Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
their lowest ebb for Garang and his SPLA. The Arab army, in support of the Sudanese
government, had recaptured the city of Juba and reached the Ashua River, just twenty kilo-
metres to the north of where we now stood. 'They were broken,' said Severino, 'forced in-
to hideouts in the bush and the hills. Lots fled into Uganda. But, somehow, Garang brought
them all back together, all those ragtag soldiers from the SPLA.' It must have been a des-
perate situation. Allam had told me how his men had been so desperate and low on am-
munition that they had thrown fishing hooks into the river to slow down the advance of the
Arabs. That was back in 1993, at the height of the Second Sudanese Civil War, but some-
how, against all the odds, they pushed them back.'
Looking at it now, it was hard to believe that these tumbledown buildings had been the
epicentre of one of the civil war's most famous last stands. The hut was overgrown by
thorns, its windows smashed, reeking of the excrement of wild cats and baboons - but, in-
side, the legacy of war remained. As I ventured in, I saw bullet casings littering the floor.
On the walls, faint etchings in chalk showed the names of commanders, diagrams of tactic-
al formations, lists depicting orders of battle. As I traced my fingers along the brick, trying
to imagine what it had been like, Severino grunted and simply waited outside. He was, I
was beginning to understand, an old SPLA soldier himself, and had no desire to remember
the past.
'It must have been hell,' I said, but Boston wasn't listening. I found him lingering be-
hind a smashed brick wall, where he was considering taking a piss into John Garang's old
toilet. It was only that image that brought me back to reality. It was time to continue our
walk.
Severino left us on the seventh day. We had come through the national park, the path like
a tunnel beneath thick baobab trees with branches tangled in vines. After a time, we were
able to walk directly along the banks of the river, and I was glad of it. Severino had told us
that the area was still pockmarked with landmines, but on the riverside we would be safe.
Huge boulders dotted the banks, Nile monitors skittering away at the sound of our foot-
falls, and solitary huts made from dried grass and wattle looked like constructions from
some bygone age.
Severino had had enough, and I was not sad to see him go. There was something
resigned about him that made me think he was dangerous - here was a man who truly did
not care - and, as we watched him hitch a lift back towards Nimule, I felt a weight lif-
ted off my shoulders. There were still a hundred miles between us and Juba, and though
Boston quickly found a replacement as porter - Martin, a village pastor, agreed to help
shoulder our packs further north - the sense that I was truly alone on this trek had never
been keener. I found myself walking, for long miles, ahead of Boston and Martin. Occa-
sionally, I'd hear them having a heated theological debate, always laughing, always smil-
