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Sudan, United Nations in Darfur

The Three Eyed Watchma - Diplomatic tourism: what do we ‘eat’ from it


By John Penn de Ngong——--November 6, 2007

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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.

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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,


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