A Midnight Welcome in South Sudan

 It must have been way past mid-night. I was woken up by excruciatingly loud screams. These were intermittently preceded by what sounded like someone trying to crack a human skull with a blunt object. Sometimes it sounded like soft thuds made by the pounding of raw flesh.  Like someone making mince meat. It was my first night in Juba, South Sudan. Convinced that murder was taking place right below my window at LandmarkHotel, I opened my curtains a crack to witness the horror. 

Curiosity and self protection warred for the control of my impulses. While I wanted to know what was happening, I was in mortal fear for my life. I had consumed horror stories of foreigners caught up in the war in South Sudan, some of them losing their lives. Had the war come to town?  I was not going to be caught off guard.  I kept the curtains open just a tad. 

Did I really want to be witness to murder? What if I was dragged into a South Sudanese court to testify.  My mind replayed possible court scenes with me as witness against the murderers.  I imagined being interrogated.

‘Why were you awake at that hour of the night?’

‘Are you naturally nosy?’

‘Why didn’t you scream murder if you were so sure it was taking place?’

‘There were security officers in your hotel, right? Why didn’t you draw their attention to crime happening right under their noses?’

The more these thoughts turned in my mind the more I knew I wasn’t keen on being witness to the dastardly  act. And certainly not in my first visit to South Sudan. I was tempted to withdraw into my room, lie on my bed, close my eyes and pretend I had seen nothing. I didn’t. The urge to know was too strong. I kept the spy space I had opened live. I kept the lights in my room  turned off so no one outside would know I was looking. 

The screams grew louder. I could now make out what appeared to be a contortionist in a wild frenzy. He was doing his thing on the floor egged on by punches and kicks from two men.  What appeared like a pink colored truck was packed next to the scene of the theatre. I couldn’t not quite tell if it was a fuel tanker or an exhauster. It could have been either. If a fuel tanker, had the man been caught siphoning fuel? If an exhauster, had he shortchanged his colleagues in some underhand deal?  Except for the screams from the man on the floor, only the sound of punches and kicks echoed in the night.  

The contortionist came into view again when he rolled into a more lit area. He was animatedly chasing something on the floor as if his life depended on it. The other two men were trying to stop him. He was desperate and wild. Suddenly he leapt up to his feat with something in his hands. The two men bolted away into the darkness with the man hot on their heals. For a man who just a few minutes before was the  object of ferocious kicks and blows, he was surprisingly sprightly. Clearly, his two male adversaries were not underestimating him. They screamed with fear as they ran way into the darkness. The contortionist pursued them flinging what appeared to be rocks at them. Only then did I notice that the man was butt naked.  A typically  tall South Sudanese  man. His  blackness shone in the dimly lit street below. Did he ever catch up with his tormentors?