“Living without a friend is useless”. This expression can take its meaning being a paradox. It’s a hard nut to chew when picking best friends. Beauty, skin color, origin, teeth, dressing and smile can’t determine the choice of a best friend. This outward ness may develop thorns to fringe you later. I don’t suppose it’s that easy as it’s not easy to study life of an individual in a day.

But who’s a best friend?

To sharpen understanding, they are not them who rush to conclusion of annoying you sooner. Even not them, who help if you’re in need, are best friends. This is because some people befriend you to be praised, spoil you or expose secrets about you. Some people who give with ease gossip with ease. Luck remains for in spite of these problems a gut friend’s got in a day.

What to keep in mind is, if poor, you can’t deny it unless ridiculed. Knowing of this fact can open ways of success rather than pretending. You’ll pretend until you discover you’ve not climbed any ladder. Friend can be assisted as well. Never be thinking your friend’s whom you defend on. Friendship should be mutual. If you’ve yours, you can share to polish life. With gorgeous things, chased after you by force, know that sorrow chases after them as well. Accept presents from people you didn’t know who have let you know what they are up to and who they are or need to be to you.

Once a present’s given by a pretending friend, hatred shows on the face suddenly. This makes you distinguish a hearty gift from a worse one.

Akinda changeable relationship too exists. Here, friendship takes a short length of time. These kinds of friends like new things. If they find new friends, it’s their need. They keep changing from one friend to the other till their world ends not knowing what exactly a friend is. Don’t waste time with them. They disclose secrets, therefore, not well for your health.

Love making too is dangerous geared by jealousy and may wreak havoc. Not all relationships between different gender parties lead to marriage. In my culture, a bride’s boyfriend can be paid a dowry like her brother when she’s married elsewhere. This doesn’t show my culture is the best. A contrast is that forced marriage’s a stuff of my culture. No child is required to disobey parents for it becomes disgrace to the family. The hardest is to get a true Dinka married to a foreigner. Many cultures are alike, others are parallel. One can stick to their culture where it demands to save you.

I was once traveling to South Sudan from Kakuma Refugee Camp. On my arrival, in Lokichoggio, there were no vehicles. The only lorry we got could not make it because it was rushing to evening and in South Sudan, no travels were expected at night. This was my first time to go to Sudan after completing my Secondary Education. I had no place to sleep. In hand I had a friend whom I met when I came to Kakuma from Eldoret, two days before this Journey. “Abraham, where do you spend night?” he asked.

“I don’t know any place,” I replied. This friend took me to his friends where we spent night and proceeded with the journey the following day. Do you need a friend as such?

It looks like it has God’s control. Even when you pronounce the words, “My friend” to describe your various friends, the accent differs. While greeting, a hateful face can be seen not by you. You hug keeping a foe in your arms. A few days back I was cheated to pay a clearance fee in order to receive my compensated fund. I ended up at a loss. If you were, what would you have done? I think it’s frustration. I think about why people think of putting me in problems. If I go wrong, I don’t forget to apologize. While young, if I got something belonging to someone, I had to give it to them. I have developed this way. To let you know, if I forget to give back what’s not mine, it destroys what’s mine. This shows that criminal acts are God forbid. Out there you have many enemies around you, look out! I was cheated with photographs of western union, names, website and emails.

The aftermath of any criminal act means a bullet in the head. You won’t like it.

Dear friends, have a secured life. Neither go for fraud nor enter their traps. Investigate well how you won. Delay the word, “Friend”, it can create friendship. Control your like of what belongs to other people. Don’t be ridden into misdeeds of crimes-drugs and drunkenness. Choose, a mindful personality, whose accent’s yours and hates are yours too. Befriend after a long and successful study. If relatives are harsh, friends are helpful not negligent. This explains why many people live with friends across the globe. Choose them wisely, who keep you in mood.

A man stabbed with a knife is in coma in Kakuma mission hospital;

Yesterday at one o’clock an assailant stabbed a gentleman on the mandible down to the neck. This assailant was eagerly waiting in Franco hotel drinking sprite inspecting the incoming of the people. When Deng entered, and proceeded to the washing place he instantly rose and followed. He then began to stab him with a knife. To the surprise of the rest of customers in the hotel, noise had risen.

The first man who rose to the scene saw the fight but feared seperating them for this assailant was using a knife. The hotel manager ran then to the scene, pulled the assailant out and Deng too who was in pain. This oldman didn’t hesitate thus escaped. Deng came after him bleeding profusely. “Don’t let that person go guys, catch him,” he shouted for help. The rest of the people followed yet this old assailant scared with the knife. On the road people massed following him. It was there when the police took hold of him and took him to the police station.

Deng who got weaker was carried in a wheelbarrow onto the road where an ambulance picked him. He was taken to the IRC main hospital in a coma for the first aid. Then transferred to Kakuma mission hospital for surgery.

While I paid him a visit in Kakuma mission hospital this afternoon, he was able to speak unlike the previous night. His relatives who slept with him evidenced his situation has improved. Doctor Josiah said speaking with the IOM official,”I was afraid of his situation Yesterday.”  “He’s able to sit and speak now,” he added. Dr. Josiah’s medical report stated that the wounds of the mandible, rib and axil are two centimeters deep.

This patient sleeps on one side. It’s the right side which is in pain. The patient’s temperature today is 36.4 degree celsius. Two litres of urine collected show an improvement. Dr. Josiah said he could not perform a chest X-ray and DNA test which should be done. He said these including tubular replacement should be done in another well defined hospital with all the necessities for the patient. “If this tubular replacement is done, he will be well like everybody else,” said Dr. Josiah.

The patient is unable to eat any solid food. His relatives had been giving him yoghurt-sour milk. The doctor and the nurse advised they give him fresh milk instead of yoghurt. The IOM official assured the patient, Deng that tomorrow morning he would be flown to Nairobi in a safe plane for better treatment and ample environment. Deng should be accompanied by two of his relatives.

Cause of the conflict;

This conflict is said to have began in 2008. The oldman’s wife delivered a son. This son grew up that the oldman who has become an assailant accussed Deng of being the father. The accussation clearly stated that he committed an adultery by lying with the oldman’s wife. The oldman’s evidences were the shape of the boy’s head and his walking style which he said not being his but Deng’s. By then Deng was known in his entire group 50, as a student who was committed to studies. He could hardly sleep at home but in the hospital.

The solution reached by elders and the leaders of the group was to let Deng and the boy go to Nairobi for a DNA test. His studies couldn’t let him go. This oldman was advised to go back to Sudan. It was since then that he developed grudges. In the morning of his day of assault he cheated people in the group that he would travel to Sudan. The plan wasn’t known. He made his way into Franco hotel, bought his soda waiting for Deng who came from outside to the washing place. He followed and accomplished his intended mission. He is now in Kenya police station waiting to be taken to Lodwar for further trials.

In times of need

We’re referred to as beggars

Hatred at a family level; neighbours don’t see

We remain kins we don’t know its nicety

Even if a coin we need to settle debts

It will be useful to them

In that minute we’re in need

Leaving aside; millions for our funerals

Where they eat and drink to satisfaction

In the eyes of others impersonating

That they were helpful

Kins; they celebrate

Spending millions on coffins

Keep our corpses; decorated outside

And what lives inside? Gone lives

I can’t help my own self in such mazes

Relationship a maze

How can I help the world? For now

Unite with neighbours; it’s of significance

It pushes you ahead

That emotions won’t take you

Hope that; when I find one

To listen to my call

That who understands better

I will raise my two hands and eyebrows

To give you a pity

Southern Sudanese to play the harp in Kakuma;

Owing to the pending Referendum to give Southern Sudan the opportunity to vote for either unity or secession, SSRC has set up centers in Kakuma Refugee Camp. Other towns in Kenya where Sudanese should vote are: Nairobi, Nakuru, Eldoret, Kitale and Daadab. Southern Sudan Referendum

Commission(SSRC) is absolutely neutral. Yesterday, registration despite its hardest layout of understanding winged its way on. The youth play the harp of unfolding the necessities of voting to the aged and the illiterates. To the literates the out-of-country registration and voting (OCV) Kenya information sheet speaks. The registration and the pending Referendum are open to voters who have registered who are above eighteen years of age. Part of the information which may suspend voters is the fact that readers may read on the information sheet as if only Dinkas are allowed to participate in the out-of-country registration and voting. It was cited in reality.

The sheet too doesn’t show centers where voting will take place in Kitale. This has made it possible to read information to instill awareness and mobilise Southern Sudanese around the Registration sites and on the road to let them get information for clarity. Southern Sudanese are urged to Register before possibilities last. Failures to register soil their fats.

No voting on the ninth of January, 2010 if one can’t produce a laminated registration card.
The Nuba, Blue Nile and Kordofan stand loose yet unable to fall into the registration and employment queues. Better the SSRC has dug down doubts by ensuring a Toll-free all over Kenya. Twelve hours of free call from six in the morning to six in the evening is enough to swallow the leftovers.

Eligibility and registration;

The camp, Kakuma has a number of nationalities which may tend to admire voting. Southern Sudanese have to present written certificates or documents issued by a Sudanese authority even if expired or a document issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees-UNHCR. If not an identifier should either deny or accept your identity. Articles 25 and 27 stipulated in the Southern Sudan Referendum Act 2009, classifies voters into the categories below:

       a) Voters from the indigenous communities in Southern Sudan, that’s to say if Shilluk which entered Sudan on or before the first of January, 1956 are allowed to vote out of Southern Sudan.
       b) Voters who trace their ancestry to one of the indigenous Southern Sudan communities but did not reside in Southern Sudan without interruption before or since January, 1956 can only vote in the South where they can be identified.
       c) Finally, voters not belonging to any of the indigenous communities of Southern Sudan whose parents and grand-parents permanently resided in the south on or before January, 1956 can vote only in the South.

This information is verified at the centers to avoid misconceptions and to ensure Southern Sudanese are adequately informed. Agnes, the mobile operator for the SSRC in Nairobi encouraged me to let you register without fail. Totally if you think a goat and a leopard can share a room, you won’t say I told you. This out-of-country registration will take place in eight countries which include Kenya, Uganda, Egypt, Ethiopia, Canada, U.S.A, UK and Australia, said Mapur, a registrar at Rajaf Primary School. In Kenya registration takes place in:

a) Nairobi with center at; Nairobi railway club, Uhuru Park, Haile Selasie Avenue
b) Eldoret has a center at; Rupa mills at Ken Knit, Uganda road
c) Nakuru center is at; Menengai social hall near Menengai High School
d) Kitale center is; The National Museum
e) Daadab center is at; Family centre two, Ifo Daadab
f) Kakuma centers are; Rajaf Primary School and Clinic two.

These centers are adequately secured beyond any doubt. Hands are checked before registration and you go through illegibility examination which when you are affirmed as illegible a form is filled showing your names, age, gender and address. Right thumbprint is placed on the form and registration card. The card is laminated in the center to ensure you don’t return. You will not leave without an inked index finger and you are done.
A card can be canceled;
    a) If a mistake is made filling the entry or a card
    b) When the details on the card are incorrect though laminated
    c) If the lamination of the card is not performed correctly

Should you lose the card or fail to register you are nothing to vote. Those who had not gone back to Sudan where the documents are found and have no documents from UNHCR are assisted by the community leaders. Nobody registers on behalf of the other and voting is effective where you have registered.

The criticized delegates;

The team of Elizabeth Nyawuro which had some officials from the Government of Kenya and the international observers as put by Nyak and Mapur took a wrong foot. These delegates left the youth complaining camp wide that corruption lifted up in the nation-Sudan has been carried to a refugee camp. Wrong of the wrongs which was a mess was asking of community leaders to select qualified people in the camp. These leaders ended up selecting friends and relatives who were interviewed and found unable to work effectively.

The twist came on thirty first of October. Posters appeared on the notice boards needing forty polling staffs, eight civic educators and one outreach supervisor. The people who were discouraged who’re qualified could not complete the race. Mapur said the applicants were three hundred and seventy passed. Nyak who had wasted his energy told me before the outcome that he wasn’t expecting to succeed due to corruption he had witnessed. He accused the delegates of glaring, nodding and saying,” It’s okay” which is not a means of interviewing people. The shortlisted applicants were posted in the evening, said Jumla, those who arrived on time were all employed instantly. They kept saying that those who were late were denied interviews even if they didn’t know.

These accusations are not admitted to by the employees, trainers and the Mobile operator I talked to. The successful applicants were induced from twelve-fourteen of November. They are still being instructed by the out-of-country officers who are available in all the centers in the camp. They monitor the running of registration, said Mapur, a registrar.

The failures have gone far that the pay was deducted by UNHCR from thirty dollars to fifteen dollars per day to retain their workers but I can’t see the hand of UNHCR for this matter. Agnes herself knocked it out that a rumour as such is fake. It’s not to be depended on. Akran, the UNHCR staff whom I called by phone said the registration is not about UNHCR but the Kenyan Government and the IOM and that’s the fact. “To us if it will bring peace in Sudan, we support it,” she said. These accusations must be bygone. Southern Sudanese should keep high their heads hoping to play the harp they spearhead. A separate harp, you think it wiser, go don’t let go!

 A stressed who knows solution needs help.

Solomon Seyoum is an Eritrean who served as an Eritrean soldier before he parted with his family fifteen years ago. He left his family in Adisababa where he finished his Secondary Education. After he became a refugee in Kakuma, his parents were deported to Eritrea. This man is stressed to an extent of not knowing how to help himself only to put hope into getting his sister’s contact. “My sister Rozina Seyoum is in Holland,” he said. “She doesn’t know how I suffer.” He complained urging me to tell it that he needs her bitterly or his nierce whom he said grew up in his family, by the name; Nigistilougi. His sister went to Holland ten years ago leaving a child in Nairobi. However, she was married to a man he doesn’t know. Had he been himself he would have rescued the child abandoned. This fifteen years of anxiety were spent begging on roads by him and selling his ration to get only two hundred Kenyan shillings he waste on bread and tap water which he sometimes pay. He claims to be under insecurity because some men go about looking to kill him because he was their rival as a soldier. He said he spends nights in different places of the camp so that his place won’t be known. His appearance even if he can be qualified will even let any organization not allow him work. I peered on his card exchange slip today, second of November while interviewing him to find that he had lost the card thus was given that slip on first to cover only a single round of receiving ration before he could be given a new ration card. Not surprising that he cannot tell how he lost it. “I am stressed,” he said.” Have you ever seen me begging on the road?” He said he gets coins from friends to live it. Even where to eat he may not know. “God will decide on what to eat,” he humbled himself. He is bitterly looking for a way to get his sisters or mother if his life may change. He said,” I will be glad if my sister gives me her contact.” He has set his own goals. If you hear him speaking English, you will rather cry. He’s perfect like you can be surprised. The main assistance he needs is to find his sisters and brothers he could not tell or mother.  Mainly phone numbers of Rozina in Holland and Nigistilougi in U.S.A as he said and their addresses. He has put his hope into this article to let him get his sisters. “I will use land line to call them,” he confided. “When do we meet,Tomorrow…..?” he asked. He wanted me to let the meeting be tomorrow to see if he would be glad by getting any of these people he needs. Fifteen years under no care of his own, God must be having a purpose him, I suppose and for this I have to sacrifice to tell his story.

Kakuma’s uncountable threats

Alive amidst dreads

Killings for money and honey

Unbearable wind knocks heads, a day

Malnutrition, babies cry foul

Absurd_dismay

Khanga covers heads, a day

Any veil, cap or eye glass

Keeping dust not accumulated in ears, under eye balls

Ugly Tarach vomits

Many luggage and buildings lost

Antipathy_repugnance

Kicks and a run, donkeys enjoy themselves

Active cold, night unfolds

Kakuma home of jackals and parrots it should be

Useful pens oh! under oppressive sun

May comes, rains I can’t tell

Aversion_distaste

“The bitter tears”

Under this shade
Heat is showered
Only in the forest not a living place
I wish my parents emerge here
Am no good to walk with my peer
If I will ever have minutes of rest

To sleep with rats
Must I return at long last
For the left overs
Rats will spend night on me
Biting my thumbs and feet
Then emptying the plates

The eloquent public speech
Turns to oppression
Child, sufuria and clothes
All for me to observe
School is behind the kitchen
No short cut unless that tedious road

Breakfast before I brush and wash
I wash crockery
Day scholars dot for their lessons
The brush and washing before breakfast usually
Before taking breakfast I do
This sleeping maniac throws basket

That’s the lunch beginning
Big words thrown on me
My friends get rid of the breakfast
On my walk to the market
Lunch will be ready
And I must be sent somewhere in a while

On my return supper should be prepared
By the time I see those uniforms I admire
Along the road
I will be busy in my bedroom
Stirring competing with darkness
They later go to dinner me dressing beds

God you have seen all these
Sweet daddy you left me here
Mummy with you as well
Whom shall I call next?
Oh doves you are said to be kind!
Bear mercy on me

I am twenty years, young
I can’t weigh the beauty I possess
Boys see me and walk on all fours
Admiring me in my daily dress
My bare feet and smile broadly
I can’t write a single letter of love

You love me I get it
But I admire sufuria more than you
For I am used to it
That’s why I always turn my face aside
Then you beckon on my back
I will marry knowledge

Worse I still fear
That in a day or two
I’ll get good clothes and shoes
Heading for a villager’s home
Before getting my dreams true
I’ll rather marry rats if not a Penn