By Ngor Khot Garang
As I pen this letter, I want you to listen carefully and take your time. I don’t know what tomorrow holds for me. It could be the last or even the beginning of the end for me.
Don’t wonder, there are people who decide who lives and who dies here. This home sucks. Nothing works here. Everyone is dead here and all the systems are completely buried. I didn’t tell you that before.
For every kind of person, you will meet, there is a part of them that has been completely destroyed. I am not a psychic but I believe your future is something we should always pray for. I believe that you don’t need this country but it needs you.
The biggest threat is that the country is going to disappear one day. It will disappoint you little ones. Who knows perhaps, in the next 70 years, the world will wake up to a South Sudan without oil, gold and all those curses. The country is no longer working for everyone.
It is working for few people. These people have laws in their hands. They have killed thousands of people and these people who have lost their lives are considered to be the most peaceful ones. And listen, there is no difference between a dead South Sudanese and the living ones. I hate it when I scare someone, but you are soon going to be killed.
You don’t have to die physically, if you are not given a free environment to pursue your dreams. It means you are dead. When you have poor educational system, you don’t have to call yourself a living person. I don’t know how you may feel about this but everything here is a drama. The country is rich, yes, with resources that outnumbers the population but in the hands of minority. These people have been eating for a long time and they don’t get satisfied.The citizens on the other hand, have been waiting for table crumbs but they have to share this with foreigners. I don’t know how you will feel if this country were a movie.
You will really feel bad. In the movie, you will see your mother when she was a young girl sleeping with an old man to get that job she is now having. You hear of a sex for grades, that is when she was at the university. Your father, as a young man. You will see him struggling daily to pay his school fees. And you just feel sorry for them.
Hope, it is going to be a sad thriller with a sad end. Then, your tears will just fall down and wish if you were not part of this country. We have to accept the challenge and soldier on with hope but do you really believe in hope? I think not because hope has been betrayed and it is tired.
Hope here is for those with their relatives in the government but if you are just some poor lad, your hope will be embed in your ability to work hard but the problem is that hard work doesn’t pay here.
Do you know what it takes to beat the odds here? It is not something easy. Sometimes back, some people sold their goats, cattle, some parts of their lands to educate their children with hopes of good returns.
Most of these children were the brightest but in this country, the fastest don’t always win the race. These young men are now graduates without jobs.
Dear unborn children, I pray that you don’t fall into this kind of a family. It is not easy. You will hate life and if you are not strong, you will commit suicide.
As a little boy up to now, I have never known peace and happiness. Everything is struggle. If you see me, you will take me for a sick person but am not.
It is just that life is eating me daily and sun does its part. It rests on your back. The government on the other hand has a way of punishing the poor population indirectly. I don’t mean the government of this country; I am talking about the government in charge of this country.
In fact, we have two governments, the government that is eating and the one that is doing nothing for the country and her citizens. The last time they made success was when they turned their military arsenals against the poor.
That time, thousands lost their lives and it was the beginning of suffering. Sometimes this people can make you laugh out your problems. They do the opposite and when you look at their actions, something will tell you that this country needs prayers.
Few days ago, some business women were attacked and arrested for the reasons that remained unknown up to today. I was told that they were witches, so what?
These women, are just like pastors who pray for people for financial success and collect money from these people. To these pastors, anyone who gives little money in the house of God is robbing God and must pay dearly for that.
If you ransack their houses, you find that they are just poor. They live from hand to mouth. If these women had powers, they can ask their gods to bless them with riches. They could be the richest people around.
On the other hand, their customers are some desperate people around who want shortcuts to prosperity.
When you look at these people critically, you just pity them all. They are people who are trying to survive. It is just a choice. And if am not mistaken, there are people who worship these mediums to maintain their political seats.
These people are just trying to have the best of life now. Another incident of some young women who sold their bodies to earn a living touched me greatly.
I blamed the government greatly for having failed to create jobs for the younger populations. This was a result of unemployment. They need money and other basic necessities but the heaven will not bring those needs.
I don’t mean to say their choice was the right one, in fact I disagree with them for making that poor choice. But on a personal point of view, I cannot blame them a lot.
To them, this is the only way they can survive. Life is hard and it was complicated by the same man who want charged these same women for being evil. Which evil is greater than which?
When you steal millions of dollars from public coffers and push millions of people into poverty, is that not evil? Listen, evil is being practiced everywhere.
Even some beautiful students have to play around with old men to get some money to finance their studies or even support their families. All of these are just as a result of unemployment in the country.
Before you close down someone’s business, no matter how bad the business is, first think about those who were depending on that business. If indeed you are touched by these women’s nature of business, give them revolving funds to start some good businesses for themselves.
Some of these young women have ideas but they are poor. Do you know how much a hairdressers make a day; this business takes less than $2000 to start. This is the only way we can change this country.
We want the future generation to get a country not a cemetery. If you are a minister or a government official, you are not in that office to harden life for the poor, instead, you are there to fight conditions that impoverishes our masses. When you see me writing here, it is not that I know more than others. It is my duty, even with an empty stomach, I have to sacrifice myself so that the next generation can live.