The return of Jacob Akeck

One night in November 1987, a tremendous explosion woke Jacob Deng Akeck in Padiet Duk hut, near the White Nile in southern Sudan. The insurgents had come armed with machetes and rifles and were burning it. Jacob, aged seven, he shouted the name of his mother and his sisters, but no one answered. The smoke was thick in the woods.

Monyroor his nephew, seven years older than him, said: "Come on, little fella, it's time to leave. Cover your mouth and nose." Jacob sought once again to his mother. Monyroor insisted: "Come on, we must go now." The two boys went into the woods and never stopped running. Years earlier, in 1983, had begun the second civil war in Sudan.

The north, Arab and Muslim, and South, black and Christian and animist, faced again after 11 short years of peace. The incursions of the northern tribes in the border towns were filled with blood machetes. Some 27,000 children Jacob did the same thing: to run and escape. Many of these lost children, as they are called, who had taken flight, ended up in refugee camps in Ethiopia before moving on to cities in the U.S., Australia or Canada.

Many others died on the journey. Jacob was among those who survived and now has returned to Southern Sudan. Like thousands of Southerners voted yes in the referendum to secede from the Jan. 9. His plan is to build a school in the new country that will emerge. Back to the Jacob and Monyroor getaway.

He had spent a month alone in the woods to prepare for adulthood and grow your courage. On his return he brought the tail of a lion and several scars on his body. It was therefore logical that both Jacob and other children that they had been joined on the road continue to Monyroor as a leader.

Four months were walking. Fled from beasts and enemy soldiers were hungry and thirsty. "Once," says Jacob, "we had to cross a river to reach Ethiopia. One of the boys jumped into the water and a crocodile lunged at him. I broke in two. I was impressed with how the crocodile is fun with him.

The others had seen how the water was full of blood, but we knew that there was no alternative but to cross the river swimming. 'Well, I thought,' maybe not your time yet '. I got in the water and I reached the other side. " When they arrived in Ethiopia, things were not much better. There were no houses, no infrastructure, nothing.

Jacob's group consisted of 30 children. Some of them began to have mental illness. They behaved like animals. It climbed the trees and eat leaves, they ran screaming the names of the cows or their mother, jumped into the water and disappeared or got into the jungle never to leave. "People from nearby villages began to regard them as ghosts.

They were called the children of the forest. Some were killed by them. "" I do not think I went through that because I always had my soul wakes up and because my mother had given me hope. I always thought that it was not my time. "War broke out in Ethiopia in 1991 and Jacob had to re-run." We looked at the chickens.

If they began to run, we knew we had to get going because it meant returning the attacks. "With the support of the troops of the Liberation Movement of the People of Sudan (SPLM, its acronym in English), children returned Southern Sudan, where the war continued. On one occasion drank water contaminated with diesel fuel tank and fell ill.

After five weeks in their home country, they resumed the march, this time to the border with Kenya. They came with their feet crushed and put in another refugee camp. There they were teaching under a tree, but with the little food they received, Jacob found it difficult to concentrate. "I wanted to go to school, so I decided to cross the border again .

I changed my clothes and then snuff and snuff by goats. Returned to Kenya with goats and sold. The money allowed me to start a real school and then I helped some people of the United Nations, and Joaquina Rodríguez. It's like my mother, a Spanish allowed me to keep going to school. "One day in 1999, Jacob saw his name written on a school board.

It was a list of children that would be hosted in various U.S. cities. "Sure, I was very happy, but did not last long, because it turned out that another child was not on the list had been impersonating me. Once again I thought it was not my time." Yours did not come until 2003. Jacob was already an adult when he was offered the opportunity to travel to Canada and study at university.

With his wife, Jenty, another refugee girl, they left Nova Scotia. "When I arrived, I was numb for two weeks. Everything was there. In the field did not know anything about tomorrow, but there everything was set. I got up, showering, a bus came to pick you up. And the next day was the same .

I realized I had only existed but had not lived. I began to feel guilty about the people he left behind. I guess that's partly what has brought me back. " Jacob has returned home with his NGO, Wadeng Wings of Hope (www. wadeng. Org) to build a school. When he was reunited with her sisters, one of them almost fainted.

Everyone thought he was dead. We wrote a book about his adventures, A hare in the elephant trunk (A hare in the elephant's trunk) and his story has been retold a thousand times in the village children. "I think the Western countries have achieved what we have through education. Now we have a referendum and we will soon be a new and independent country.

That is fine, but I think now we should focus on giving hope to these people. And that is achieved through education. That should be our plan B ".

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