every few minutes.
This time when he looked, Deng was actually coming toward them. Very tall and slim for a twelve-year-old, Deng wore khaki shorts, a plaid, short-sleeved buttoned shirt and sandals. With a backpack over one shoulder, he walked with the dignity of an important person. Ayuel’s hero. The game was forgotten as all the children stood silently watching until Deng came close enough to speak. Aleer had just made the winning point, if it counted. But no one cared to argue now that Deng was here.
“Good morning to all of you.”
With large grins, the boys answered, “Good morning, Deng Leek.”
“I don’t want to stop your game, but I need to talk to my brothers.”
“We’re competing with the other side of the village,” Tor said, another one of Ayuel’s age-mates. “I think we won, but…”
Not even the opposing team seemed to care.
Deng hugged both his brothers with an arm around each. Ayuel knew there would be gifts in the backpack. He waited politely. Deng swung the heavy pack to the ground, knelt beside it and reached into a small pocket on the side. Aleer squatted with both hands open to receive its contents—caramel candies—which he then passed around to all the boys.
“Thank you, Deng,” each one said.
“Where will I find Mother?”
“She’s hoeing sorghum,” Aleer said.
“I’ll take your bag to her tukul,” Ayuel eagerly offered. Though the backpack was heavier than he’d thought, he lifted it to one shoulder and carried it just like Deng.
Ayuel’s friends, Tor and Malual, walked beside him until they veered off to their separate homes. “See ya tomorrow,” Tor said brightly, punching Ayuel on his shoulder.
“Sure, see you then.”
Inside the circular mud and straw hut, Ayuel placed the bag reverently on a mat and dared to peek inside. Yum! Mangoes and lemons. And schoolbooks. He dared not reach in. Looking around his mother’s tukul, he noticed a rag doll and other baby things lying on a small stool. He didn’t like staying here with his mother and little sisters while Deng was away at school. Tonight the three boys would share their own hut.
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
