WE TOOK THE DANGEROUS WALK west, across southern Sudan, over the Ethiopian border, and finally got back to Itang. The camp looked more or less the same, though sparsely populated following our last mass exodus. There wasn’t any trace of an SPLA presence. The Ethiopians seemed to have been keeping a closer eye on things now, their government granting residence to Sudanese refugees but not to any SPLA members.

PAUL: Once we get to Gambella, we will pay truck drivers to smuggle us through Ethiopia into Kenya. It will take days, and means switching from one truck to another.

ME: I’ve smuggled myself on trucks many times. This will be a piece of cake.

PAUL: If only it were that easy. We won’t have food or water for many hours at a time. Maybe days. And armed military personnel could discover us at any of the checkpoints along the way. Now is the time to speak up if this is not for you.

We all stood there in silence. Paul looked out of the corner of his eye to see if anyone was wavering. But despite his firm warnings, we all decided to forge ahead.

Regardless of the rough terrain and inadequate rest, the fact that we were on the move toward someplace hopeful invigorated us. Once at Gambella, I saw light-skinned men with curly hair and rusty front teeth chewing khat—the color of their teeth a side effect of drinking excessively strong coffee. Paul spoke Amharic to a number of truck drivers, negotiating a fee for us to get to Gore, our next stop. He came back bearing sad news.

PAUL: They want more money than we have. We can only afford the trip if I send one or two of you back to Sudan.

He addressed each one of us separately, giving reasons why we were or weren’t eligible to continue with the journey.

PAUL: Ger, your mother sacrificed a cow for you to come on this journey. We’ve sold the cow and that money will be useful to us. For this reason, you will come with us.

After Paul was done reassuring me, I stayed quiet and still, maintaining sympathetic eye contact with him, lest he change his mind. I wanted to exclaim in relief but didn’t, knowing that someone, at least one of us, had to go back. I held my peace so I wouldn’t appear to be gloating.

PAUL: Jangjuol, we can’t send your sisters Nyangile and Nyakume back. So, for that reason, you will have to go home. But one day we will find a way to get you out of Sudan.

Everyone turned around to look at Jangjuol’s crestfallen face. He tried not to show his anguish.

PAUL: If you get back home, please tell everyone we have made it this far.

If.

That was the first time I had ever seen my usually animated friend speechless. I will never forget the deflated look on Jangjuol’s face as we boarded the cargo truck the next morning. I imagined him making the journey back to Sudan alone and wanted to tell him it wasn’t my fault that he hadn’t made the cut, that I would opt out and let him take my place. But it wasn’t true.

We were all silent during the journey across the mountainous Ethiopian countryside, with its narrow roads meandering to and fro, its steep slopes and sloppy terrain. We got to Gore late at night, and the chilly weather was unbearable to people coming from hot Sudan. Paul got us some Ethiopian food: injera, with a tasty sauce, which was our only meal for the day. He then rented a room for the night. The entire group crowded inside, some squeezing on the bed, others spreading themselves on a mat on the floor. What mattered was that we had a roof over our heads and that we were moving away from Sudan.

The weather remained torturous the following morning, and we hadn’t brought along any heavy clothing. Every one of us was shivering. Paul got us some tea, sold on the streets, after which we made our way to the main bus park in Gore.

BYSTANDERS: Chinkila! Chinkila! Chinkila!

Different groups of Ethiopians heckled us as we walked by, calling us a degrading term that meant “dark-skinned.” We were all as dark-skinned as a Sudanese could get, and I was quietly fuming. Paul, knowing I had once been an AK-47-carrying young man who had both shot and been shot at, quickly intervened. He spoke to the group of us, but looked at me specifically.

PAUL: Don’t mind them. We still have a long journey ahead of us. Don’t get distracted.

Paul knew as well as I did that to a Nuer man, nothing mattered more than his sense of self-worth, his dignity and that of his family. In this case, the people I was traveling with were my family. Though I was still in my teens, I was already acting like a man—leaving home and going on long treks in search of a livelihood, always ready to defend my honor. After Paul’s intervention, I swallowed my anger and kept moving.

From Gore, we took another cargo truck to Jimma, the most advanced and picturesque urban space I had ever seen. It was much bigger than Malakal, with wider, more populous streets. I tried counting the number of trucks I came across and quickly lost track. There were endless shops, and I could manage to store only a fraction of all this in my mind. I took that as my cue to surrender to a new reality. Maybe these were the sorts of places I would encounter from now on, places with a vibrant street life, where everyone seemed to mind their own business.

To me, this looked like how proper human beings should live, with shops well stocked with supplies. Back home, no matter how much food there was in a town or an SPLA camp, you knew war would break out and it would be back to square one: starvation. If anything were to happen to me at this point in our journey, I could at least say that I saw Jimma with my own two eyes and felt like I had made it in life. I kept repeating this to myself, powering myself further. No turning back, no matter what.

That night, we slept in a rented room much smaller than the one we shared in Gore.

PAUL: From here on, things are going to get expensive. City life is very costly, and so we’ll make do with only what we can afford.

Paul had bought us flip-flops and a few clothes in Gambella, but it was going to take more than some new clothing to make us look like anything resembling urban dwellers.

I stayed up through the night imagining what the bus ride from Jimma to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, would feel like; wondering whether I would be allowed to sit on the soft seats that I guessed were reserved for adults who cleaned up nicely; worrying that Paul would have to turn more of us back if we couldn’t afford the cost of the ride for the entire group. I tossed and turned the whole night.

The following morning, Paul told us his strategy for the trip.

PAUL: I have timed the duration of the trip from here to Addis Ababa. We must travel after midnight so that we get to Addis in the morning. That way, we won’t need to pay for accommodation. We’ll proceed to the Kenyan border right away.

Late that night, he took us to the bus station, where we boarded the most comfortable means of transport I had ever taken. The bus had plush seats and traditional Ethiopian music, which sounded like Arabic music from Khartoum, playing from little speakers mounted on the ceiling. All these things were a spectacle to me, and much as I presented a calm exterior, I remained tense and restless, trying to take everything in.

I chose a window seat so I could look out and experience the Ethiopian countryside, even in the dead of night. To my pleasant surprise, everyone, young and old, had their own seat on the bus. I tried to stay awake throughout the journey, despite my overwhelming exhaustion, and only knew I’d lost that battle when I woke upon arrival in Addis Ababa the following morning.