To mark World Humanitarian Day on 19 August, eight team members from the World Food Programme share their stories about working in their own countries to help end hunger. The first in the series, this is Lucy’s story from South Sudan.
Most of my life was spent in the camps, from Bombo refugee camp in Uganda to the displaced people’s camps of Khartoum. My career was not a surprise choice. My sincere belief is that emergency food is the only hope for most refugees and displaced people.
In 1998, when the war intensified in what is now South Sudan and many villages were attacked by the SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army), I spotted an ad to work with the affected communities. I applied immediately. I knew well what it was like to be homeless and starving. I got the job and started in Wau, in Bar el-Ghazal state. In those areas, the situation was so dire that dead bodies were propped upright so that they’d be counted as living; they were only buried after the morning porridge was distributed. That way the living could get the dead person’s share.
The greatest risk is entering ‘no man’s land’— where there are unknown militias, and child soldiers, where boundaries are uncertain and UN access is restricted. In 18 years of field work, my most frightening experience was being detained by a child soldier. We had missed a small village in Jonglei State in our 2003 plan, so (local authorities) forced us to stop there. They asked for the team leader, and I was taken and locked in a small hut with an armed boy some 12 years old. His gun was pointing at me — so close, it almost touched my face. He was tired, hungry and almost dozing off with his hand on the trigger. Anything could have happened. I was at his mercy for six long hours until our security officer came from Khartoum and negotiated my release.
One of my greatest rewards came from a 1999 mission to Pibor in Jonglei State when I was given the name of ‘Bolen’, a big tree that provides shelter to elders during heavy rain. Back then, I was the first female aid worker who wasn’t a khawaja (foreigner) to set foot in Pibor. Since we were receiving food from airdrops and organizing food distributions, they likened me to that big protective tree. They would sing songs about me like: “With Bolen, you are sure to see food; with Bolen on the ground, you hear our drums, our children get married, and our food tastes good”. There are many girls in Pibor between ages 8 and 14 named Lucy or Bolen!
Another big reward came two years later, also in Pibor, when I met a boy named Wad Shilling. We were distributing food when an orphan about 11 years old walked up to me and said: “I only eat hot meals when WFP food is here. After that I go back to eating lalop (wild fruits) until there’s another food airdrop.” He said he was tired of eating lalop and proposed that I take him home for a hot meal; in return, he promised to pay me back with cattle when he grew up (through the traditional cattle raiding). I couldn’t imagine that a life of cattle raiding was this young boy’s dream. I decided to help him in another way. With his uncle’s agreement and my supervisor’s permission, I took him to my duty station of Malakal. The whole village escorted him to the plane. He stayed with me in Malakal for four years attending classes, and later moved to Juba to become a businessman. Wad in turn supported his nephew, who now works for Plan International, a WFP partner, in South Sudan’s Jonglei State.
For the future, my only hope is that the South Sudanese people will accept that they are one nation and one tribe — and reduce the suffering that the people of South Sudan have faced due to tribal conflict. My leaders should work hard to develop this young nation. #ShareHumanity