Life in the jungle, just like this life in South Sudan is about running. You just have to run, now, today and every day because your life depends on it. The jungle is not for the weak and because you are weak, you have many reasons to blame nature for being cruel.
You have reasons to curse life, to cry and to do whatever you please. You have to wipe your tears at the end of the day and run again. If you stop a little bit to rest, you will rest forever. You know what I mean; you will be eaten up.
It is morning in the African Savanna and birds are singing. Some of these birds are mourning their loved ones. Some are happy for the new day, others are singing because they have nothing better to do than to just sing. If we have the magic to understand these songs, we will most likely learn that some of the male birds have been divorced and they feel lonely, so they sing to forget everything. Don’t also forget that the economy in the jungle is bad.
You also come across other groups of birds. For these ones, they sing because they are happy. Life for them, despites its twists and turns is a gift from God and they don’t have control over it. They are just happy for the fact they are healthy and not that all is well. They are not bothered by anything. They don’t care to know who is full and who is hungry.
It is still morning and all the animals are about to begin the runs. The lion wakes up to look for food to eat. To him, he is the king and doesn’t have to worry much about food or what to eat. Kings don’t struggle when it comes to earning a living but the African Savannah is a different one. The lion must run faster or else he may go hungry.
The zebra wakes up too but for these animals, their only security from a predator like the lion is walking in groups. There is always for the animals, security in groups but there is one animal, the unlucky one and often the weakest that is going to be singled out and devoured by the hungry lion.
The group will run and will never do anything when the lion takes one of their members. They will just watch in the distance as one of their members struggles with the lion. The weaker one will cry and pray until it is gone forever. Don’t forget that the group that has escaped is safe. Some of the members of the herd will go the same but they are not so sure when that time will come. But the truth is that the time will surely come. It may not be from the lion. It could be from the river where they go to drink.
You know, the crocodile stays here and every dry season comes with a lot of reasons for the crocodile to smile because animals will come to drink. The animals may come in large numbers but not all of them will return. Some will remain there, eaten by the hungry crocodile. The African Savanna, just like the life of a common South Sudanese is a sad one.
You probably don’t know when that time will come. But you are always in line for anything. You hope, anyway, for something better but something unexpected happens, you are killed or robbed or maimed or even deprived of your basic human rights. The strong here are those with keys to the public coffers. They decide who lives and who dies and at the end of the day, they make a lot of money at the expense of the common man. I don’t think if you have learned something about the reason some lessons in the story of the African Savanna but if you don’t, the jungle was meant to be a peaceful place where animals can thrive without pushing others down but when things are bad when they are really bad, the strong will use their powers eliminate the weak.