Sooley(31)

They parked in a McDonald’s and got out. Samuel noticed the stack of boxes in the bed and asked, “So, where does the food come from?”

“We buy some, a lot is donated. We have a warehouse full, actually three warehouses, and we’re feeding ten thousand people a week. My Dad’s the boss and he runs a tight ship. I work there part-time.”

They sat in the window, ate, and talked basketball. Murray wanted to know everything about the tournament in Orlando, the wins and losses and all the scouts watching. Two years earlier, his summer team played Houston Gold in Atlanta and got crushed. They talked about Coach Britt. Murray loved the guy and Samuel said he had probably saved his life. They talked about the two former players arrested for armed robbery. Murray described them as a couple of good guys known to make bad decisions, said the rest of the team was worried about them. They had lawyers and there was a good chance they would take pleas to lesser charges and avoid jail, but they would miss a year of school and basketball. He said Coach Britt was careful who he signed, but when it came to recruiting nothing was for certain. They talked about the conference, the other schools, the road games, and life on campus.

“Plenty of girls?” Samuel asked.

“Oh yes, lots. And they like athletes. With your strange accent they’ll be all over you.”

“Sounds awful. Wait till I speak to them in Dinka.”

Which led to a long discussion of life in South Sudan.

They talked nonstop and left the restaurant friends for life.





CHAPTER 21





Now Chol had the fevers and his seemed to be worse than his brother’s. After breakfast, Beatrice made both boys follow her through the dirty and hectic streets of the settlement as she asked directions to the clinic. There were three, she was told, or maybe four, and the largest one was a mile away. She led the boys in that general direction. With each step she looked at each face, hoping to see Angelina. She had dreamed she would find her here, along with Ayak, and they would be together.

Beatrice eventually found the clinic and was not surprised to see a long line of mothers and their sick children waiting in the blazing sun. The morning passed before they made it inside the sprawling and packed tent. They missed lunch and needed water.

The clinic was run by a Lutheran ministry out of Hamburg, and the doctors and nurses were German and spoke with accents. James and Chol were fascinated to see white people, a rarity in that part of the world. A nurse examined the boys and determined they had malaria, a common affliction in South Sudan. And they were probably malnourished, but otherwise healthy. She gave Beatrice a bottle of pills with instructions.

“How long have you been here?” the nurse asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe a week.”

“Are you getting enough to eat?”

“No, there’s never enough, but we’re not starving anymore.”

“Where are you staying?”

Beatrice shrugged and could think of no response.

“Okay, where are you sleeping?”

“On the ground.”

“You have no roof?”

“No.”

The nurse opened a drawer and pulled out two cards with numbers stamped on them. She handed one over and said, “There is a distribution center around the corner. Take this and go there and get clothing and water.”

Beatrice thanked her and grabbed the card.

The nurse handed over the second one, light blue in color. “There is a new section of the settlement that is opening up. At the distribution center, you will see a sign that says ‘Housing.’ Hand this to them and they will assign you a new tent, one large enough for your family.”

Beatrice wanted to cry but immediately thought of her friends from Lotta. “But I am with others,” she said. “And they have children.”

“How many?”

“Two families.”

The nurse handed her two more blue cards, smiled, and said, “You will sleep in your own tents tonight. Bring the boys back in a week.”

Beatrice forgot about the missed lunch and hurried to the distribution center where she found yet another long line of people waiting to get inside. She heard a loud voice and looked across the street. Under a canopy, a priest with a bullhorn was conducting Sunday Mass and thousands were sitting on the ground around him.

For the first time in forever, Beatrice knew the day of the week.



* * *



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Sleep was difficult and Samuel wasn’t getting much of it. He awoke in the dark Sunday morning and remembered that Murray had not made it back. He had a girlfriend in town and said he might stay at home.

Samuel showered, put on his best clothes, ate breakfast in the cafeteria, then walked two miles to the Sacred Heart Catholic Church. He enjoyed the service, thanked God for his goodness, and prayed fervently for his family.

There were few black people seated around him. Murray, a Methodist, said there were not many black Catholics in the South. Evidently, he was right.

Sunday’s practice would be a three-hour scrimmage, at night, when supposedly things would be cooler. But in the middle of August nothing was cool, and by the time Samuel returned to his dorm his shirt was soaked. He changed into gym shorts and walked ten minutes to Central’s gym, officially the McDougald-McLendon Arena, but a title that unwieldy begged for a nickname. For decades the gym had been known simply as The Nest. Samuel had his own key, thanks to T. Ray. He found a rack of balls and began shooting for the first time in days. It felt good to be bouncing the ball, taking shots, retrieving at a leisurely pace, dribbling, then pulling up for another shot. The air in the building was only a few degrees cooler than the outside heat, but for the moment it was the perfect temperature. His shots were hitting home with a remarkable frequency. He backed further away and found his range.