‘Happy birthday to you’ is a treasured cliché normally turned into a song in many societies around the world. Many people rejoice when they turn a year older, and embrace the ageing with reverence for the day they gave a sound in the hands of nurses or midwives, and opened their eyes to sun rays.
The aura of being surrounded by loved ones and blowing the candles may fit all manners of vocabulary but not for some South Sudanese who are yet to encounter this ecstatic feeling.
For some who have tried marking the day, the lack of certainty of age sends forth guilt and doubt, ruining the peace of mind.
Scopus Confusas Lado, a Juba-based social worker, is one of such South Sudanese who have embraced the age uncertainty and has made peace with himself. Scopus narrates how he spent a decade in a refugee camp in Uganda and later came home in 2005 after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (2005) that paved way for the independence five years later.
His quest to continue his education having finished his O-level in Uganda only meant that he had to acquire a formal document for nationality. He had to frequent the offices of the Directorate of Nationality and Passport to process a birth certificate and this is where he met the test of his life. Scopus had no parents and was directed to produce two witnesses from the close family circle to corroborate his age. He went for the gamble to get it done.
‘I know the year, not the date’
‘‘They had to ask them. ‘Do you remember when he was born?’ One said 1977 and the other said 1978 but they had to agree and settle on one,’’ he narrated, as he threw in a smile with a calm look.
According to Scopus, his documents could not be traced after moving from the country due to the civil war. But after following the due process, he got his birth certificate from Juba Teaching Hospital but is yet to develop certainty even though that is his least worry in life.
The father of three finds solace in the fact that he can remember the days his children were born and he occasionally throws a birthday party for them.
Joggo Florence also bears the scars of civil war that threatened to erode her identity and interfered with a source of her annual happiness. Young women relish their birthdays and mark calendars in preparation for the gifts and candles. But for Florence, this day remains a mirage so far.
She came back to South Sudan after the CPA in 2008 and spent time in Kajo Keji before moving to Juba in 2012. While back in her country, she stayed with her uncle who made all the efforts to get her a birth certificate to apply for an identity card. Like Scopus, Florence had no parents at the time to give her exact birth date. Her documents could not be traced and she had to be subjected to a birth assessment process.
‘‘My uncle just assumed my age. I knew the year but not the date,’’ she confesses. Asked if she celebrates a birthday, she replies: ‘‘I have never thought about it. Besides, I do not have the money to spend on the birthday.’’
The mother of one has reconciled with the reality but maintains that her prime focus is to seek a brighter future for herself and her child.
Child soldier
The most affected are the South Sudanese adults who served as child soldiers during the civil war. Frank Deng (not his real name) falls in this group, and he bears the scars of war that kept him out of his country for the larger part of his childhood.
Having sought refuge in Ethiopia as a child, Deng came back to the country in 2009 to apply for the birth certificate to process a passport for movement. This would help him move freely in Kenya where he had sought refuge and most people relied on SPLM cards for access albeit at the mercy of the Kenyan police.
Like the others, he knocked on doors of government offices to apply for a birth certificate and had to be subjected to age assessment. He went through the process alone and according to him, he got the year correct but not the date and month.
‘‘I hear from the parents that I was born in this month but I put my guess at October 16,’’ he says.
He goes on to say: ‘‘whenever there is war, there is always destruction. Lots of kids were separated from their families and as a child, when [you] grow up with no family, [you] can mess up.’’
Deng says he has ‘‘I have never celebrated my birthday because I live every day like a birthday’’. But he would not hesitate to throw birthday parties for her two children.
Manuela Kiden— who is a college student—has never been subjected to age assessment. She enjoys the privilege of other young South Sudanese who are not facing the age uncertainty test like those who were born when the country was in great turmoil.
Juba Teaching Hospital Medical Director Dr Maker Isaac Wel says South Sudanese have born the heavy aftermath of war; among them loss of vital birth documents. Dr Wel says currently the hospital is promptly giving birth certificates but the age disputes are solved at the age assessment department.