Obituary - Hope drowned and dissipated in Canada

Manyok (left) and I in August 2004 at a beach in Vancouver, Canada

Photo: 

Heather Turnbull

I was off for a soccer field to shake off boredom like any other jobless young people in the dusty semi-arid Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, after fleeing war in 1991 when my village was besieged by militias loyal to Islamic Fundamentalists in Khartoum, resulting in one of the ugliest sight of mass murder of people and cattle I have ever seen. Manyok, on the other hand, was running from Ethiopia in the same year when war erupted in the country after the fall of the then Ethiopian communist ruler, Mengistu Haili Mariam who supported the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/SPLM).

It was year 2000. I returned home in the evening to find it teeming with activity and excitement. My mother and several other relatives were preparing, literally called ‘burning’ in Dinka language, cake and other delicacies suitable for a journey. Before I’d have a cup of water, one of my cousins, Manyok’s sister, Achan Biar Chagai, ecstatic, informed me that “we were going to Canada,” me, Manyok and my other cousin Ayen Ayuen Angeth, after being added to a form by her brother Angok Ayuen Angeth, who was not in Kakuma but Ifo Refugee Camp in northern Kenya at the time.

In the form, Ayen, Angok, Manyok and I have one surname, Angeth. But in reality, we’re cousins to one another. Angok and Ayen’s mother, Ayor Akec Kuai is the oldest. My father, Ngor Akec Kuai and my aunt Agotic Akec Kuai were twins. Manyok’s mother, Dhuol Akec Kuai is the youngest of the children of Nyandit (twin) Nyok, the first wife of my late grandfather Akec Kuai’s 8 wives.

Manyok, Ayen and I set out for the Ifo Refugee Camp via Nairobi. We booked a Matatu bus, filled beyond capacity, before switching to a bigger bus called Akamba en route Nairobi. As it was for many Sudanese refugees in Kenya, the police would stop us at checkpoints and ask us to TKK - Toa Kitu Kidogo, a Swahali phrase meaning "give something small." And holding him to his words, we did toa kitu kidogo to the checkpoint police. We filled his hands with lots of our homemade cake, exotic to Kenyans. He was thankful and was busy eating it on spot, enabling us to march forward unperturbed. Little did we know our cake was to be stolen while we were sleeping on the bus.

In Nairobi we spent a day or two before proceeding to the Ifo Camp. All three of us were persuaded to leave a chunk of our clothes behind, we were going to Canada, we were told. As it later emerged, there was not to be a quick exit to Canada. We spent an enduring year in the refugee camp before resettling to Canada in April 2001.

In Vancouver, Canada, we landed at the airport. We were surprised to see a placard bearing our family name, Ayuen Angeth. The four of us jumped into a taxi off to a newcomer’s place, “Welcome House” in the heart of the city’s downtown where our first introduction to Canada commenced.

Above: Ayen, Mading and Manyok and friends at African Caribbean Festival in Vancouver in 2002 (Photo: Carmen Munoz)

Based on the age in our immigration papers, Manyok was 16 and I was 13, in other words “underage.” The immigration department grouped ages accordingly. While Ayen and Angok would attend “Orientations,” Manyok and I were placed together with children. We sat on baby chairs and played with toys. I remember when this lady asked us what our hobby was and we told her “football.” She quickly blurted out “soccer.” “Football is the American game, in Canada football is soccer,” she said. First lesson learned.

A month later, we moved into a rented three-bedroom apartment: Manyok and I shared a room. School was already in session and we had to wait until September to begin. In our room, Manyok and I would play chess game till dawn. By the time we turn the lights out, we are greeted with broad daylight.

In September of 2001, Ayen, Manyok and I enrolled in high school. Angok was working. It was mandatory as new English speakers to be part of the English as Second Language program, ESL. The highest was level 5, we were all in 2.5. For four semesters, being in ESL was nagging for one, to be in ESL meant not enjoying the status of “an English speaker,” so that was a sign one is not integrated enough and I personally hated it. Manyok despised it too.

In the picture: Manyok behind our first home in Canada in 2001

When all four of us left Kenya, more or less, we were finishing primary education, and the ESL just seemed a mockery. We were taught to print alphabets and we considered it “grade one stuff.” Comprehension was the hardest in English as Second Language, otherwise most of us were done the rest and were partially assigned “normal classes.” One of those normal courses for Manyok and Ayen was “Cafeteria,” which was all about cooking. It was new for Manyok as a boy since in Dinka culture cooking is solely a mother and sister’s duty.

In Cafeteria Manyok was not doing particularly great but the teacher used to make him think otherwise. “ These Canadians, they say good job Manyok, good job Manyok, even when am not doing a good job,” he once said to us in one of our best moments as a family, trapped together. To balance the burden of one person, Ayen, a girl, having to cook all the time, we proposed for each to cook for everybody on his/her day. I had my day but my food was never eaten. One day I was outraged. I said, “You guys ask me to cook but you don’t eat my food. It’s not that I don’t cook, it’s the thought of ’Mading’ cooking that makes you refuse it..” Angok was grinning. When Ayen left for Brooks, I had no choice but to learn how to cook good in days.

At the 11th grade, 18, Manyok got disenfranchised by ESL program and sought to switch to adult high school. Eventually, he followed Ayen to the meat plant in Brooks that employs a lot of Sudanese, where he worked for about a year.

There was mounting pressure for Manyok to resume school. Relatives complained bitterly of Manyok’s withholding from school. In many respects, many of the ‘go to school campaign team’ fell out with Manyok, convinced their advices weren‘t yielding results, at least from their vantage points. Manyok often reiterated that he knew what he was doing. After Brooks, he went and live in Saskatchewan where he was finishing up high school, before he and his friends, during a hot summer’s day, August 8th, went to swim in a lake, where he drowned.

To be precise, there were three friends with him. One abstained from stepping in the river. Another was said to have gone in the shallow waters close to the banks. Manyok and another friend were in the middle of the lake, when the current slowly pulled him under. He was said to have called for help, saying “The water is too heavy for me to get out.” The friend closest to him was said to have tried helping but to no avail. The one that abstained was said to have dialled emergency but Manyok kept sinking under water, it was said. Up to now, my cousin’s body has not been found.

In the picture: Manyok in left corner, I in front and Heather Turnbull on the right corner who facilitated this group with myself in August 2004 (Photo by: unknown)

The last time I saw Manyok was in a new year’s community party where he lifted me high. He said he had been wishing to find me in the party. Manyok and I enjoyed a fun relationship. One day after his death, not known to me at the time, I called him to say one simple thing, “How are you, son of a woman?” Where I was expecting, “Get out here son of a woman,” but it was not to be. The phone rang and I said, “I want to speak to Manyok.” “Who is this,” the person on the other end said. “I want to speak to Manyok,” I repeated. “Manyok is not here,” says the person. “Where is he, is Manyok okay?” I asked. “Manyok is not okay,” I was told. “What happened to Manyok,” I inquired. “Manyok lost his life……”

Six years ago we were four, now we’re three. For Angok, the rationale for bringing us with him was so that Manyok, who is the oldest of his mother, with a twin sister, and I as the oldest of my mother was for us to take up the responsibility for our mothers and siblings.

Manyok’s mother Dhuol Akec Kuai gave birth to twins four times consecutively. In the same month where Manyok’s twin sister was married, he drowned.

Manyok was my friend and I will miss him dearly. May God rest him in peace.