by Bryon Mondok

Created on: March 02, 2009

My first trip to South Sudan changed me forever. The country was seventeen years into a twenty year civil war. There was no pavement, no airconditioning, and no McDonald's. The airstrip I landed on in a Northern Uganda border town was red dirt. Every where I traveled was red dirt. Africa's constant political and tribal conflict provide an unstemmed flow of blood that stains the soil covering an entire continent.

I saw poverty that is a life sentence in prison from cradle to grave. I met people smarter than me; kinder than me. I'm a middle class American that covets things I'll never own, but the people I met in Africa can't even imagine what it's like to own some of the things I've never even worked for and never appreciated when provided for me. I blissfully ride my motorcycle for miles on seamless tarmac here at home. In Africa, I bumped over pot holes and through rivers with the constant fear of ambush from rebels or an explosion from a deviously camouflaged land mine. If the car broke down, I could be five miles from a tow truck or five thousand miles. It didn't make a difference. I would be stuck; exposed. This is how most Africans live.

A wierd survivor's guilt made me weep at night when I thought about the peoples' regular daily conditions. Why was I born privileged? These people live more holy lives. They waste nothing. They live in constant community with their neighbors and their environment. It's not just a novel idea to them; a hip fade. It's how one survives. They model this life and pass their customs to their children just so they will survive one more generation.

The people I met in South Sudan, the Acholi, the Dinka, the Nuer, and the Madi, don't have opportunity just out of reach; opportunity isn't even in their hemisphere. They build a house or plant a field or raise some goats to survive for a season. But an enemy could wipe them all away in a day. Death is a daily reality. Mourning is a way of life that begins in childhood.

Here is what has changed for me: I don't deserve what I have by the virtue of being born American. The pursuit of happiness isn't guaranteed by my Creator as our founding documents declare. That is unless true happiness looks like something I was never conditioned to recognize. In Africa, happiness comes from a bottle of Coke or Orange Fanta that has never seen a refrigerator. Happiness is expressed affectionately, non-sexually, man to man through walking arm in arm or hand in hand. I could never do that here in America, freely express my love in a brotherly way without it flying in the face of cultural morays. If I slipped my hand into my close friend's hand, the friendship would take several steps backward.

I realize that everybody in the world wants to come to America. But my travels abroad have shown me that America can be like the blow-hard Wizard of Oz. It's really just a little man behind a curtain pulling levers and pushing buttons. It's the curtain, levers and buttons that make us different. Not our inalienable rights. I have a new perspective. Current events in our economy are making my case.

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