The Wedding Guest - Snap Classic

After years of fighting battles as a child soldier, a Sudanese man finds himself a refugee in Australia. As he struggles to overcome his past, he comes face-to-face with his childhood tormentor on a TV show. This episode recounts real events that happened to a child soldier, including graphic scenes inside a prison camp, listener discretion is advised. Thank you, Ayik https://www.facebook.com/TLBAyikChutDeng/, for sharing your incredible story with us! To learn more about Ayik’s life, check out his memoir, The Lost Boy https://www.bookdepository.com/Lost-Boy-Ayik-Chut-Deng/9780143796299?ref=grid-view&qid=1616966193869&sr=1-1. You can also catch Ayik on Harrow https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7242816/, a crime drama on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Produced by Ruby Schwartz, edited by Nancy López. Special thanks to Wendy Love. Original score by Renzo Gorrio. Artwork by Teo Ducot. This week’s music spotlight features the song “Rocketeer” from our very own Renzo Gorrio! Renzo scores so many stories on Snap (like this one!) and he produces under the name Hydroplane. Listen to “Rocketeer” from his album “Rockets http://nebleena.media/rockets-by-hydroplane/” available on cassette, vinyl, and digitally on Bandcamp. https://nebleena.bandcamp.com/album/rockets Snap Classic – Season 16 – Episode 23 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:08Glynn Washington?

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• 0:53Glynn Washington?

  Discover the best deals happening now at ember.com/snap. Go to ember.com right now, and when you're asked where you heard about them, let them know it was Snap Judgment. That's ember.com/snap. Today's episode is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Americans United has spent the last 80 years defending your right to live as yourself and believe as you choose, so long as you don't harm others. Through film screenings, speaking engagements, and valuable resources like the Know Your Rights and Public School Guides, AU empowers people nationwide to recommit to the separation

• 1:37Glynn Washington?

  of church and state, protecting individual freedoms, and strengthening our democracy for all. Freedom without favor and equality without exception. Learn more at au.org/TENC.

• 2:08Glynn Washington?

  Okay, so, there's a story that I wanted to tell you.

• 2:15Glynn Washington?

  It's a personal story, an odd story for sure. And I worked on this story for probably two weeks rewriting, refining, tweaking. Then finally, I go into the studio.

• 2:30Glynn Washington?

  And I performed the hell out of this story if I do say so myself. Bam! And I know that you are gonna love it.

• 2:40Glynn Washington?

  But then a few days later, my partner in all things Snap, the Uber producer, he wants to have a chat. Okay. First starts in talking about the old days. We've known each other since we were in school in Michigan many, many years ago.

• 2:59Glynn Washington?

  He asked me, "Yeah, where'd you go on that college trip with your daughter?" And I started to get a little suspicious.

• 3:06Glynn Washington?

  "What is it? Where's the knife?" And he's like, "Well, I was thinking, that story you did?" "Yes, that story, yes." "Well, that story, it doesn't work." "What? What do you mean that story doesn't work?" And I argue, I disagree, but he knows me well enough as a friend to tell me his truth in a way that I can hear it. Like I said, we've been through some things together, he and I. One of my oldest and dearest compatriots. So, he's already anticipated how I'm gonna react, what I'm gonna say before I even

• 3:50Glynn Washington?

  know myself. It's one of the universe's greatest gifts to have someone like that.

• 4:00Glynn Washington?

  Not someone like that, to actually have him in my life because

• 4:06Glynn Washington?

  what if, instead,

• 4:10Glynn Washington?

  the person that knows you most of all, better than your mama, better than your spouse, what if that person,

• 4:18Glynn Washington?

  what if that person's not your friend at all,

• 4:21Glynn Washington?

  but your enemy?

• 4:24Glynn Washington?

  Today on Snap Judgment, we proudly present The Wedding Guest, an amazing chronicle of two men with the very closest of bonds. My name is from Washington. Please, tell everyone to go away and leave you alone for the next few minutes. Go on ahead, let them know they can wait

• 4:46Glynn Washington?

  because you're listening

• 4:48Glynn Washington?

  to Snap Judgment.

• 5:02Glynn Washington?

  We begin in Australia, a place where a refugee thought at long last he could finally stop running.

• 5:11Glynn Washington?

  In this story, it does recount real events that happened to a child soldier, graphic scenes inside a prison camp. And as such, listener discretion is advised. Ruby Schwartz has the story.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  In late 2004, Ayik Shudeng was on the road. He was driving to a church in Brisbane, a city on Australia's east coast. He'd been invited by a friend to the wedding of a South Sudanese couple. He didn't know them all that well, but he still had that kind of giddy, excited feeling you get before a wedding, which drove him to formalities he might not otherwise subscribe to.

• 6:04Speaker 02

  I'm not a suit person, so I like to wear a polished shirt, but I think I was wearing a nice button-up shirt just for respect of the wedding.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  In the church, the seventy or so guests milled about, making small talk, before taking their seat on one of the wooden pews.

• 6:22Speaker 02

  And then the bride and the groom got married, everything went alright. People ate food and all that. It's all the Sudanese food. Lamb stew, fish stew, because we are Dinka, so it's all stew. And then at the end of the service, I was sitting to the left side of the building of the church. I was just looking around.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  And Ayik recognizes this guy off to the side, on his right.

• 6:50Speaker 02

  So he was just a few seat, he was just a few seat in front of me. He was talking to someone. I said, "This guy can't be here. This, nah, no way. That's not him." I look again, you know, I just said, "Nah, can't be, right." You know, I thought maybe there's something wrong with me in church. I just couldn't believe, saying that this guy is gone years ago. "I can't be him. He's not here. He's in Africa. He's dead." And I look again, just to double, just to double check, to make sure that it's him. And it was him.

• 7:24Speaker 02

  Honestly, just the eye was the thing I'll never forget, the look, his face never changed.

• 7:31Speaker 02

  After I realised it was him, my brain was about, it's just like a bomb just about to explode. I felt so angry.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Ayik had always thought that if he ever came face to face with this man again, he'd kill him. But at this point, many years had passed and he was a different person now.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  I said, "Nah, this time, I can do anything to him and he can't do anything to me, because I'm not a kid anymore. I'm not that skinny child anymore." So what I did, I walked straight back to my car, jumped in the car, went home. While I was at home, everything started pouring back in my head. I went back to when I was a child again, when I was a child under his, you know, under his power. I never went through so much pain in my life until I met Anyang.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  Ayik last saw this man, Anyang, about 10 years ago, when he was just a 13-year-old boy. He was living in Sudan, which at the time was experiencing its second civil war. And Ayik had just been enlisted in the Children's Army. That first day, when he arrived at the base, this sprawling encampment with tents dotted all over the red dusty earth.

• 8:54Speaker 02

  I look around, children's everywhere, everywhere. Oh, there were hundreds of them. I felt, okay, this is good. Now I'm going to get trained. I'll get my uniform, I'll get my boots, I'll get my gun. I wasn't really scared, you know? I was excited.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  But it didn't take long for Ayik to realise that the Children's Army wasn't what he'd expected.

• 9:25Speaker 02

  The training was hard.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  He had to train from 4am well into the afternoon's hottest hours.

• 9:32Speaker 02

  You run 20 metres away, 20 metres back. And if you make a little mistake, you get whipped by the trainers from the back, you know? There might be two of them or three. And you just run, you know? You just have to get it right, or you pay for it.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  There was very little food to go around, usually just ground maize or corn if they were lucky.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  I was just sick of the punishment you get from training.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  But the thing is, once you join the Children's Army, there's no just packing up and leaving. You're stuck.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  Once you join, yeah, that's it.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  The only way to get out is to escape. So Ayik started asking himself, "How can I get out of here?"

• 10:16Speaker 02

  Because I can't go back to my auntie, because my auntie's hours away, toward Ethiopia.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  He also couldn't go back to his village in Sudan.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  Unless you go as a group and you got guns, yeah. But if you're a child, no, no way you're gonna make it.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  His only option was this nearby refugee camp called Zima, about 2 kilometres down the road.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  Because we're in Ethiopian jungle. There's nowhere to run. You can only run dead.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  So one night, under the blanket of darkness, clutching a metal plate and rocks for protection, Ayik ran out of the camp towards the dirt road to Dimma.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  From leopards, from hyenas, lions, I didn't think I could make it.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  He kept looking back, expecting to be caught or attacked. But 15 minutes later, panting, sweating, the refugee camp was finally inside. He'd made it.

• 11:13Speaker 02

  And then a few weeks later, the refugee camp, the army come at night time. They get a bunch of grass, light it up. They walk into this little hut, light it, looking for boys.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  Every few days, the bosses from the children's army camp would do a sweep through the refugee camp, looking for children that might have escaped. During one of those sweeps, they found Ayik. They pulled him out of the hut he was sleeping in.

• 11:42Speaker 02

  And they caught me and took me back to the camp, to the Red Army camp. We got thrown into this, it was a makeshift little prison. It made out of branches of tree. And during the day, around 12 o'clock, they bring you out.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  That's when Ayik met the army's prison guard for the very first time, the guy responsible for punishing those who tried to escape.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  And his name was Anyang.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  Anyang was 16 years old. He was solid and he towered over Ayik.

• 12:16Speaker 02

  But I didn't take him as just, he's going to be a bad person. I thought, oh, he's doing his job and he's probably going to punish us today and thus set.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  First, Anyang put him in a hog tie.

• 12:32Speaker 02

  You know, your elbow is tied to your ankles, you know, and you're just on your chest. And you're in the sun, you know, lying in the sun.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  After a day of almost non-stop beatings, Anyang threw Ayik back in the prison. Ayik begged him for water. By the end of the day, Ayik was so thirsty that he had no choice but to drink his own urine.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  So what happened was I escaped, I escaped.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  That very same night, Ayik broke out of the prison and ran back to the refugee camp.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  I thought I'll disappear into the crowd and they wouldn't forget about me because there's hundreds of child soldiers coming from Sudan every night as refugee. They can go and take them and then I got caught again.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  So he tried escaping again, a third time.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  Some night around 3 o'clock, I'll just go and climb the tree. Because when they come, they didn't know there'd be someone on the tree.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Then a fourth time.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  And then again, the same guy with his group come and get me, come and get me.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  And a fifth time.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  I came up with a plan that I used to sleep between the girls because when the rebel rock up in the morning, they're only looking for boys. They didn't take the girls.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  But each time Ayik was caught and delivered back to the prison camp and back into the hands of Anyang.

• 14:03Speaker 02

  Every time I come back is him and then he realised, this is the guy that don't listen. This is the guy who think he knows everything.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  So the punishments got worse.

• 14:13Speaker 02

  When the skin start peeling off from your elbow or your feet, he'll rub chili in there. So he just had a hate for me. He hated me. At the time, he had a big boss ahead of him, you know? When his boss is there, fair enough, he can go as hard as he wants.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  To some extent, Ayik knew that Anyang was just doing his job and following the orders. But then Anyang would torture Ayik and the other boys in the prison camp, even when the superiors weren't around.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  Every time he see me, he just, he just, he punished me worse than any other person in that prison.

• 14:54Speaker 02

  I asked myself, yeah, why is he doing it? Is it for his own pleasure? Why? Why see other people like him suffer like this? Why is he doing it? There was an anger inside me. You know, all that time I became very angry.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  But that still didn't keep Ayik from that same cycle. Escaping, getting caught, escaping, getting caught again.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  I, I, I lost track so many time. I lost track, probably 15 to 20 time. And I thought, oh, they get sick of me and let me go. And that's why I keep doing it. But after a while, I just got sick of it. And I just said, there's no point. I might as well just give up. I stopped running.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  Ayik was eventually deployed and spent more than two years fighting with the Sudan People's Liberation Army. He finally got out when his sister, who was married to an army captain, managed to organise a passage for him to travel from Sudan into Nairobi, Kenya.

• 15:52Speaker 02

  When I came to Kenya, we just went to this hotel and I, I just felt so, you know, saved. It felt, nothing felt like that. I swear to God, I never felt like that.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  From there, they applied for resettlement and not long after, they were on a flight to Australia.

• 16:13Speaker 02

  To get away, go somewhere where you can eat, you feel of your belly. You sleep peaceful, you're not gonna hear weapon, you're not gonna run. You, you know, I felt like this is it. This is a new life. I was very hopeful.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Now, as a grown man, back at his apartment in Brisbane after the wedding, Ayik was pacing around his living room.

• 16:46Speaker 02

  To me, I felt like this is crazy. I said, why? Why him?

• 16:52Speaker 02

  To where I am. Some of my best friends live in America, Canada. Why not one of them? Why bring my enemy next to me? I, I thought of that. I thought of him so many times.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  Even though Ayik was living this new life in a new country at peace, these thoughts about Unyoung and all the pain he inflicted on him, they kept coming up in flashbacks. It was like this movie rolling in front of his eyes that he just couldn't press pause on.

• 17:22Speaker 02

  Sometime when I was in the kitchen, because there were three of us in my family that they used to cook for everyone, me and my sister and my cousin. Sometime when I was in the kitchen, I'll have, look at these trays sitting in front of me of meat. Uh, my mind will start thinking, oh, okay. If you cut into the meat, you'd be like you're cutting into your nephew and nieces. All these thing crazy thought come into my mind. Sometime I'll just take the knife in the steak and go to the park. And then come back and my sister will say, how come you didn't do that? I said, because I don't want to. I didn't want to tell her what I was going through.

• 18:05Speaker 02

  I didn't want to tell her that thing remind me of the war when I was a soldier.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  Ayik's life in Australia had not gone how he'd planned. He couldn't hold down jobs. He got a taste for drugs and booze. And eventually he became a low-level drug dealer.

• 18:22Speaker 02

  I went through in Australia, going to prison, having a fight with a girlfriend, having a fight with the police, having a fight with people at the pub. I was diagnosed as post-traumatic stress disorder.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  Sorry, Ruby.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  He says for almost a year, he couldn't stop thinking about Anyang. So he had to keep reminding himself, he's not 13 anymore. He's not a child soldier. Anyang can't hurt him anymore. And then...

• 19:03Speaker 02

  I had a little boy, I had a child. I had my son. So I had something to live for.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  He called his son Freeman. And Freeman totally changed the way Ayik saw the world and his place in it.

• 19:16Speaker 02

  I mean, children, if you have a child, you think, you think different and not do things that you would do.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  And this man, Anyang, while still there, faded back into the recesses of his mind.

• 19:30Speaker 02

  So I was just trying to focus on myself. I've got a child now and I want to live. I want to move on with my life and I'm trying to find a career or something just to prove that, you know, I can do something with my life.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  And that's when he started pursuing his childhood passion.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  The first time I saw a movie, I was in the jungle. So what happened was that the bodyguard came with a TV. It was, it was just as big as a microwave. It was black and white. And I just see this white guy jumping out of the plane, doing all these crazy stuff. So when I came here, when I came to Australia, I tried to get to the bottom of it, how they make movies.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  And he got into acting.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  I was in a Scooby Doo, the movie. I was in Inbetweeners 2, which is a Pommies movie, it's a comedy, sort of like, Inbetweeners, remember that movie? There's Inbetweeners 1, Inbetweeners 2. I was in that.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  One day, Ayik was scrolling through Star Now, a website that matches producers and casting directors with actors and performers. He came across this call-out for a TV show called Look Me in the Eye, which would be broadcast on SBS all across Australia. The premise of the show was to reunite two estranged people by placing them in a room, where they'd look at each other in the eyes for five minutes to see if eye contact alone can bring people back together. Think long-lost father reuniting with his child, or best friends coming back together after a fight, that kind of a thing.

• 21:14Speaker 02

  So what I did, I wrote to them about a guy who I helped save from a leopard. When I was a child soldier, we had a leopard that we were racing. That leopard got big. One day, it attacked this guy and nearly killed him. So I helped save him from a leopard, and it'd be good to see him.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  A few days later, he got a call from the show's producers.

• 21:37Speaker 02

  They say, "Okay, you're telling us that you helped save someone from a leopard, okay. And how did you get to have a leopard?" I told them I was a boy soldier in Sudan. And then they told me, "Okay, who can prove that you were a child soldier?"

• 22:00Speaker 01

  It had been more than 10 years since Ayik had seen Anyang in church that day. But at that moment, for whatever reason, Anyang was the first name that popped into his mind.

• 22:11Speaker 02

  I said, "I didn't want to talk about it, but the guy that used to torture me, I ran into him years ago in church." And they said, "Okay, so what did this guy do to you?" I said, "This guy, he ran the prison. He was the boss of the prison. And he tortured me when I was in the war."

• 22:29Speaker 01

  As soon as he said those words, he knew what the producer was gonna say. Of course, that's the story they wanted to hear. Not the one about Ayik saving a boy from a leopard, but the one about Anyang, the man who had tortured him.

• 22:44Speaker 02

  We think this story is more powerful than that. I say, "Yeah, it's more powerful, but there's so much pain in that one."

• 22:52Speaker 01

  When the producer asked Ayik if he'd be willing to confront Anyang on national television, he wasn't sure what to do. He didn't know what to say.

• 23:10Glynn Washington?

  When we return, will Ayet go on national television to confront Anya? Stay tuned.

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• 25:40Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the wedding guest episode. And this is a real story, an amazing story that recounts disturbing memories. And as such, listener discretion is advised.

• 25:55Glynn Washington?

  Now Ayek was on the phone with a TV producer who wanted him to go on national television to finally look his childhood tormentor in the eye.

• 26:07Glynn Washington?

  Snap Judgment.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  We think this story is more powerful than that. I say, yeah, it's more powerful, but there's so much pain in that one.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  When the producer asked Ayik if he'd be willing to confront Anyang on national television, he wasn't sure what to do. He didn't know what to say.

• 26:27Speaker 02

  It was something that I've been keeping to myself, you know, like even the mother of my child, she didn't know much. She knew that I was a child soldier, but I never got into detail. So anyone, any close friend that knew me, they knew I was a child soldier, but not in detail.

• 26:43Speaker 01

  He also honestly wasn't sure what he was capable of, if he'd be able to control himself in front of Anyang.

• 26:51Speaker 02

  And I say, I've got a boy now. If I snap, then I'm gonna, I'm gonna do something bad to these guys, then I'm gonna spend the rest of my life in jail.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  Ayik told the producer that he had to think about it, and so he did. For weeks, he went back and forth about whether to confront Anyang on national television. And finally, one morning, he woke up and decided that yes, he would do it.

• 27:16Speaker 02

  I decided to just go with coming face to face with Anyang because he's the only person that can tell me what he was thinking at the time, why he did what he did to me. I wanted to do it for myself because all these years I was in Australia with, it was like a ticking bomb.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  A few months later, Ayik found himself on a plane to Sydney, where the show would be filmed.

• 27:41Speaker 02

  I was just really nervous.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  That night, in his hotel room, he barely slept.

• 27:49Speaker 02

  It was just a mixed emotion, you know? I wanted to forgive him, at the same time, I was angry.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  When he woke up the next morning, he put on a pink shirt, khaki trousers and tan leather shoes. He was picked up from the hotel and driven to a large studio with polished concrete floors and bright lights.

• 28:08Speaker 02

  It's like a warehouse. It's huge. And in that studio, I got told there'll be two seats there.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  The show is set up so that participants sit facing one another, staring into each other's eyes for five minutes. After that, they have to make a decision. Either end the relationship there and then, or decide to talk and reconnect.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  I was shaky. Everything was a bit blurry.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  At this point, Ayik didn't actually know if Anyang would be turning up to the filming. The producers hadn't told him. It seems that, in true reality television fashion, they wanted Ayik to be in as much suspense as their audience would be in.

• 28:51Speaker 02

  You know, they say after a while, you get told he's in the building, but we're not sure if he's going to come or not. What about if he doesn't come? What are you going to do, Mr. Shoot?

• 29:01Speaker 01

  Eventually, a producer led Ayik to the centre of the room and sat him down in one of the chairs.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  The lights dimmed. The question of whether Anyang would turn up loomed large.

• 29:16Speaker 02

  When I heard the footsteps, someone coming, tick, tick, tick, tick, and then sat right, which is just about two metres or three metres in front of me.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  Ayik has his head down. Anyang, tall and lean, wearing glasses and a black suit, takes a seat in front of Ayik. He looks directly at him, and Ayik still has his head down.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  And then I look up and there he was. Anyang, sitting right in front of me, looking at me, looking at me.

• 29:58Speaker 02

  The first moment when I was looking at him, what I saw was the Anyang in the rabble. The Anyang, the prison guard, the boss. What came back to my mind was just what I saw when I was in Ethiopia in the training camp. You know, just a blank face, just looking at me.

• 30:24Speaker 02

  Just about to deliver his orders. He still looked the same as when I was in that dust on the ground, looking up at him. That's all I saw in his eye. I didn't see any sympathy. His eye was just so blank and just staring at me.

• 30:42Speaker 01

  Ayik looks away, but Anyang keeps a steady gaze on him.

• 30:48Speaker 02

  I was hoping to see some changes, face, you know, but I didn't see it. I was thinking, you know, I just think it's the same guy. It's the same person. People learn, grow and change, but I haven't seen any change.

• 31:16Speaker 01

  Suddenly, the lights brightened and the five minutes were up. Anyang was the first to stand up and walk out.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  But Ayik, he doesn't move from his chair. It's like the weight of those last five minutes keep him in the chair.

• 31:35Speaker 01

  Eventually, each man is directed into a separate room to consult with their producers. And Ayik had a decision to make.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  The eye contact was the beginning, but I wanted to know

• 31:48Speaker 02

  the way he was looking at me, what was, what was in his mind, what was he seeing? Because what I was seeing there is hard to read.

• 31:59Speaker 03

  So you definitely want to go and you want to talk to him?

• 32:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I wanted to talk to him.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  But of course, reality television producers are kind of known for their pushiness, that sort of "nothing gets in the way of good TV" kind of an attitude. Was that really a decision for you when you were kind of talking to the producer? Was there any chance that you wouldn't actually talk to Anyang after?

• 32:25Speaker 02

  I wanted to talk. I wanted to talk. And he wanted to talk too.

• 32:31Speaker 01

  Back in the studio, in their seats, Ayik began asking questions. He says he ended up talking with Anyang for quite a while, but only a few minutes of that conversation was actually aired, the most tear-inducing minutes set to a dramatic melancholic orchestra of strings and piano.

• 32:51Speaker 02

  Just going back to the training, you know, you put me in jail a few times.

• 32:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:59Speaker 02

  There were a lot of other child soldiers there. I wanted to know exactly,

• 33:07Speaker 02

  did anybody, did you ever kill anyone in there?

• 33:14Speaker 02

  Whether it was a mistake or what have you done? I wanted to know.

• 33:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, actually, I didn't kill anyone there.

• 33:25Speaker 04

  See,

• 33:28Speaker 04

  to be honest to you, I knew what I did is something wrong.

• 33:34Speaker 04

  I understand the feeling in your heart.

• 33:40Speaker 04

  Because every single night when the memories come up, what I did,

• 33:47Speaker 04

  it is there in my mind throughout.

• 33:51Speaker 04

  So when I revise what happened, I don't feel comfortable when I don't sleep. It hurt you, and you went through it all these years.

• 34:05Speaker 04

  I knew it is still in your heart there, but please, I'm asking you, can you forgive me? Let us start a new chapter of life, please, Ayik, please.

• 34:21Speaker 02

  Before I came here, you know, I went mental.

• 34:30Speaker 02

  And then,

• 34:35Speaker 02

  when I was here,

• 34:38Speaker 02

  my life changed.

• 34:44Speaker 02

  You say you're sorry, yeah?

• 34:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:46Speaker 02

  Are you really sorry?

• 34:47Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 34:52Speaker 02

  I forgive you, and I mean it.

• 34:58Speaker 02

  So I'm finished with this today, here.

• 35:03Speaker 02

  Just to move on. And I wish you the best in everything you do, you know? Go on with your life and be good, be good to everyone.

• 35:15Speaker 02

  But I have forgiven you. A breakdown, you know, like, tears of, you know, someone who is angry, tears of someone who wanted to forgive. After that, he just couldn't take it anymore. I thought, oh, his past is catching up with him. So he just took off. He said, "I have to leave."

• 35:37Speaker 01

  After embracing Ayik, Anyang says to him in Dinka, "I'm going, I'm going", and walks out of the studio.

• 35:55Glynn Washington?

  Is that the last we've seen of Anyang? Find out when the Wedding Guest episode continues. Stay tuned.

• 36:15Glynn Washington?

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• 36:58Glynn Washington?

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• 37:43Glynn Washington?

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• 38:28Glynn Washington?

  It's the best way to support the show. Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the wedding guest episode. My name is Ken Washington and when last we left, Ayik had just confronted Nanyang, the man who had been his tormentor for years as a boy, as a child soldier in Sudan. The meeting took place in Australia on national television. It had been tearful and emotional under the bright lights of a TV studio, but the moment was cut short when Nanyang left the set. Snap Judgment.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  After embracing Ayik, Anyang says to him in Dinka, "I'm going, I'm going", and walks out of the studio.

• 39:32Speaker 01

  I'm wondering, because I know that Anyang apologised to you on the show. He said, "I'm sorry", and you said to him on the show that you forgive him. I'm wondering, like, you know, did you really, did you really mean that? Because it feels to me, it feels kind of unbelievable that such a brief moment and something so public could kind of, I guess, lead to that.

• 40:00Speaker 02

  Some people say, "I'll never forgive anyone like that." I forgive, so I move on with my life. Because if I don't forgive, I'm the one suffering. I found myself that to forgive is the only way to make me move forward.

• 40:25Speaker 02

  Hello?

• 40:27Speaker 05

  Hello?

• 40:28Speaker 02

  Anyang did.

• 40:30Speaker 05

  Ah, Ayik, how are you, bro?

• 40:33Speaker 02

  You've been, hey, I tried to contact you a while ago because I was gonna hang out with you, but you've been busy. Did you get my text?

• 40:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, but no, I didn't get your text to be honest to you.

• 40:46Speaker 02

  No, it's all right. So how's the family, anyway?

• 40:49Speaker 05

  Oh, they're doing good, bro.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  A few weeks after the show aired, Ayik went searching for Anyang. He found his number through a mutual friend. He wanted to see him again.

• 41:03Speaker 02

  I just wanted to just get to know him as a person and see more about him, if he's changed. Is he really sorry for what he said on national TV? Or does he mean it?

• 41:15Speaker 01

  So Ayik was really nervous that first time he dialed Anyang's number. And he couldn't believe Anyang's reaction. Anyang said, "Yeah, sure. Come to my place. Hang out."

• 41:27Speaker 02

  I went there, parked my car, walked to the uni. Ayuk, here's water. Do you want tea? Do you want coffee? Do you have a seat?

• 41:36Speaker 01

  At first, it was mostly just small talk. But pretty quickly, they started opening up to each other.

• 41:42Speaker 02

  And they talk about his own family, that he's got children, what he's doing with his life. And then we, something just connect. And he says, are you gonna stay? I say, yeah, I wanna stay here tonight.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  One night extended to two, and then three.

• 42:01Speaker 02

  I was sleeping at his house for a week.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  Every evening that week, Ayuk would finish work, pack a bag, and drive to Siang Young. They shared meals, they watched TV together.

• 42:14Speaker 02

  I even learned his humour side. He's got humour, you know, like, I felt like, like I was close to him. And from there, he said, "Bring your son." So I took Freeman there.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  Ayuk says that seeing An Young with his son felt oddly natural, comfortable.

• 42:34Speaker 02

  It was just good to see him just hugging Freeman, walking, playing, like, playing like, it's kids play, you know, can you do this, Freeman? It was good, it was good. And it make me realise, okay, this guy has changed. He's not the same person he was back then.

• 42:55Speaker 01

  Eventually, Ayuk got up the courage to start asking An Young questions about the war.

• 43:00Speaker 02

  He said he was a child too. And he was worried about his life if he doesn't do what he was supposed to do. And then, I even told him, I said, "If I was in your shoes, I would have done the same, but not as bad." An Young had his own anger that he was taking out of us. And I can't tell why, because he said his father and mother were killed when the war first started. Maybe that's the anger that he took on to pass it on to us. He suffered himself in the war as well.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  I have a question for you, which is, so the show Look Me In The Eye, it sets up a kind of oppressor versus victim narrative, basically where like Anyang's the bad guy and you're the good guy. And it makes the situation seem really black and white. But I'm wondering, you know, what would you say to that? Because it does seem more complicated than just, than just that.

• 44:07Speaker 02

  Maybe he was a victim, but I don't know how bad he was, who punished him, like what he did to me. That's why I see him as a bad guy, but a bad guy become a good guy.

• 44:24Speaker 01

  But Ayik says that knowing this, knowing how Anyang also suffered during the war, it made him realise something.

• 44:32Speaker 02

  Because he's the only person I can talk to about the war is Anyang.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  And at that moment, he knew that what he thought he'd come for, an apology, wasn't actually what he'd come for.

• 44:47Speaker 02

  I feel like he's the only one that knew about me when I was a child, the person I was. If I was good or bad, then he knows, no one knows. I don't even know what kind of person I was when I used to run that many times. But Anyang will tell you that 100% exactly what I, who I was. He was like a friend, but an enemy friend. I don't know if I'm making sense. So he knows me, he knew my personality back then and he know my personality now. He probably know me better than anyone.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  Over the years, the two men have spent quite a lot of time together. But these days, it's more Ayik reaching out to Anyang.

• 45:28Speaker 02

  See, but yeah, we do talk, but I think he's going through a lot right now. That thing, probably him being through the war and all that has, is catching up with him.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  Sometimes Ayik does reach him on the phone and they catch up like they used to.

• 45:47Speaker 05

  How are you doing, bro?

• 45:49Speaker 02

  I'm all right, Anyang man, it's just...

• 45:51Speaker 05

  It's hard with the baby, that's about it, but everything is doing, it's alright, they're struggling, they're struggling. Yeah, but everything will be alright, everything will be alright. Do you know, uh, you, there's two things, uh, to be alive is good, but living is hard, so. Okay, yeah, yeah, I like that, I like that saying. That's part of the life, yeah, so. Yeah, when, when you gonna come for a beer?

• 46:41Glynn Washington?

  A very big, big, big thank you to Ayik Chutdang for sharing his story with Snap Judgment. Ayik and Anyang are still in touch and they remain friends. That story is produced by Ruby Schwartz and edited by Nancy Lopez. Special thanks as well to Wendy Love.

• 47:00Glynn Washington?

  Now, there is no way we came even close to covering all of Ayik's story. You can catch Ayik on Harrow, a crime drama now airing on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ABC. He appears as a biosecurity officer. And in between acting and parenting, Ayik has also managed to write a memoir. One of those stories in that memoir you may be familiar with, it's called The Leopard Story. The one that those fancy TV producers in Australia turned down. Now, it's a bit graphic, sensitive listeners are advised, but let's give you the chance to judge for yourself. Ayik is going to take us back to his days as a young boy soldier in Sudan.

• 47:45Speaker 02

  When I was a child soldier, we had a leopard that we were racing. Somehow, some of the child soldiers went to the bush one day and found, found and brought a little cub, one of the cub home, and then we raised our cub. We tied the leopard under the tree and it got about maybe 10 metre rope. So he can, the leopard can climb on the tree to have a sleep there a night because hay has attacked him a few times. And then in the morning, he'll come down and run around. Yeah, it was crazy because if a leopard attack you, that's it, you're dead. Because, you know, you'll die straight away. And I used to worry about that. And then one day, that leopard got big. One day it attacked this guy now. His name is Bulagwang.

• 48:28Speaker 02

  The guy was coming, walking. We didn't see him walk. He walked past us, but we were playing cards, some traditional stuff. And I was playing card like 15 metres away from where he was. All I can hear is just a guy screaming and the leopard on top of him. I lowered my gun and I ran toward the leopard. I was just about to shoot. One of the guys said, "No, don't shoot, don't shoot." So what I did, we turned the gun around. I turned the back of my gun around and started hitting the leopard on the head. This leopard probably about 100, 100 kilos because we fed him too much. And by the time the leopard let go, the blood was pumping out of the guy's throat. Every time he was breathing, there's a bubble.

• 49:13Speaker 02

  So one of the guy took a shirt and tied on his neck just to keep the blood in there. And then the guy was transferred to another, I think it was maybe an hour drive. Because we were, we were at this place where we only kept weapons. So there wasn't good doctors there. But if you drive an hour, there's United Nations there. There are real doctors, what you call white doctors. They're the one that can save him. So he got there. I never heard from him. I thought he was dead. Until three month or six month later, I ran into him and he was alive. And I say, "Oh, you made it." He said, "Yeah, I made it." And I just couldn't believe it. But it was him. And I helped save him.

• 49:59Speaker 02

  And it's true. It's true. I swear to God. Even in the war, there's a lot of child soldiers who I'm friends with now here in Brisbane, Australia. When they tell me their stories, I get goosebumps. I shake, I shivered, you know? You know, because we all, every one of us got a story. So I thought if we tell my story, it might not be a good one, but some, I can learn from a funny story, I can learn from a bad story, we all got a story. Any story you learn something from.

• 50:40Glynn Washington?

  So if you want more stories from Ayik, check out his memoir, The Lost Boy, with a link on our website, snapjudgment.org.

• 50:51Glynn Washington?

  The original score for this piece and the entire episode was by Renzo Gorrio. In fact, so many stories on Snap are scored by Renzo Gorrio that we gotta give him some love. He produces under the name Hydroplane and has a new album. It's called Rocket. It's out right now via a special collaborative released by Schematic and Nabina. Here's a taste of the first track called Rocketeer.

• 53:15Glynn Washington?

  That's just a sample of the latest track from our own amazing, irreplaceable, in-house musician genius, Renzo Gorrio. It goes by Hydroplane. From the brand-new album Rockets, it's out right now. It'll be available digitally, on vinyl, and cassette. We'll have a link to Renzo's work at snapjudgment.org.

• 53:40Glynn Washington?

  Oh, yes. We did it again. We got here together. If you missed even a moment, subscribe to the Snap Judgment Podcast. More stories, more music, more adventures await. If you want to join the conversation, follow Snap on the Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. Don't miss a beat. Yes, there is swag. Snapjudgment.org. Yes, more stories. You have a story you need to share with us? We'd love to hear it. Send it to us. Pictures at snapjudgment.org. Snap is brought to you by the team that knows to run away from leopards. Except for the Blue Sir, Mark Ristich, of course.

• 54:21Glynn Washington?

  Nancy Lopez, Pat Massey Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Goryeo, John Facio, Shayna Shealy, Taylor Decot, Flo Wiley, Marissa Dodge, and Regina Barriaco.

• 54:37Glynn Washington?

  Well, this is not the news. No way this is the news. In fact, as a youngster, you would see your pet leopard attack a gun-toting militant and recount the incident. It's just an interesting childhood memory. I knew it still. Still! Not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is... PRX.