Read Online What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng by Dave Eggers - Free Book Online Page B
Book: What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng by Dave Eggers
Read Free Book Online
Authors: Dave Eggers
Tags: United States - Emigration and immigration, United States, Refugees - United States, Biographical, Deng; Valentino Achak, Refugees - Sudan, Biographical fiction, Fiction, Literary, Sudan, Sudanese, Historical fiction, Sudan - Emigration and immigration, General, Refugees, Sudan - History - Civil War; 1983-2005, Sudanese - United States
Ads: Link
placed for knowing what happened inside the hut. I could see nothing untoward from my bough, but I could hear them talking, could see occasional flashes as the sun found its way through their thatched roof, catching the reflection of their earrings or bracelets, sending light into their mirror and back out to the unrelenting dust of the village.
V.
TV Boy, there was life in these villages! There is life! This was a settlement of about fifteen thousand souls, though it wouldn’t look like it to you. If you saw pictures of this village, pictures taken from a plane passing overhead, you would gasp at the seeming dearth of movement, of human settlements. Much of the land is scorched, but southern Sudan is no limitless desert. This is a land of forests and jungles, of rivers and swamps, of hundreds of tribes, thousands of clans, millions of people.
As I lie here, I realize that the tape over my mouth is loosening. The saliva from my mouth and the perspiration on my face has softened the tape’s grip. I begin to accelerate the process, exercising my lips and spreading saliva liberally. The tape continues to break away from my skin. You, TV Boy, see none of this. You seem unaware that there is a bound and gagged man on the floor, and that you are watching television in this man’s home. But we adapt, all of us, to the most absurd situations.
I know everything one can know about the wasting of youth, about the ways boys can be used. Of those boys with whom I walked, about half became soldiers eventually. And were they all willing? Only a few. They were twelve, thirteen years old, little more, when they were conscripted. We were all used, in different ways. We were used for war, we were used to garner food and the sympathy of the humanitarian-aid organizations. Even when we were going to school, we were being used. It has happened before and has happened in Uganda, in Sierra Leone. Rebels use refugees to attract aid, to create the appearance that what is happening is as simple as twenty thousand lost souls seeking food and shelter while a war plays out at home. But just a few miles away from our civilian camp, the SPLA had their own base, where they trained and planned, and there was a steady pipeline of supplies and recruits that traveled between the two camps. Aid bait , we were sometimes called. Twenty thousand unaccompanied boys in the middle of the desert: it is not difficult to see the appeal to the UN, to Save the Children and the Lutheran World Federation. But while the humanitarian world fed us, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, the rebels who fought for the Dinka, were tracking each of us, waiting until we were ripe. They would take those who were old enough, those who were strong and fit and angry enough. These boys would trek over the hill to Bonga, the training camp, and that was the last we would see of them.
I almost cannot believe myself, but at this moment, I am contemplating ways that I might save you, TV Boy. I am envisioning freeing myself, and then freeing you. I could wriggle my way out of my bindings, and then convince you that being with me will serve you better than remaining with Tonya and Powder. I could sneak away with you, and we could leave Atlanta together, both of us looking for a different place. I have an idea that things might be good in Salt Lake City, or San Jose. Or perhaps we need to be away from these cities, any city. I think I am finished with cities, TV Boy, but wherever we go, I have an idea that I could take care of you. It was not so long ago that I was like you.
But first we have to leave Atlanta. You need to move far away from these people who have put you in this situation, and I need to leave what has become an untenable climate.
Things here are too tense, too political. There are eight hundred Sudanese in Atlanta, but there is no harmony. There are seven Sudanese churches, and they are being pitted against each other constantly and with increasing rancor. The
V.
TV Boy, there was life in these villages! There is life! This was a settlement of about fifteen thousand souls, though it wouldn’t look like it to you. If you saw pictures of this village, pictures taken from a plane passing overhead, you would gasp at the seeming dearth of movement, of human settlements. Much of the land is scorched, but southern Sudan is no limitless desert. This is a land of forests and jungles, of rivers and swamps, of hundreds of tribes, thousands of clans, millions of people.
As I lie here, I realize that the tape over my mouth is loosening. The saliva from my mouth and the perspiration on my face has softened the tape’s grip. I begin to accelerate the process, exercising my lips and spreading saliva liberally. The tape continues to break away from my skin. You, TV Boy, see none of this. You seem unaware that there is a bound and gagged man on the floor, and that you are watching television in this man’s home. But we adapt, all of us, to the most absurd situations.
I know everything one can know about the wasting of youth, about the ways boys can be used. Of those boys with whom I walked, about half became soldiers eventually. And were they all willing? Only a few. They were twelve, thirteen years old, little more, when they were conscripted. We were all used, in different ways. We were used for war, we were used to garner food and the sympathy of the humanitarian-aid organizations. Even when we were going to school, we were being used. It has happened before and has happened in Uganda, in Sierra Leone. Rebels use refugees to attract aid, to create the appearance that what is happening is as simple as twenty thousand lost souls seeking food and shelter while a war plays out at home. But just a few miles away from our civilian camp, the SPLA had their own base, where they trained and planned, and there was a steady pipeline of supplies and recruits that traveled between the two camps. Aid bait , we were sometimes called. Twenty thousand unaccompanied boys in the middle of the desert: it is not difficult to see the appeal to the UN, to Save the Children and the Lutheran World Federation. But while the humanitarian world fed us, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, the rebels who fought for the Dinka, were tracking each of us, waiting until we were ripe. They would take those who were old enough, those who were strong and fit and angry enough. These boys would trek over the hill to Bonga, the training camp, and that was the last we would see of them.
I almost cannot believe myself, but at this moment, I am contemplating ways that I might save you, TV Boy. I am envisioning freeing myself, and then freeing you. I could wriggle my way out of my bindings, and then convince you that being with me will serve you better than remaining with Tonya and Powder. I could sneak away with you, and we could leave Atlanta together, both of us looking for a different place. I have an idea that things might be good in Salt Lake City, or San Jose. Or perhaps we need to be away from these cities, any city. I think I am finished with cities, TV Boy, but wherever we go, I have an idea that I could take care of you. It was not so long ago that I was like you.
But first we have to leave Atlanta. You need to move far away from these people who have put you in this situation, and I need to leave what has become an untenable climate.
Things here are too tense, too political. There are eight hundred Sudanese in Atlanta, but there is no harmony. There are seven Sudanese churches, and they are being pitted against each other constantly and with increasing rancor. The
Similar Books
