The main thing to understand about my country is that it has always been split between the Islamic Arab north and the animist and Christian south. They don't ever seem to mix that well and the north has always tried to dominate the south. The British, who ruled Sudan from the late nineteenth century until the 1950s, governed the north and south separately, but in the 1940s, just before independence, the British gave in to pressure from the Islamic leaders in the north to unite the country. The northern government then proceeded to impose Islamic culture on the southern people, most of whom weren't Muslim or Arab. Of course, there's money involved, too. Sudan's vast oil fields are in the south, along with a lot of fertile land and water.

The south has never wanted to be dominated by the Muslims in the north; in 1955 a brutal civil war broke out and lasted until 1972. Then, in that year, both sides signed the Addis Ababa Accord, which guaranteed autonomy for the southern Sudan. I was born five years later.

Since we've always been semi-nomadic, totally dependent on the weather and whipped by the forces of political change around us, the Dinka are used to living through cycles of wars and uprisings followed by peace and prosperity, hunger and then bounty. In the wet season, rural Dinka live out in the villages, in conical, thatch-roofed huts, growing millet and other crops. In the dry season, they take their cattle to riverside camps. We Dinka are born expecting change.

The Dinka have never had a central government or anything like that, except those imposed on us by the leaders of Sudan. Instead, we are divided into family-based clans, and Dinka are very aware of which clan they belong to. Some of the more important clans will have leaders who influence the whole tribe. But in general, the clans are split into smaller groups and each of these will have control over just enough land to provide water and pasture for their beloved cattle.

These animals are so essential to the Dinka that even though my parents raised us in a small, relatively cosmopolitan town called Wau, far from their home villages, my mother still kept about fifteen head of long-horned cattle in our courtyard.

Excerpted from “Alek: From Sudanese Refuge to International Supermodel.” Copyright 2007 Alek Wek. Reprinted by permission Harper Collins Publishing. All rights reserved.

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