Sudan, United Nations in Darfur
The Three Eyed Watchma - Diplomatic tourism: what do we ‘eat’ from it
There is a saying in Bor oral tradition, “Achin ke rec e bii e kaman”, implying that the coming of the visitor is a blessing. As small radical rats and cats in the house with my ever sipping, nibbling siblings, that proverb was my favourite, ever praying for any distant relative not to pass past our homestead. God, why don’t you send one today? And of course, s/he must be a heavy-stomached one, an idiom meaning a dignified guest so that the next worry—but what we have to eat from him—is answered.
On the other side of the coin, especially to the family leaders, the things’ owners and family budgeters, a visitor was a nuisance, and even more than this in the case of an extended family. For any new arrival, the precious ghee or butter earmarked “for Kuarkuar” ( ancestor ), a taboo for young ones to smell, leave alone, taste, would now be dished out. And automatically the cooking utensils would be substituted for more voluminous ones. Come a well-to-do visitor, of course, those small things brought along were not for the status of the grown-ups in the house.
That was one special, most called for species of a visitor to us, the household brats and rats. There was another one, not popular though, the suitor for my sisters. He would come after lunch, smart, head-high, not greeting, not grinning, not glancing, well groomed for a well broomed room. We must vacate not only the house but the entire homestead for a potential brother-in-law according to the law of our clan. So that he could have a space for breathing but also for lying to (sometimes with) his would-be wife without us, the noisy rats and nosy foxes hanging around the eaves to eavesdrop the I-love-you pleasantries of the bonding couple. In the perspectives of parents and the grown-ups, that was the kind of a god-let-him-come-again visitor, a nonsense and nuisance to us children.
Assuming Sudan being our national family, what variety of a visitor would we prefer at the moment? It’s just a question of experience between the brats and the rats of the two Sudans. Ask me not who the brats, the so-called prodigal sons who have spoiled the name of the family, and who the rats, the parasitic sons, of Sudan are. It is just a question of experience. Who are the blessing visitors and the cursing ones?
They call them visitors, is it the right term for them? In 2004 when Kofi Annan toured Darfour and Darfive (both west and south) of Sudan, we celebrated, ‘murdered’ for him white bulls (RIP) and shouted our voices void, and prayed that the fruits of his visit would be seen since he was a heavy-bellied international visitor. Yeah, he saw our Rumbek city and Nyala and compared them to Khartoum. As if only to come and take a cup of coffee, Kofi went and nothing happened. He even passed via Nairobi and promised during his tour of the UN offices at Gigiri, finding me seated at the IRIN Sudan news desk as an intern reporting about Darfur, he added his voice that since he was from there, we would be reporting good news the following days. Find out how many days have expired and how good the news has been since 2004.
After the UN big visitor, there followed the US’s, the UK’s, and every United sort of a big-bellied bull, call it bully, followed to Darfour and Darfive. Nothing happened. The second round in 2005 in the same pattern of the UN, US, UK, etc. and nothing happened. The third round in 2006 of several envoys on both Dars of Sudan and nothing happened. Now in 2007, the third round visit of another UN Big Boss, the Big One, the real Big Band, Ban Ki-moon, whose honeymoon in the world’s top office should have a big bang change in the history of Sudan, but nothing seems to happen! Now, what are we hearing after even spending his one honeymoon night in our tent hotel in Juba? Peace talks in Libya now, deployment of UN versus AU-controlled peacekeeping (I call it peace skipping) force in September. No, in October. No, in November. Or December, January…
While in Juba in August, I had wished, yet I would be whisked off with one of Juba flies from attempting, to attend his protocol officers’ committee meeting. These days the already know-it-alls do not want to listen to amateurs’ premature ideas in the development of the country. Had I attended the Key-Moon’s Receptionists conference, I would have squeezed myself into the tour-guide committee and helped design his tour routes around Juba. First, I would summon all the Senke boy cyclists who know the in-and-out of Juba slums like their own village ghettos, recall all the now redundant, abundant and abandoned former Konyo-Konyo Express drivers with their long grounded rickety Rickshaw-like 110 land rovers, and arrange the official convoy led by one special con-boy I know in Juba city.
With Gen. Sec. Key Moon and Gen. Pres. Solver in one bench-seater 110, for better view, we would steer the entourage at that presidential speed you are always scared of, just in 180 minutes over 18 kilometers from Custmoms down Nyandengdit Road, i.e. any unfinished road of the city disrupted by the reshuffling of Mama Rebecca from the Roads Ministry, down to Dengdit Road, any road under construction under the new project of Deng Athorbei in the same ministry. We would bend all weather-banned roads with Gen. Ban and all mud-dissolved roads with Gen. Solver and pull up through Kator, in circumlocutions along the river, beating around the bush around the tent hotels, through Juba Stadium down the Central Police HQRs at Juba-dit (Centre). Now we would be taking some raha with tea at Juba Raha, say hi to Tong-Tong guys with their CPA, and consult with the UN Mzee whether the second leg of the diplomatic tour would continue to the Southern part of our great city.
I bet by this time, Gen. Key-Moon would glance at his watch and ask Gen. Solver to break the tour and rush to the Grand Mausoleum for some short prayers to ask Mzee Garangdit to reveal in a dream how to miraculously take the towns to the people of Southern Sudan. It is not easy to import towns from UK, US and South Korea to South Sudan. In the prayer process, my beloved Little Doves lads and lasses, the choir which would, for that day’s purpose, is christened “Ban Key-Moon Band”. They would cry for him how ‘Garang adanna this horriyya’ through our ‘Hakuma Sudan Jedid’ in our Sudan Jedid, and how we are being robbed of it. This song, coupled with some tracks like CPA (Comprehensive Piece Agreement) and a slogan like ‘Ban Key-Moon, ban the key mood against the implementation of the CPA’, et cetera, eat extra. Yea, that could work some how. But they led him express, pressed in and impressed with posh cars, through our only half-tarmacked road in the whole of Juba, if not in the whole of Southern Sudan. Damn them, sycophants.
The very TGG or Tour-Guide-Guard guys would now be permanent agency for the rest of the diplomatic tourism including the recent one of the Mandela’s world modern magi from the west, comprising Desmond Tutu, Jimmy Carter and other oldies that went to see the Tomb. They did it in defiance of our African taboo that an old man should not attend the funeral or visit another old man’s grave, lest he might be forced to heaven or hell unprepared. By the way, who could volunteer to explain to me what they came for so that I don’t download them into my list of IDT, International Diplomatic Tourists? Somebody, please.
To conclude, I forgot one important species of African traditional visitors mentioned above. In addition to the friend of children and friend of parents, the third category of guests was now outward, not inward. This could either be a father or an elder brother. The father falls in the first category of visitors, brings along something, whereas the brother falls in the second category, of a suitor, going there to hunt for himself love and nothing else to the family. I hear our Big Dad, President Solver K. has been going out for ... no, not yet diplomatic tourism or Suitor visitor, until I am briefed later that not even a single town has trailed him upon his return from China, US or Norway. Or no way we can be convened and convinced that he is not an IDT. And there is this other Big Dad also. Mashir Bashir who roamed to Rome and met the Catholics’ Acting Jesus in the Vatican. What has become of that pill-grimage? It should be suggested that the GONU’s President’s visit is a good precedent for the GOSS President to also make it to Mecca and meet the Acting Mohammed in Kabbah. Perhaps this is how the world peace begins, who knows? Just one step, why don’t they, commanders-in-chief of the JIU (Joint Integrated Units), just make a JIT (Joint Integrated Tour) to such places in the world in a joint integrated name (jin), Bashiir or Salbashir?
But before I forget, we must eat from all these visits, be they in-coming or out-going, or else they will be labeled diplomatic tourism, some sort of personal adventure to enjoy the best cities or the worst ghettos of the world.
*John Penn de Ngong is a Sudanese journalist who has worked with various media organizations including the Sudan Mirror newspaper, Radio Nile, The Southern Eye, New Sudan Christian newspaper, and a stint as a contributor to The Africa Report. He is the author of various award winning essays as well as the author of “The Black Christs of Africa,” a poetry anthology which is soon to be published by The Blossom Street Press of the Germinal Productions Ltd at Cambridge, UK.
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