With only a few weeks to go, the word on everyone’s lips in Sudan is “referendum.” Seldom do people have a decision that is six years in the making. After 25 years of war, which only ceased in 2006, the attitude here can best be described as “wait and see” mixed with resignation and worry. While NGOs, the UN, and governments grapple with 87,000 organised returnees to Northern Bahr el Ghazal state (where I work), as well as the food and water shortages and logistical issues that go along with it, people who have been through this all before lie and wait, hoping for the best but expecting the worst.
Ayuel, an ACF food security and livelihoods programme assistant, says the key to surviving another war is using skills learned from before. He tells me that you go where the water is because the ground is soft so bombs only explode in a small area. You also need to have access to water for your family while in hiding. You stay away from the towns and main roads and you group your cows far away, because that is where the bombs fall.
A Dinka in his mid-thirties, Ayuel is typically tall with high cheekbones, always smartly dressed, with a wise look on his face. He has five children, ranging in age from one to nine. Growing up during the war, Ayuel remembers hiding in the forest to avoid being enlisted as a child soldier. His parents and grandparents would visit at night to bring him food and love and support. His cousins were not so lucky; they were taken away to become soldiers and never came back. His father said he did not want the same thing to happen to Ayuel. Years later, in his early 20s, he and his brother were students when they were captured twice by soldiers. They were made to contribute labour by tearing apart railroad tracks until the governor finally pardoned them so they could return to school.
Ayuel and the other programme assistants are training a women’s group on dry season vegetable gardening. The crops should be ready in a month or so and will provide their families with healthy food and some extra they can sell for cash to meet other needs. The program assistants reported 15 large trucks going by on the way to Aweil town, filled with returnees, meagre belongings in hand, ready to restart their lives after decades of displacement.
Four bombs have already fallen in the state. Amid a backdrop of rising tensions and calls for peace, Ayuel worries about his children, his cattle, and rapidly rising market prices. With memories of aerial bombardments fresh in his mind from the not-too-distant past, the best he believes he can do for his family and community is to teach them the survival skills that saved him before. For the rest of us, we plan, we wait and we hope for the best.
Lucy Ellis
Amelia Lyons
Ashley Sarangi
Rachel Eichholz
Emily Sloane
George Petropoulos
Rachel Roseberry is the Food Security and Livelihoods Program Manager in Karamoja, Uganda, a relatively insecure region that is known for its semi-arid climate and cattle raiding. Rachel’s background is in natural resource management; she has worked in that capacity in Tajikistan, Indonesia, Canada, and now Uganda. 
Bob Bongomin, born in Gulu, northern Uganda, is in his sixth year with Action Against Hunger. He currently manages ACF’s emergency water, sanitation & hygiene program in the Khyber Paktunkhwa province of Pakistan, where thousands of people have been affected by unprecedented flooding. 
Eric Rheinstein is the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Program Manager for Action Against Hunger in Walikale, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. He has worked with Action Against Hunger, various NGOs, and as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Burundi, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Albania, northern Uganda, and Chad.
Keira Lowther is Action Against Hunger’s Head of Community Capacity Building in Swaziland. A paediatric nurse specialising in HIV and public health nutrition, she has worked in paediatric wards in east and central London and with Action Against Hunger in Chad, China and Swaziland. 
Rupert Leighton is the Country Director for Action Against Hunger in Zimbabwe. He has more than 15 years humanitarian experience in countries including Cambodia, Myanmar, El Salvador and Angola.
