It is not an easy task to remain strong in a country where people are always in tears. On the street right now, there is a man like you talking loudly alone on how to put food on the table for his children and where to get their school fees and whoever will come across him will think he is mad. On the other side of the road, there is a widow who has put her hands on everything just to survive with her children and nothing has changed, and she is almost giving up and the children and roadside beggars who have been forced by the country’s crises to accept street as their home. When we imagine this kind of life, we get to understand that indeed our people are the strongest and most resilient people in the whole world. But sometimes, there are times when being strong bites and they feel like death is the only solution. We have always been strong from the time of liberation up to this time hoping that everything will change for the better but that was an illusion and many people today have lost hope and the reason to live.
Sometimes I wonder how people who have nothing to eat, clothes to wear and a place to sleep manage to stand tall like those who are a bit okay. Well, I don’t know what you think but I believe the reason why they are still struggling is that they have not given up hope for a better South Sudan. The fact that they are still living gives them courage and a strong belief that there is more to life than their current situation.
I know within your heart there is something that pains you and makes you feel like giving up is the only last resort but the strength you have mustered for all these years should give you the courage to sail along. We are only humans, and those feelings are common with us but as South Sudanese though our country is in crisis there are two things, we should always be thankful for “courage and strength “. We have them in abundance, but the irony is that for the most parts, we don’t believe we have them when we are the strongest people around.
I think if we have the slightest awareness of how strong we actually are we would fall over in shock. Some of us have endured the unendurable. We have survived in the face of the most awful times when it would have been better to bid the world goodbye, we have picked and braced ourselves up when it would have been so much easier and comfortable to stay down if you are still standing today. I am happy for you, and I want to let you know that you are what constitutes South Sudan. Even in the hardest times when the media concluded that it is a fragile nation. South Sudan paid deaf ears and remained strong. You are as strong as the country itself and we have to sail through no matter how slow the pace is. We have a beautiful destiny, and we have to believe no matter what happens our star will shine. The best is yet to come, and the future is bright because the fact that we are living in this moment of time is a clear justification that things will change for the better. We just have to come together though there are some differences that still exist within us, we are the ones to heal them and set our country on a new path.