The second people we met when we moved to Wilmington, Delaware last Thanksgiving—an unapologetic aside: the very best thing about Thanksgiving is undoubtedly its name. Its actual story is not the one we learn, the one we learn has fetid, racist roots and many of us find the ritual collection of people who never in their lives would freely elect to gather in one place barely tolerable in a blindingly interminable way—the second people we met were Kidenne and her sons.
Kidenne introduced herself as “Susan” because the American ear apparently has difficulty with her South Sudanese name. Marci and I have lived outside of the US and believe it is better to blunder and be laughed at trying to master someone’s real name than to ask them to make it easier for you by allowing you to rename them. And her name is not that difficult. It is pronounced, “key-Den”, which provides its own pneumonic for the English speaking ear. I spell it Kidenne because the spelling looks elegant to me and reflects the grace of her character better to my eye.
Her sons were born here. They are named James and Dean, which makes them easy for me to remember, being the age I am. I think of Marlon Brando.
It has taken us a while to find an available time for Kidenne, James and Dean to come for supper. This is because I am disabled and often too ill, Marci was injured in February and needed surgery and Kidenne is a special case of single mother. She is the first of two wives from a polygamous culture. Each wife has her own household. While there is support, her husband does not live in the house and she is responsible for operating expenses. She is mother of three, an LPN working double shifts as well as a student working on her BSN so she can qualify to enter a program training nurse-practitioners in family medicine. And that is where the conversation became seriously compelling.
Kidenne told us about a woman’s life in the South Sudan. This year makes a scant decade her country has, after 50 years of struggle, achieved a spotty peace accord with Sudan to its north. Since the mid-1950s, when Sudan became independent of a joint British/Egyptian protectorate, the southern Sudanese, a population of African tribal cultures, have been fighting the Sudanese of the north, a population of Islamic Arab tribal cultures.
The African cultures demanded independence from northern domination but achieved only a tenuous autonomy over the southern region in 2005 with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. This, though, was most hard won. It took 22 years of boiling blood and war wherein 4,000,000 people were displace and 1,500,000 people killed, a great many in horrific ways.
Full independence was not achieved until 2011 when, by terms of the Peace Agreement, a referendum voted overwhelmingly for total secession from the north. But the mainstay of the economy of South Sudan is oil, so, even today, conflict burns on between Sudan and South Sudan. In addition, there are internal conflicts in South Sudan. Some 30,000 souls have been displaced since May of this year in ongoing, regional strife.
Kidenne told us about brutal tribal rivalries. She described the facial markings, tattoos and scars, with which members of different tribes distinguish themselves to announce their affiliation. Some of these marking patterns are quite beautiful, she said, but their function is to separate peoples easily.
She spoke of Black racism as expressed in tribalism as well as in the general suspicion and rejection of people of mixed race. She outlined the frustrations created by intransigent government and by sexism deeply ingrained in the tribal world. And she spoke of her determination to get her practitioner’s degree and return to her country to open a clinic.
That reveal hit me like a bucket of cold water on a parched man. She had been speaking of South Sudan in such guardedly terrible terms, I expected her to say she wanted to get her degree and make a safe and secure life for her children in the US. When I realized I was facing not only an activist but an activist indicating a thoughtful willingness to put her body on the line, chords of praise and joy burst through my solar plexus. I could not help but smile at the gift. The human spirit will simply not be suppressed.
There are only a few problems.
There are children there, she says, who have experienced unimaginably abhorrent personal tragedies. Beyond the simple physical trauma, PTSD is rampant. Where there is relative seclusion and peace, there are no doctors, clinics, no equipment or supplies and no medicines. Lack of information about public health and sanitation marks countless souls with plagues of preventable disease. And, she said, she expects not only to be attacked for her efforts because she is a woman, she expects violence to be leveled against the physical structure of any clinic she is able to set up. And, of course, there is the threat of death. All of this is incorporated into her plan.
With significant hurdles and discouragements already lined up, it is a ten-year plan. Her return to South Sudan cannot happen until her children, 11 and 12, are grown because her sons would be in great danger there now. She will not risk her own life while her children depend upon her, and she will not risk her children’s lives at all. But she hopes that they, when they are grown, will decide to join her in bringing peace and health home.
In the meantime, she has degrees to complete. She has finance to organize. She has governmental hoops to jump through on two continents. She, at 34, is passionately determined.
As a member of the Mormon Church, she has already spoken with her Bishop about her intentions. He asked her to write a formal proposal. She is also aware of federal relief money specifically earmarked for assistance to South Sudan. She said she needed help writing proposals.
Bells chimed and doves flew. I have been active in Vietnam protests, the communities movement, two Gulf War protests, cannabis legalization and protesting big money in government. But I have never been offered the opportunity to be intimately involved in an action of such life-and-death immediacy. It was like being offered the chance to help the Freedom Riders, and I could not have resisted volunteering if I wanted to. But my resistance was not anywhere near the table. I am learning to write proposals. God bless bullet points.
If I, Kidenne, don’t do this, she asks, who will do it?
May that question thunder in every heart on the planet.