fires were made of dung. The ash from the fire offered protection for the cows from ticks and was used to decorate the warriors. Hygiene depended on the cattle as urine was used for washing and to dye the hair, and teeth cleaning was done with a paste made from the ash (that had earned laughter when explained to those not from Sudan later in life). The skins of the cattle that died made the drums, and the belts, and the ropes and the halters for the living cattle. Their bones made the tools.
His family was wealthy because his father was an elder, and so they had several cows. When many white chickens had been sacrificed and the rain still did not come, monyyak's was waiting for a sign. Aid was not coming through and many people were starving and beginning to travel to Ethiopia to live as refugees, but his family had stayed with their people at their ever drying hole, and when monyyak was two, a missionary came to visit. He told them of a different God than they had heard of and he started to teach them. When he left he left books, and those like his father who knew some English were diligent in increasing their knowledge.
The rains came and monyyak went to the homestead for the first time, for the wet season. He lived in the earthen houses with the water dripping down slightly through the grass roofs. Outside he learned to stay away from the thorn bushes but played in the shade of the palm trees. He played with the other boys in his tribe, but life went by with a rhythm of steady work. He learned of the spirits in the grassland, and he read his books, especially his Bible.
His family was close and he felt doted on less when his baby brother was born. He had an older sister nara and an older brother manute who was 5 years older than him. His older brother taught him the things he was learning from the adults sometimes, and sometimes he just tricked him. The bitter taste of the wahaqa root did not make him feel better after he fell hard trying to keep up with his brother, but the laughter when he realized it was a joke made him feel happy, especially because he knew it would be followed by real care and affection. He idolized his brother and followed him around in the bush when the work was done learning how to hunt and how to track. Manute was proud of him even if he teased him for being bookish. Monyyak suspected it was because his brother was not as good at reading and writing as he was. He had a little brother, who was named Stephen after the Bible character, who was born 3 years after him. They were his best friends and they slept together and made food together and lived a simple and happy life.
His father struggled with a transition from the old ways to the new. He especially did not accept some of the teachings regarding loving your enemies. He had always hated his enemies and felt that it was right. The family would sit around the cooking fire and the men would discuss the old ways and Jesus. They had the largest cooking fire and his relatives huts surrounded it, ringed by the cattle and the larger village. Many agreed with monyyak's father and agreed to accept some of the new ways but to keep some of the old. Monyyak read and pondered and decided that he would love his enemies.
The wasting sickness came on Manute soon after he became a man. He had gone away on a long hunt and when he returned he was not well. All of the healers did their best, but he died not long after he became sick. This hardened the heart of his father toward God, but monyyak liked to think his brother was in heaven.
As he grew older and grew stronger the period drew closer to his becoming a man. He learned the names of his ancestor's, both to honor them and to prevent intermarriage with a close relative in his region. He became uneasy as the time came closer for him to become a parapuol. He would no longer have the duties of the boys and women, milking the cows with nara, and picking up the dung for the fires. He would become a warrior, protecting the camp from its enemies and moving closer to marriage. He was not worried about the marking, where the lines would be etched into his forehead, marking him within the Dinka's as a man and as a member of his specific tribe, but he was worried about not being ready to be a warrior. He did not know how he could turn the other cheek if he was called upon to make war.
The fields were close to harvest when the raiders came. He learned later that the Umma government in Khartoum had given the Baggara nomadic cattle herders of southern Kordofan and Darfur, the muraheleen, automatic weapons. The Baggara had something the Dinka had heard about but had never seen, horses, and they came more swiftly than could be imagined. They were the newest in a long line of Muslim slave traders from northern and middle Sudan who came down south to steal cattle and take slaves. These men dressed in white robes with their rifles, riding down on their horses looked remarkably like the first men who named the land Bild al Sudan (land of the black people in Arabic). They had been using black people for slaves for centuries and now they had come to his village.
His father sent him away with Stephen and he ran swiftly to the acacia trees which provided a thick cover. He watched in horror as the warriors were caught down. His father threw a spear through one raider and gutted him like a hyena but he was cut down with automatic weapons fire. He then watched as his sister and mother were dragged out of the hut and raped. His mother cried out for his daughter. After it was over she sounded low moaning sobs. He told his brother to stay hidden, but Stephen heard the sounds, and ran towards his mother. He was taken along with his sister, while his mother was killed because she was too old to fetch a good price as a slave.
He was supposed to be initiated the next night, a knife cutting into his forehead, but the scars he received that day were much more painful, and they were invisible. He did not cry out, and he did not scream, he just became numb.
The slave traders left and did not even take all of the oxen. They moved quickly towards the railroads that would move them northward with their human cargo. He slept that night in his own bed, praying it was a dream. When he awoke, he went out to the stench of death and buried his mother and his father, with the help of those others who were out in the fields and had survived the attack. He found the spear and shield that were to be his, and he claimed his song oxen, and what remained of his families possessions. He looked at the easy to follow trail of those who took his parents, but he knew his weapons were no match for them even if he could have caught up to horses on foot.
He left with his small fortune and he headed towards Ethiopia where he sold what he had and began life at a school for displaced boys. Later he won the ultimate lottery and made it from his refugee camp to America where he met the white man who had given him the opportunity to fulfill his ultimate desire. He had been delighted to leave behind his educational opportunities and the three jobs he was working to afford them, for the chance to fulfill a promise he had made to himself almost 10 years before.
Stephen in the Bible story had prayed "Father forgive them for they know not what they do" as he was stoned to death. Monyyak did not want those men to be forgiven, he wanted to tear their white robes to shreds and send them to the hell they so richly deserved. As he watched them burn this night he was grateful to God, and grateful for the men who told him they wanted to defend his people. He felt just and right, and he felt a kinship with the men who he had trained with. The white men would soon be gone, but the Nuer would remain with him and his patrons were leaving a large weapons cache. He would train others, the cattle would once again roam the grasslands, he would find a wife and restore what was taken, and if anyone came again to take it away, he would hunt them down.
Monyyak returned to Sudan in the spring of 2004, and he had at age 21 already lived half the live of an average man there. The satellite phone he kept with him provided assurance that the men who left him there would always be available to advise if things got too difficult. He knew the government would be puzzled by the deaths of their raiders, but he knew that until the soldiers themselves came down he would be dealing with an enemy who was not nearly as well trained, or well armed, as his men were. Because the land where his people lived did not contain oil, he felt fairly certain that no one in Khartoum would send tracked vehicles, but he had new contacts in Israel and in the SPLA, and until help arrived he had some anti tank mines to make it difficult. He only prayed that they would try to firebomb civilian targets in an area patrolled by his men. The old Russian Antonov planes, creaking across the sky dropping bombs on villagers, were used to destroying them without a fight. They would not expect Dinka tribesmen to have Stinger FIM-92E surface to air missiles. They would not start counter maneuvers for a non radar lock until their planes had already been reduced to ash. The Lithuanian arms dealer would be proud to hear back of confirmed kills. With his 25 missiles he could take out most of the Sudanese air force, and the funding would be there in the United States to send more, if they got a phone call that the people who had been murdering Christians and animists in southern Sudan by targeting civilians with bombings had been sent to a fiery grave. He chuckled to himself and thought of his favorite verse.
Matthew 10:34 "Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."
User Reviews
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2004-07-21 18:18:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
""""Submitted by yidele (user info) at 2004-03-25 03:00:15 (#)
Ranking: 1
Did you know that Speedy Gonzales was a sudanese freedom fighter? I guess this explains all that "Zarriba, Zarriba!!" """""
Yeah that's funny Yidele.
Lets make some Belsen jokes eh?
Submitted by yidele (user info) at 2004-03-25 03:00:15 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Did you know that Speedy Gonzales was a sudanese freedom fighter? I guess this explains all that "Zarriba, Zarriba!!"
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2004-03-25 02:44:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by smokymtcsw (user info) at 2004-03-24 10:28:10 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/24/opinion/24KRIS.html
Submitted by smokymtcsw (user info) at 2004-03-22 10:05:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/africa/03/21/sudan.fighting.reut/index.html
They are doing it again.
Submitted by smokymtcsw (user info) at 2004-03-13 17:44:10 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Reread it and liked it again. Typo in the first sentence sucks though, especially since there are not many in the whole thing.
Submitted by bargled (user info) at 2004-03-11 23:52:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Thumbs up.
Submitted by smokymtcsw (user info) at 2004-03-11 10:03:11 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
zariba, zareba
n. protective hedge, etc., round Sudanese village; fortified camp.
http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/dictionaries/difficultwords/data/d0013777.html
Given that this is in the dictionary of difficult words maybe you should have explained it.