By Lauren R. Stanley

         RENK, Sudan – Incredible euphoria and indelible grief were on simultaneous display here last week.

        In the space of 24 hours, we experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, and somehow, we got through both.

        Last Thursday (Jan. 19), we raised for the first time the new flag of South Sudan at the Renk Diocese Basic School. This flag, a modification of the one flown by the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army for 22 years, has just been adopted by the parliament of South Sudan as the new national flag of the south. Raising it at 8:30 that bright, crisp morning, and watching the wind first catch and then flutter it, signified a new beginning in this part of Sudan, the part that is the border between North and South and often feels more like a no-man’s-land, we are so forgotten here by the rest of the world.

        As the flag went up, those of us gathered – the several hundred children in preschool through eighth grade, the far-too-few teachers, the superintendent of schools and some of the local clergy – were reminded, first in song and then by our Bishop, Daniel Deng Bul, that this day had been proclaimed more than two millennia ago in the biblical book of Isaiah, chapter 18:

        “Ah, land of whirring wings beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, sending ambassadors by the Nile in vessels of papyrus on the waters! … All you inhabitants of the world, you who live on the earth, when a signal is raised on the mountains, look! When a trumpet is blown, listen!”

        The signal has been raised, the bishop said. The trumpet is being blown. Let all the world hear, the bishop proclaimed, that here in South Sudan, a new day is breaking.

        Later that morning, the new commissioner for Renk District arrived, a man appointed by the SPLM (the movement that is the political successor to the SPLA) to lead this area. The same children who watched the new flag being raised marched to his office to welcome him, along with hundreds of others from the town.

        Euphoria reigned supreme, for at last, the provisions of the peace agreement signed more than a year ago between the warring Arab Muslim North and the black, Christian and traditionalist South were being put into place in this northern-most part of southern Sudan.

        And then, the crash from the mountain top.

        The local Dinka chief, Deng Anyieth, who had been chief of the Dinka Bor since 1972, died quite suddenly that same morning. Someone had stolen a dozen or so of his cattle and was holding them hostage for an unbelievable sum of money. Chief Deng left Renk Thursday morning to go to the area where the cows were thought to be held. Apparently, on the journey, his heart gave out.

        When the news of his death arrived, all of the euphoria seemed to go out of the people here, not all of whom are Dinka, not all of whom are from the Dinka Bor clan of the Dinka tribe. For this man, Chief Deng, had been the people’s leader for so long, and was so loved and so respected, that his death was enough to drop all into the valley of despair.

        (The Dinka have a democratic process of electing their chiefs and, if they don’t like them, removing them from office by the same process of public voting. For Chief Deng to have lasted for more than 30 years as their leader, from the time of the 1972 peace accord that ended the first civil war through the long and bloody war second civl war just ended and back to peace again, speaks volumes about his abilities as a leader.)

        Hundreds of people began gathering at the chief’s house and outside in the street. When his widow brought his body home, there was a maelstrom of grief, so much so that Bishop Daniel and others had to intervene to calm the people.

        In one day, the residents of Renk went from the highest high to the lowest low.

        The following day, Friday (Jan. 20) was a study in those contrasting emotions.

        At one end of town, there was deep grief and public mourning. The chief’s widow, receiving the condolences of visitors, looked almost catatonic in her grief. People sat quietly in the street, praying and wondering how this could happen, and what would happen next. Who would lead them? What would become of them?

        At the other end of town, the euphoria over the arrival of the SPLM government abounded. The long-planned celebration was held in the football stadium, which was awash in people – more than a thousand at any given time – who danced and ululated and sang and listened to speeches and signaled their happiness that the peace process had arrived officially in Renk.

        Some of those who were in the stadium had earlier been at the chief’s house, mourning. Some of those who were mourning later went to the stadium to celebrate.

        These 24 hours of contrasting emotions, of mountain-top highs and valley lows, so very well encapsulate life in Sudan these days. We have good news one moment, followed by bad, followed by more good, or more bad.

        Somehow, life continues here. Somehow, the people continue to endure, as they have for so long.

        Somehow, they hearken back to the words of Isaiah, and beckon to the rest of the world:

        When a signal is raised on the mountaintop, look! When a trumpet is blown, listen!

        The Sudanese waited for more than two millennia for that signal to be raised, for that trumpet to be blown. They have endured wars and famine and illness and death.

        They have learned how to be euphoric one moment, and grieve the next, and still continue with their lives.

        That is, after all, how life goes in Sudan, “the land of whirring wings beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, sending ambassadors by the Nile in vessels of papyrus on the waters.”