THE ARRIVAL OF EACH YEAR‘S dry season demanded all able-bodied villagers herd cattle about a hundred and fifty miles to the Upper Nile Valley, where the animals could graze green, fertile grasslands. My older brother Duany, my younger sister Nyakuar, and I would urge the cattle along with gentle taps of a stick, while Mum carried the twins in the dieny balanced on her head.

We became a caravan of herders as we picked up people along the way, a train thousands of bodies strong. Usually we would come across friendly faces—people who would take you in if you were in trouble, almost like extended family, even if you were a stranger. But there were plenty of times we would encounter town busybodies…or worse. That was even the case when we walked through our own village of Liet.

MUM: Look away, Ger. These people have the evil eye.

My mother would take the extraordinary step of covering up my baby sister, Nyandit, to shield her from their gaze.

MUM: We must keep her safe. She is more vulnerable and susceptible to those who would do her harm. Protect her at all costs.

ME: Okay, Mum. I promise I will.

I wasn’t exactly sure what evil Mum saw in these people, except for maybe jealousy or envy. But as we journeyed toward the Greater Upper Nile region, most of that pettiness fell away, since we were all in the same boat—traveling together for the same purpose: survival.

There, we united with other neighboring villages in a kind of huge summer camp, where we danced, sang, gossiped, played, and celebrated the bounty of the Nile well into the starlit evenings. This journey, which we Nuer people call “way of way,” defined the rhythm of our lives, with our summer camps having been there for centuries, giving us the opportunity to meet up once a year with our ethnic families, whom everyone knew by sight and through story. On top of that, the group of thousands became an extended family. Every child was your brother or sister, and every adult your parent, or at least your auntie or uncle. It made making mischief a lot more difficult and, in turn, a lot more fun.

But once the wet season came in West Akobo, our family would walk home again. And this particular year was the hardest of all. Not because the trek was made any more difficult by the heavy rain that overflowed the Nile River, but because of the other thing that awaited us once we got back….

Good-byes now came regularly. Oder, gone. Then Chuol. And next came my twelve-year-old brother, Duany. Although he headed for a different SPLA base—in Dima, Ethiopia, where they were trained as child soldiers from the battalion of Zalzal—the end result was the same: more loss and heartache.

His departure immediately elevated me to the eldest boy of the family, a responsibility I took seriously. Now eight, I was charged with safekeeping my younger siblings, the way Oder had taken care of me. I continued doing my best to babysit the twins and look after Nyakuar. I enjoyed the responsibility, but also, I just loved those babies.

The twins had been born between eleven and midnight during harvesttime, around October or November. The boy twin, Both—a traditional name for a male twin meaning “leading”—was loud and assertive, mischievous from day one. Mum always had to get up in the middle of the night to deal with his crying, but when she shushed him gently, he usually turned docile as a lamb. Each evening, Mum would sing this song softly to her little troublemaker:

A joyful little boy who was never a sinner was forgiven.

Are there any boys who were to come to God?

So let’s all go to God to wash our sins together.

A joyful little girl who was never a sinner was forgiven too.

Are there any girls who were told not to come to God?

Let’s all go together, let’s all hold hands together.

O Jehovah, hear my prayers.

Even though I am constantly breaking your commandments,

Even when I miss your path,

You still continue to forgive and guide me.

And when judgment day comes, take my soul to heaven,

And let my body return to earth.

I’d close my eyes and listen to her soothing voice; it was as though her lilting words wrapped around me like a blanket and lulled me to sleep as well.

The girl twin, Nyandit, which means “second person,” was the opposite of Both. I spent long minutes looking into her bright brown eyes and admiring her wide forehead. She was silent and keen and stared back at me, like she could not only read all the thoughts in my head but also understand them. Like she knew where my life was headed and wanted to tell me all about it, but the pesky reality of her being a baby prevented her from divulging it.

Her hair grew in yellow, like mine, and I loved that we had this in common.

MUM: Ger, you and Nyandit have the same straight teeth, but she has a perfect gap. Too bad for you after your baby teeth fell out, Ger.

I think Nyandit held as special a place in my mother’s heart as she did in mine. She was so sweet and cute, Mum used to take extra precautions to protect her, such as covering her when someone looked at her wrong.

At times, I was charged with taking the twins to the Pibor River to bathe. I could barely restrain Both from jumping from my arms and plopping into the water. A dip in the river was a treat, and he loved the feel of the current brushing against his skin like satin, engulfing his whole body.

For Nyandit, it was the opposite. I tried to lower her down into the waves, and I quickly realized that was not going to happen. Her body shook and quaked and shivered as though she’d been bitten by a snake, and she clung to me like a cat would if you even thought about putting it in the same room as a tub. When I grabbed her teensy wrist to try to release her unimaginably tight grip, I felt through her pulsating veins her heart pounding, as resonant as a kettledrum.

ME: Nyandit, let go, please. It will be okay. Look at Both! He is enjoying the water.

But she wouldn’t budge.

ME: Water is our friend. Nothing exists without it. Water means life. Plus, you must bathe. You stink.

I resigned myself to sinking lower into the river so Nyandit, who was almost strangling me with her arms double-wrapped around my neck, could glance her foot off the surface and I could tell Mum she at least touched the water this time.

When Both was fully clean, I brought the twins to the riverbank, removed my maroon shirt, dipped it in the river, and washed Nyandit that way. We had that battle every time the twins were due for a bath. Eventually, it became more of an amusement for me, but it never got funnier to Nyandit. Other than this one irrational quirk, she was the most docile, agreeable being you could ever meet.

According to my culture, twins are special. They are classified as part human, part bird, because just as a bird lays two or more eggs at one time, twins are a double blessing. Additionally, we liken twins to angels because they are innocent, harmless souls, fragile and vulnerable, requiring extra respect and care. They are also seen as messengers from ancestors passed on who bring news, such as of rain, tragedy, drought, famine, or, in Both and Nyandit’s case, a great harvest.

It is thought that the second person out was created first in the mother’s womb but didn’t want to go first. I could see this being the case with Nyandit. She was not the adventurous one; she was more interested in Both testing the waters, so to speak, before she’d take her own little baby leap of faith. And that was fine with me. If ever an eight-year-old could feel like a father, I did. Nyandit was that special to me.