![]() ![]() ![]() The climate wasn’t the only thing the Jok boys needed to adjust to. “We all rolled down the car windows and tried to catch it and taste it because we’d never seen snow before,’’ he says. They arrived in Des Moines in the midst of an Iowa snowstorm and they stared in wonder at something they’d never witnessed before. Dau recalls watching an underground bomb explode in the middle of his youth soccer field one day.Īmelia eventually moved her family to another area of the country for a few years, then to neighboring Uganda for a year-and-a-half and finally to Des Moines, where sponsors helped her become part of a Sudanese refugee community in December of 2003.ĭau’s most vivid memory of that time? The weather. Dau recalls that when his father’s body was carried in, he immediately went to a corner of the room and grabbed an AK-47, vowing revenge.Įven before that, South Sudan was a dangerous place. It’s a refuge.’’ĭau was six and Peter was three when Dut Jok was killed. “For the most part, basketball is a space where I go to not think about it,’’ he says. He spends almost every waking moment off the basketball court thinking about his father and his grandfather and what has happened to his country and what he wants to happen. He is a defensive lineman for the football team at West Des Moines Dowling and will be playing in the Class 4A state championship game that night.ĭut Jok will be there in spirit, as will their grandfather, Jok Dau Kachuol, a paramount chief of the Gok Dinka who also was killed in a gunfight in South Sudan in 2010.ĭau Jok says he will be trying not to think too much about all of that. She is a member of the South Sudan parliament and will not be back in this country until next month. Their mother, Amelia Ring Bol, will not be able to see it. Their younger sister, Alek, will be there. Their maternal grandmother, who lives in Des Moines, will be watching them play for the first time. “I’m going to enjoy it right from the time he comes here to Iowa City because I haven’t seen him for awhile.’’Ĭarver-Hawkeye Arena will be filled with friends and family members from all over the country but especially from Des Moines, where the Joks have lived since 2003. ![]() “It’s going to be a lot of fun,’’ he says. He’s trying hard to treat it like just another game. Peter admits he has been looking forward to this game since he first learned about it last summer. It will be a proud moment because it’s a symbol of how far we’ve come and what we’ve overcome and all the people who helped us. “I’m just going to be very proud, especially for Peter,’’ Dau Jok says. Considerably less hostile, much less perilous, vastly less consequential.ĭau and Peter Jok will be on opposing sides in a basketball game.ĭau is a senior for the University of Pennsylvania team while Peter is a freshman at Iowa, and this otherwise ordinary nonconference game figures to be a seminal moment in their lives. On Friday night, in an arena about 7,500 miles away, Dut Jok’s two oldest sons will engage in a different sort of battle. That’s when he was gunned down by Arab troops and sent back to his wife and four children laid out on a stretcher covered by a sheet. He helped supply food and other needs for his people, and aspired to make South Sudan a better place to live. He was a benevolent leader, much more than just a soldier. As the people of the Central African nation of South Sudan waged a 22-year fight for their independence, a great many inspirational leaders emerged.Īmong them was Dut Jok, a member of the Gok Dinka tribe and a general in the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army. ![]()
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