A Portrait of the Dinka

 

This is not a scholarly work; it is not a treatise in anthropology. This is merely my blog… so don’t let the fancy title fool you. 🙂 And you could read it as a bunch of disconnected reflections, just as you could look at a rough sketch and say it was merely black scratches on canvas. Nothing in a drawing inherently makes it an image of something else; only the intention of the artist can dictate that it forms an image, and only an observer with an eye for art can pick up its imagery. So take a little trip with me; see if you can find the intention, the theme I’m hiding in my musings.

 

The Dinka love to laugh. If you’ve ever visited them, and spoken a single word in their language, then you know what I mean; they especially love to laugh at the mispronunciation of their language, and they’ll repeat it to others or to themselves over and over (and over…) to prolong the joke. This is perhaps better than the famous cold shoulder that the French throw up at the same offense, or the patronizing or irritable response of English speakers, or the dismissal of those who speak Arabic… but it is quite annoying, unless you manage to join in the joke. They laugh as often as they give; whenever I have visited a home, the one-room hut they call a tukul, I have been offered the food they have slaved all afternoon to make, and which they barely have enough of. If three Dinka from one village visit another, the hosts will kill a goat for them; if six people make the journey, they will be fed with bull.

 

They work in groups, so they can take turns at difficult tasks – and every task is difficult in Sudan. Hear the rhythmic beat of a woman pounding sorghum, and you’ll also hear the conversation and chuckles of the others : grinding okra, carrying water from the river, stirring another pot, as she waits to be the next to raise the pole and slam it down on the grains. One man might sit in the shade of the tukul being built, telling stories as he rests; another hammers away, attaching the bamboo frame for the roof – there’s too much noise for him to hear the punch lines, but he laughs anyway; yet another straightens from plastering the walls, and wipes the sweat from his brow – then snorts in chagrin at the mud he’s left on his forehead.

 

Mud cakes their skin as well as their houses. The fabled dust of Tonj gets everywhere, gets into everything, and you either accept it or wipe down your surfaces twenty times a day. In spite of this, some Dinka wash their feet five or so times a day (if they have easy access to water); but most are easily deterred, and simply go through their day, content to be two different colours. Their lower bodies are light brown with a rust undertone – the hue that stretches as far as the eye can see during the dry season, and is thankfully covered by the richest foliage in every imaginable shade of green during the wet. Their upper bodies, on the other hand, are the intended shade: the rich black-brown of an espresso-roasted coffee bean, glossy from the oil released by the heat; or of unvarnished ebony wood that has been soaked through by a rainstorm.

 

When the Dinka sing, they beat metal pots on the ground, and their voices rise, lower, roll, sway… When the Dinka dance, it is without the sway that I know from the Caribbean; they hold their backs straight, as their legs move energetically, stamping, pounding out the beat; or they leap straight up in the air – two might face off in a circle of spectators and compete for height and endurance. When the Dinka speak, they speak softly, and will repeat as often as necessary in response to the listener’s “Eh?” but won’t raise that voice… unless they are singing, or telling one of those stories, and laughing uproariously… or unless they raise those voices in conflict.

 

The Dinka love to fight. Or so it would seem; for they do it often, for real and imagined slights. Everyone fights, whether old or young, male or female, rich or poor, heavy with child or barren. They use their fists, and rocks, and sticks, and spears, and guns, and bombs; they have not used the latter in four years or so, but the evidence of their use lives among the Dinka, overgrown by trees and vines, and blending into the land… but still there. The Dinka use their words to fight, too; if you sit outside in a quiet hour, and filter through the many sounds you hear – trucks rolling by in the distance, donkeys braying as if caught in the jaws of a lion, radios playing music in Arabic – you can also often find the sound of someone  yelling, or a child crying. As I write this, I can hear two children crying.

 

They decorate themselves with scars. When men reach adulthood, lines are drawn into their foreheads, using a knife to just break the skin. As they age, the lines fade; an old man looks as if he’s spent his lifetime frowning. The women make beautiful marks on their skin in the same way – flowers around their navels, boxes with X’s or symmetrical curlicues inside them on their chests and cheeks, soft curves fanning out from the eyes… it amuses me to think that the crow’s feet we fear in the West are ornamental in Sudan. And I’ve grown less ashamed of the many scars I have on my body; for here, everyone has scars, whether they were put there by misfortune or design.

 

But unlike me, no one has any hair. An exaggeration, I grant; but it’s quite remarkable, nonetheless. With no need to trap heat using a coat, the Dinka have been blessed with perfectly smooth skin. Barely any eyebrows; sparse underarm hair; and there’s no need to wax the legs! Even the hair on their heads doesn’t grow more than a few inches; and so, human-like, braided hair is a common augmentation to their natural beauty. And it’s quite easy to identify someone of Arab descent – just look for the full head of hair, or the thick beard. Standing out like that must have been troublesome during the civil war years; but now, it is common to see the hairy head nodding to greet the head of short hair.

 

Even without long hair or braids, Dinka women are beautiful. Flat-out gorgeous. A scout for a modelling agency could live off the fat of the land here… They are tall and willowy (as are all Dinka – even those that live well do not put on more that a little roll around the belly), with slender heads and high cheekbones; and when you get one to smile, especially the embarrassed and flattered smile of the recently-complimented, it is like the sun after a thunderstorm. And though the years and the extraordinarily hard life of a Sudanese woman can make her grow haggard far too soon, sometimes, one will retain that beauty into her old age – though the measure of old age is different in countries with shorter life expectancies. I see a parallel: colours are brighter, here. Sugar is sweeter. Water is more refreshing.

 

I often catch myself staring at the beauty that is so extraordinary in a place that is sometimes so ugly. It shows in the children, too – when they are healthy. Children aren’t very highly valued, here, and sometimes neglect robs a child of a beauty that might shine out if they were properly cared for: dressed in clean clothes, fed well, hugged more often. But though there are beautiful girls, and beautiful women, and even beautiful boys, there are no beautiful men. I have waited, sure that the day I saw a Sudanese man who had the characteristics of authentic male beauty – that day would be one I would mark as a great day. It has not come. Somewhere along the way, a switch is flipped, and the boy that I could say was truly lovely, hardens, and becomes a man. I could call their appearance strong, serious, commanding… but not handsome.  There is no loveliness about them… unless you catch them in the middle of a laugh.

 

An anthropologist might say that the Dinka laugh because their lives are hard; their only recourse is to laugh at pain, for otherwise they would always be weeping. And they may be right; as I pen these reflections, some Dinka who have been displaced by violence in a nearby town are waiting outside a shelter for food, and they are clapping and singing to entertain themselves. But this reminds me of when Paul and Silas lay in prisoner’s chains, and yet praised God – not to please themselves, but to please their God; “and the other prisoners were listening to them”.[i]  When we suffer, do we simply look for solace, or do we also take the time to bless others, and our Lord?

 

An anthropologist might say that the Dinka love to fight because that is what they know; they were born or raised in war, bred in a culture of conflict and raw survival, and they have many good reasons to be angry. And they may be right; there is still an undercurrent of hostility towards “those difficult Arabs”…and yet, all the fighting I have known in my time here has been between Dinka and Dinka. This reminds me of when Peter cut off the ear of Malchus, the servant of the high priest – he too had good reason to be angry, and to fight; but “man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires”.[ii] Jesus rebuked him, and healed Malchus – and then allowed Himself to be led away to suffer by the very man whose suffering He had just removed.

 

On the one hand, the Dinka know the good life, sing despite hardship, work together and love their neighbours, behaving just like the only Son of Man who was good. On the other hand, they disregard Him and scramble for power and self-worth, instead of looking to the True Source of each. We sway in the same manner. The old man is quick to be angry; the new creation desires the peace which passes all understanding. This theme is universal. It runs through all men, not just the Dinka. You can see it yourself, in your own back yard, if you have the eye for it.

 

Despite my opening promise, I have talked on for three pages… and yet, this was just a little trip. It was only a rough sketch. If I had the time to write, and you had the time to read, I could shade it in, add perspective and depth, paint in some colour; or you could get up, board a plane, and take a longer journey. “Take the wings of the morning… settle on the far side of the sea”,[iii] and come see the Dinka with your own eyes. Or look at the people around you. Are they just scratches on canvas? Or do you perceive the intention of the Artist… espy the evidence that there is an Artist? Can you see that we are made in His image?

 

I recently read C.S. Lewis’ autobiography, Surprised by Joy, and found that he and I have some personality traits in common. I do not boast in this, for they are bad personality traits; “bad” because God found cause to weed them out of both of us. We hate (or once hated) most to be “interfered with”; our idea of the perfect lifestyle includes much solitude, the company of books and writing, and only as much interaction with people as we intentionally sought. But you know God… He shook C.S. Lewis out of it simply by being God – so undeniable, so glorious, that His very nature demands we abandon such self-absorption. And He shook me (or is shaking me) out of it using His image-bearers, the Body of Christ.

 

Gone is my tendency to call men too arrogant, boisterous, stupid, to be worth my time… and if you met the young men in my youth group at church, saw their fire for God, heard their hilarious and fascinating conversation, and joined in their love of honest, clean fun, it would cure you too. Gone is my hatred of large groups of people, and I no longer walk with a book in hand, ready to retreat when people get too noisy, emotional, boring, intrusive… and if you sat at dinner at Suzy’s table, laughing until your sides hurt, somehow having everyone get to say everything they felt like saying without talking over each other, finishing your meal and staying in the dining room for hours after, just to talk or play cards, you would love company too. Gone is my dread of meeting and greeting new people… and if you lived here, you too would grow to love the ritual of greeting your neighbours with every question you can think of: “Are you well? What’s up? What are you saying? Are you well in body? Is your wife good? Are you children well? Are your chickens well?” All these greetings are in Dinka, of course, but I’ll only translate the first and the last: Yin apuol? Ajith apuol?

 

I tell you, God is messing with my head. The old me left to go to college and didn’t miss her beloved family at all – not till it started snowing, anyway. Now, I’m even missing the folks who come here on short-term missions trips – people I only knew for a week, for crying out loud! Three years ago, it would have taken me a week just to learn their names. And you don’t even want to know how I feel about being away from home and all my friends – pieces of my heart are in Jamaica, in the U.S., in Israel… Oh, and leaving here is a prospect I don’t even want to entertain. How can I leave Suzy, who somehow alternates between being a girlfriend and a mother to me, depending on my need? How can I leave Kate, who has taught me so much about what kind of doctor I want to be? How can I leave Hannah and Agum and Jedi, and Aman and Nichol and ka-Sabet, the sweetest, most adorable, most eager-to-love-and-be-loved children I’ve ever met? How can I leave the Dinka?

 

Pastor Matt Tague went back to California after his mission trip here, and told his congregation this story from his team’s trip: On the Sunday when they were here, we visited a leper colony, and the night before, Sabet said to Pastor Matt, “Oh, by the way, you’re preaching.”  When we got there, we were blessed by the lepers’ singing and their amazing abandon in worship to God; and then they knelt down and began to chant. Sabet leaned over to Pastor Matt and said, “Oh, by the way, they’re Catholic.” Pastor Matt says inwardly he was like, “Is there anything else you want to tell me?! Like, are they Buddhist refugees too, man? You know, I missed that day in seminary; when they were teaching Preaching to Catholic Lepers in Sudan 101, I just happened to skip class.”  But he reached out to God, and in obedience, preached on Luke 8:43-48, the healing of the woman with the issue of blood. It was amazing… I can’t even describe to you how the Holy Spirit showed up that day, in His Personhood, not just as an “influence on the gathering”. There were two preachers there, Pastor Matt, and Sabet; and Sabet didn’t just translate – the Holy Spirit through him carried the message through with just as much intensity as Pastor Matt (and it is hard to match Pastor Matt’s intensity – *whew*). That’s what it’s like being part of the Body of Christ, which surpasses all barriers of geography, standard of living, stages of life, length of time as a Christian physical health… It is a true revelation to find that I can love someone almost instantaneously, because we know the all-encompassing Love, because we both embrace the truest Lover, because we are the Bride of Christ.

 

Ted Miyake, who came here for two weeks to help Sabet and Suzy prepare to build their new clinic, preached a sermon here in the compound about the Great Romance. For all eternity, Jesus Christ will be the Lamb who was slain, and we will be the Bride He died to redeem. Can you picture it? The marriage supper of the Lamb in Revelations 19 is the culmination of the continuing tale (a contradiction in terms, I know) of God making us into a bride worthy of His hand. He would do, has done, anything for us, including imparting His own righteousness to us, and take on our sin, and our death… I was thinking: you know those love songs, where the guy (usually it’s a guy) sings about all the ridiculous things he would do for the woman – swim across the ocean, bring her the moon, save her from anything and everything, be by her side at all times…? It’s impossible for him, but we forgive him his nonsense, because he’s carried away in the reflection of the love of God, the things that Christ has already done for us… Wow.

 

So how do I respond to that, Lord? Simply to remember that this is who we are. God had to teach me that His relationship with me, the times when we are alone together, is only part of the call He has on me. Everything I do should be done to glorify Him, first; and second, everything I do ought to go towards the building up of the Body of Christ (Ephesians 4:12-13, 16). The first step for me was to begin to love His people – and I’m finally learning that it’s really not that hard. You are now part of my reason for living, par t of the reason I finally love life. Of course, it means that life is a little rougher now. I’m experiencing the agonies of loving others: feeling their pain with almost physical intensity, feeling the frustration of not being able to help some of them, missing those whom I may never see again. But I’ll end this note with the famous quote from C.S. Lewis’ The Four Loves: “The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from the dangers of love is Hell.”

A long day has passed

A hard day

and I steal away to a quiet place

No one can see me

and that’s important

and I can be alone with you

my loofah. 

 

One of God’s surprise luxuries

things I never expected to be blessed with

Here in this harsh land, where I only expected sacrifice

God has hidden for me

Suzy’s fantastic cooking

mosquito netting that feels like being swaddled in angel’s wings

all the mangas I can eat

and my loofah. 

 

To think, you grow here on a vine

I can see you scattered about, as if you weren’t a precious treasure

Why does your plant produce you?

Was it just “to gladden the heart of man”¹

like wine

and oil

and stars?

I care not why you are there

whether as the plant’s fruit or its waste

All I care is that I have you

my loofah… 

 

You’re kind of like the Word

already I am clean because of you²

And every time I have an encounter with you

I want to run and tell everyone how wonderful you are

 

how each of us should have one

To wash away the dirt we accumulate each day

living in this filthy world

To scrub away the dead skin

the old man

and reveal the new man beneath³

And man may try to make a softer, easier version

like the polyethylene ones I could buy in a store

but nothing is better at cleansing me

than God’s original design

of my loofah. 

 

And so three times a day I steal away

to a quiet place

where no one can see me

And each time I emerge refreshed

alert

strengthened

to face the challenges of new dirt

Twice I steal away with my Bible

and the third time, it is with you

my loofah. 

 

 

1 – Psalm 104:15

2 – John 15:3

3 – 2 Corinthians 5:17; Colossians 3:9-10

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every morning during wound care, a line of boys comes into the clinic. They’re all of different ages, but you couldn’t tell; unless their wounds are fresh, they’re all laughing and joking with each other, whether they’re 80 or 8. (RICHTER!!!!)  They’re funny little things, and they use the same verve that got them into trouble to carry them through it.

 

They’ve got wounds everywhere on their bodies, but it’s the expendable limbs that get hit the worst – the stuff that flails about and gets banged up, likes legs, and arms, and heads. A frequent source of fresh injuries is the bicycle; children sit on the back, and their legs dangle; soon enough a leg gets caught in the spokes, and a new boy limps into my clinic.

 

Dinka boys try not to acknowledge pain. They can’t, or their mother or father (or in fact anyone who happens to wander by) will shush them up. One of my favourites, Wur, got pushed by another playful boy into a machine for grinding groundnuts. When his mother brought him here, he was quietly holding his bloody, mangled hand. He barely winced as we cleaned and examined it. He didn’t cry until we began to amputate his finger – I guess he was hoping we could save it, and was distraught when he saw we couldn’t. But now, he greets me with a smile every day, and stalked me to church once (now I’ve just got to get him inside it). His wound is healing well, and I’m sure to say “apath apei” (“very good”) whenever I remove the bandage.

 

Once, I removed the bandage of an older boy who spoke English. As I cleaned it, I was very careful, sponging instead of scrubbing, to avoid tearing the tender new flesh. He took it as an insult, demanding why I was being so soft with him. He must have been surprised when I laughed aloud at that. If only he had seen me in Basic Training; then he would know how hard I can be on my boys.

 

Sabet’s nephew is younger than the general crew. He has Sabet’s name, and Kate and I call him “Ka-Sabet” (“ka” is a prefix for “small” in Swahili); and he’s perpetually in here. As his broken arm heals, he breaks his toe. As his broken toe heals, he tears the nail off. But he HATES the clinic. Several men have to carry him inside if he even suspects he’s getting an injection; I once followed him around for 15 minutes promising “tuom alieu” (“no injection”) when I only wanted to wipe his wound clean. He trusts me now, but I wouldn’t dream of being the one to give him an injection ever; he has, reserved just for them, the most piercing scream on the planet, in all the ages that have passed and all that will ever be. All my other boys cover the ears and giggle, and all the patients waiting outside wonder what we’re doing to the child.

 

 

 

And then, of course, there’s Superdude. For the longest time I didn’t know his name, and didn’t want to; you’ll agree that Superdude is quite apt, if you look at the picture at right. He wears a cape tied round his shoulders, and he uses a cane – it’s probably his crime-fighting weapon, and the limp is just for show. When he first gashed open his shin, he sat on the line all day, waiting his turn, even though it counted as an emergency and he could totally have been seen first. And Superdude is perpetually telling us how to dress his wound. For some time, he kept demanding an injection because he thought it would speed his recovery. Finally I stuck him with a very painful (but very effective) drug. I couldn’t help giggling as his limped away, mewling; it must be his Kryptonite.

 

You would think it would be hard to get my ka-boys to show up every single morning to have someone poke and prod at their wounds. Here’s the secret; as much as I like boys, they also like me. I smile at them, and learn their names; when I’m cleaning their wounds, I sing and talk with them, helping them with their English, and learning Dinka from them. Soon I’ll be proficient enough to discuss sports :-).  They jostle one another for the chance to have me be the one to dress them. I haven’t got them trading valuables for the privilege yet, but give me time… though I suppose I’ll need candy to accomplish that feat…

 

And none of them know that whenever they win, and I’m their wound-dresser, I’m really just looking for an excuse to lay hands on them and pray for them. Their wounds will heal without my prayers, and they’ll go back to their normal lives; but I pray that their lives will never be normal again. If you get a chance to be one of my boys, I pray that one day you’ll become one if His boys too. And so I spend the rest of the day with people of all ages, most of them pregnant women. And I wait patiently for the next morning, so again I can see, and smile at, and serve, and pray for, my rambunctious, goofy, shy, outspoken, never-seem-to-learn, always-have-learned-something-new, laughing, wonderful, hilarious boys.

 

I held a brand new baby in my arms the other night. A new life, one that God chose to give. How perfectly crafted he was – and rightly so, for his mother is beautiful. All her years, all her hard work, the nine other children she gave birth to, none of these had decreased the beauty God gave her when he created her. Her husband clearly had taste, for his other wife was similarly tall and beautiful. She spent the whole night with her “sister wife”, and I’ll never forget the look of wonder in her eyes as she watched me wash the tiny form of her stepson (stepson? Is that right?). A valuable experience for her, because in her womb another life was growing, and in a few months, it is her child that I will carefully wash.

 

We named him Zebulun, after Jacob’s 10^th son. I say “we”, but I didn’t really have any part in the naming. The team did – nine people who came on a short-term mission trip from the Rancho del Rey church in California. Their coming brought new life as well… new life to them, many of whom had never left their comfort behind. It brings a fresh spirit to you, to see more of the world that God has made, and more of the people for whom He died. You know this, if you’ve ever done it. Their coming brought new life to us, who begin to grow weary in doing good; their joy, their wide-eyed innocence, their sweetness, their willingness to do whatever the Lord says; they ministered to me, for I know that a month ago I was in their shoes, and I hope I brought a freshness to those who were here before.

 

Each member of the team gave his or her testimony in staff devotions as the week went by. And one by one the messages the Holy Spirit had lain on their hearts, the experiences through which He had brought them, ministered to the men and women who work in this ministry. And one morning, they gave an invitation, and for the three people who responded, new life began. I praise God! I want to dance, and caper, and laugh, and sing; for in heaven, the angels are doing so, and I want to join them. For three new siblings, who would not do the same?

 

Psalm 104:30 says that when God breathes, life is created, and He renews the face of the earth. The previous verse talks about the other end of the cycle, for when He takes away their breath, they die and return to dust. The team left, their time here came to an end. One day I will leave, and I’ll have to face what they’re facing now, a return to the normal life; to the temptation to care for comfort, to resist the call to prayer, to worry about what I will eat and drink and wear, to desire to accumulate things and ignore people. I pray this experience will never die, but will keep bearing fruit, bringing life.

 

I held a baby in my hands the other day, but this one was not brand new. “Macerated stillbirth” is the technical term; she died before she ever came into the world. She was almost perfect, but not quite, though her mother, Gongich, is beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that as Kate examined her earlier that day, I was just staring at her face; I sketched her profile in an idle moment, while Kate searched for a heartbeat she would never find. All the platitudes, all the spiritual band-aids come to mind; the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. They filled my head as I wrapped her still, soft body in a blanket and put it aside to give to Gongich’s family to bury later. I would never put a live baby aside like that.

 

Ecclesiastes 7:13: Consider what the Lord has done; who can straighten what He has made crooked? I certainly can’t; there was nothing I could have done to save that child. But I couldn’t have made her either, couldn’t have crafted those pink toes or that soft hair. And I trust the God who made her, who made Zebulun, the One who orders life and death. I remind myself of the truth: that He is good, that He is just, that He is loving. And then I look around, and there is evidence all around me: in the family that rallied to Gongich’s side; in Sabet, who prayed for her in a language I don’t understand; in her ability to continue to smile.

 

 I don’t fear my own death; my family knows that when I die, I want my funeral to be a party; rejoice  for me, because I’ll be in heaven. So I rejoice for Gongich’s daughter, that she got to skip the burdens of this life and go straight into the Father’s arms. Sometimes I’m tempted to be jealous of her. But no, life isn’t all burden. Though she never had to battle with sin, neither did she feel the wonder of learning that her sins are already paid for. So I’ll just carry on, hoping that I can continue to help in the Father’s work, that I can see others come to know that wonder: God loves me, and died for me! Wow! His death has brought so much life. For every stillborn child I hold in my hands, I’ll also get to hold a live, crying Zebulun. And everyone I see come to new life in Christ will never lose that life. And best of all: in heaven, there will be no more death.