"Growing up in Sudan"

I grew up in the back of beyond – South Sudan, Africa in the 1950's. No TV. No radio. No books - except the King James Bible.

Daytime activities included learning the oral history of seven African tribes who attended dad's school and playing with their children.

Our toys? Empty tin cans for “Kick-the-Can,” or with a bit of string knotted and passed through a hole in each can we could pretend to call each other on the telephone. On days that Dad turned on the pump that raised water from the Nile River, we used empty sardine cans as rescue boats for ants and bugs from the irrigation ditches running through Mum’s Orchard (and often “fell in” to cool off a bit).

But the most fun was learning from the native children how to make animals, people and huts from the mud along the banks of the channels. For the head and horns of the Brahma bulls we used Acacia thorns which have a seed ball with two thorns protruding.

The Brahma cattle were used instead of Guernsey, Jersey, or Hereford cattle as the breed is resistant to diseases spread by the bite of the Tsetse Fly, a fly indigenous to African wetlands. It feeds on the blood of vertebrate animals and spreads disease from animals to humans and back again.

Our creating became extensive with villages connect by roads, which our few Dinky Toys used, and filled them with people, the men with Acacia-thorn spears waging war on the next village.

When evening came and we were scrubbed down and fed, Dad would entertain us with stories of his first years in Africa as a British pioneer missionary. He used the time, too, to tell us about the wild animals around us, and warn us about the cute little cubs that would be rescued when their parents had been killed.

“A Leopard never changes its spots,” he’d say. “And little leopards grow up to be big leopards. And big leopards kill.” That’s one that has stayed with me all my life, translating into a human’s behavior.

He also created stories about children like us that usually had a moral to them. One of his Christmas stories has stayed with me and became the catalyst for the Lost Legends of Ruby Heart.

"All in a Day's Play"

The rule is always stay in pairs. I’m ignoring it as I often do, this time because the older kids were playing a too rough form of tag. And besides, my bare arms are already red from the sun and my skin’s itching from the heat.

I pause for a moment to look around. Grass way taller than my seven-year-old height isolates the path behind me, obliterating the soccer field where the other kids are. Ahead, somewhere, is the house surrounded by Mum’s vegetable garden and orchard with the Nile river behind it.

It’s quiet. To quiet. Not even a bird singing!

I’m suddenly on alert. There’s danger near! I run toward home, only allowing my toes to touch the ground, almost soundless. Little puffs of dust hover just above the path, revealing my trajectory. Over the padding of my toes on the path, I hear the slight rustle of the grass. I stop to look and listen, taking in tiny gasps of air to refill my suddenly empty lungs.

How far away is the house? The soccer field? The shouts and laughter are muffled by distance and the grass.

I hear a breathy “chuff” - a big cat sound! The grass begins to sway its motion moving toward me.

“I’m a gonner!” I whisper as I turn and dash toward the house, forgetting about being quiet. All sound and thought is gone, just “Get...to...the...house! Get...to...the...house!” chanted with each pounding step when loud barking, growling and snarling overtakes me and a black and tan body leaps past me and into the grass. The snarling and yapping is joined by feline snarls as the grass swirls and is laid flat by to entangled bodies.

I dash for the house. As I open the screen door, Pal, our Alsatian Shepherd pushes past me, and flops on the porch floor, his tongue lolling through the grin on his face.

“Good boy, Pal! Did you give it what for?” I drop beside him. He gives me a slobbery kiss as I wrap my arms around him and bury my face in his neck.

"Lions, Leopards and Hippos! Oh My!!"

Dad and Ted Pollock had designed our home at Obel - the name of our Mission Station - with screened porches on all four sides, each having a four-foot brick wall at its base. One of these was a sleeping porch where the five of us children slept in two bunk beds and a single. Jessie, the oldest, got the single bed. David and Robin got the top bunks, and Nellie and I were stuck with the bottom bunks. Out here it was a little cooler than inside, and if there was a zephyr of a breeze, we might be able to enjoy it.

On this sleeping porch the mosquito screening was backed by chicken wire which was all the protection we had from the hippos which had taken a liking to Mum’s vegetable patch not far from the porch, plus lions, leopards, cheetahs, or anything else that might decide to wreak havoc.

They were real, we could hear them. The hippos in the river laughing their unk, unk, unk; Lions roaring in the distance; the sudden quiet of the night insects warning that something was moving close by; the hiss and slithering sound of a large, legless body moving across the dirt.

Typical boys, my brothers took advantage of the near proximity of the dangerous animals by telling me – Jessie and Nellie knew better – that there was a lion, crocodile, python or even a hippo under my bed and that if I even moved, it would grab me and tear me limb from limb, or, because I was so small, just swallow me whole.

Tonight, I’d had enough, so terrified of dying that the fear of Dad being cross because I disturbed his Bible study with his students pales in comparison. I screw up my courage, stand on my bed and jump for the steps to the house, then race to the front porch, stopping only when I grab Dad’s arm, haning on for dear life.

“Marian! What are you doing here? You should be in bed!”

“Tuan(sir), she look like she seen a ghost, Tuan!”

“Did you have a bad dream?” He lifts me on his lap. I shake my head, then think better of it and nod.

“Daddy, I am so frightened! I must make sure I belong to Jesus!” I gulp and swallow. "If the lion under my bed gets me before I’m sure, I won’t go to heaven!”

“Lion under her bed, Tuan?” The students jump from their chairs and run for their spears they have left by the front door.

“Hold it, boys! Nyang, diew pi ar!” Dad waved them back to their chairs. “I doubt there’s a lion under her bed. It’s most likely her brothers teasing her. Isn’t that right, Marian?”

I swallow hard. “Daddy, please! I want to, I have to ask Jesus into my heart right now!”

“Very well!” He explains my request to the boys who clap three times – a sign of pleasure or joy - then together we all repeat after Dad the Sinner’s Prayer first in English, then in the languages of each of the boys.

“Are you ready to go back to bed now, Marian?” Dad asks gently. I hesitate. “You just tell them you don’t care what’s under your bed because Jesus is on top of it!” I giggle, jump down off his lap and scamper back to my bed.

“I don’t care what’s under my bed!” I yell as I scramble under my sheet. “Because JESUS is on top of it!”

Nary a word from my brothers. And never again was I teased about animals under my bed.