Letters From The Valley

Raise Your Voice, Plant the Seed, Even When the Soil Is Ash

My son,

I write to you today with the ache of a thousand sunsets that never reached their dawn. I carry in my heart the land we left behind the dry earth of home, the riverbed cracked by hunger, and the whisper of stories that once floated on the breeze. You may know me now as a man far from that place, but I was once a child of those hills of that land called Sudan, where the war now rages.

Every day I scroll through the reel’s images of our people, in our neighbourhoods, in towns like El Fasher in Darfur, where the paramilitary force Rapid Support Forces has taken the city, and harrowing videos show unarmed civilians, bodies strewn in trenches, hospitals turned tombs. 

I watch and I weep, for I cannot travel back, I cannot shelter them with my body, but I can shelter them with my words. I speak through this medium because the world’s media is still cloaked in silence, while the screams echo.

In our African parable, they tell of the baobab tree that stands alone in the savannah its roots deep, its branches wide, yet when the lion comes the tree cannot run. It stands witness. So too, my son, am I witnessing. Though exiled, I carry the memory of that land. When I see men my age even younger running for their lives, I know the baobab’s stillness. The tree cannot protect the gazelle, but it endures.

When our shepherds walked across dunes in the old stories, they spoke of the firefly that flickers alone in the night small, yes, but enough to show the path. My writing is that firefly, my son. I’ll plant a flame in this valley of grief, so someone, somewhere, will see the path to justice, to awareness. Because right now, thousands of civilians have been killed, especially in Darfur, many by summary executions. 

I can’t carry them away, but I can carry their story across borders.

Our departure from that home felt like the root unmooring itself from familiar soil. And yet, in that exile I learned the wind speaks different tongues. In a land far from home, I learned to listen. I learned to cry not just for us, but for all the children whose voices have vanished under gunfire. I learned that even when you flee war, you cannot abandon the wounded earth behind you. The earth remembers.

When the Saudi Hospital in El Fasher was attacked, killing perhaps 460 patients and companions, it signalled that no sanctuary is safe any longer. 

Do you remember the story of the ant and the elephant in the dry riverbed? The elephant said, “When I walk, the earth trembles; when you walk, the crack in the ground remains.” The ant answered: “I may be small, but I will whisper into the crack and the wind will carry my message to the far tree.”

My son, social media reels show fighters celebrating over dead bodies, executions carried out like ceremony. The world watches but often looks away. I beseech you, do not look away. Let your heart tremble. Let your voice ripple. Even from thousands of kilometres, you can be that ant, whispering into the cracks, shaking the riverbed.

Hope is not the absence of fear it is the courage to plant a seed while the soil still bleeds.

I want you to know I weep for the land, yes but I also sow. I sow hope in this digital valley called “Letters from the Valley.” I sow truth, so that the next generation may breathe without the smell of gunpowder in their nostrils.

When I watch the flames of war devour home, I remember our mother’s words “When the hyena howls at dusk, do not hide your face; let the moon witness.” So, I face the reels, I watch the reels, and I bear witness. I bear witness so that you may grow up in a world where the moon no longer witnesses such horrors in silence.

My son, hold my hand through these words. Know that though your father stands far away, the roots of our family are still buried in that land. The valley of our birth may be bleeding but it still holds the promise of wildflowers after the storm. And though I cannot bring every child home, I will bring their stories into light.

Let us pray together for peace, for the safe return of souls, for the day when no more children run in terror. And let us act together through our words, our platforms, our compassion for the world must know.

If one voice can awaken a thousand hearts, then let your voice be the echo of that baobab standing strong, even when the drought seems eternal.

With all the love of your father from far,

Your Father in the Valley

S. Beston