First Reunion

I never imagined how it was going to be like, but I knew for sure I would be able to see my love ones for first time in 21 years! I arrived in Bor in the afternoon of September 3rd, 2008. There was great miscommunication regarding my time of arrival. My brother with a cousin came to Bor airstrip way earlier than actual time of arrival. But, I was not there so they went to Bor town. It cost them a fortune as they hired a car that went back empty, but wanted paid anyways. I think they paid something like 20 Sudanese pounds; equals to 10 US dollar. The other relative of mine, who works for ASCHOM Oil Company and drives the company’s car, came way too late to get me at the airstrip. The other relative who came at a right time arrived on a bicycle to pick me up. But there were two bags, myself and he, the cycler. And there were no commercial cars to take me from the Bor airstrip to Bor town. Fortunately, a friend I met on the plane had his agency picked him up so he offered me a ride. We were boarding at the Juba International Airport, when this friend detected that I wasn’t the usual traveler. He saw in me the expressions of one with serious business (something fundamentally profound) awaiting him in other end of the trip. This made to inquire if I were going “home?” I enthusiastically replied, “Yes!” “Bor is my home and this is my first visit since I left in 1987. I let him calculate how long it has been for me without seeing my love ones. I believe it was the difficult nature of this reality that obligated him to feel the need to help in any way he could. We drove on incredible bumpy roads into town where he instructed his driver to drop me off at my destination. My brother and the cousin who had come to the airstrip because they thought I would arrive in the morning instead of the afternoon now linger around in town. There was great anxiety and everyone that heard about me and had a cell phone kept calling each other to ask if I had finally arrived. So, as I was getting settle at the home of that relative who came to get me, my brother called. He was told I had arrived and waiting to see him. He couldn’t wait to hang up the phone! He and our cousin came running. It was so emotional meeting the two, but not as emotional as meeting the whole family the next day. They went home to convey the news while I spent the night in town in the home of my relative. On the next day, I got myself prepared as going to where my brothers and their wives live was so remote to extent that there is no clean water. I bought things to bring with me. I hired a commercial car that runs between Bor town and other nearby places. This car brought me to the residence of my relatives. Everybody was waiting by the roadside! One of my sisters (both of them are married) heard about my coming to the area and had come and was waiting with the rest. I got out and they all rushed toward me. Everyone looked completely different: I failed to recognize so many of them! As such, I broke down in tears! I always thought I knew them through my memory, but everyone’s look has changed. My sister and one brother look so sick! But the excitement on their side was too great. They all prayed and shed their tears as I was gathering myself from emotional breakdown. While they all thanked God for having kept me a live for all these years so they one day see me again, I kept wondering how God could allow this inhumane separation to happen to me, my family, and my country of birth in the first place. Why bother to make me be born into this lovely family, but not allow me to grow among them? Why make me a homeless even at times I couldn’t bear it? Were these not the people and the place you (God) intended for me, when you put me in my mother’s womb?