South Sudan's English Daily Newspaper
"We Dare where others fear"
By Awan Achiek
The Bible says in Genesis 2:24 that a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
This is what Gbiaundo Simon Francis, 58, from Asanza village of Yambio County in Western Equatoria State did when he married his lover Sepura Borete.
The two have become famous in their village because they are 5 feet tall, making the shortest couple ever seen in the entire South Sudan.
Simon told The Dawn in an interview at the home in January 2023, that he met Borete in 2007 through a close friend before begging for her hand in marriage.
“When I moved from Bodo to Asanza, I found my village mate, Peter Zoorongbanya. He came and told me that there was a woman he had seen for me, so I requested to see the woman,” Simon said.
“A few days later my friend, Peter came to me and we went to see the girl and by that time I was a businessman, I was selling things like sweets, biscuits and cigarettes,” he added.
Simon said that the first time he visited the family home of Borete in Diazenge in Gangura Payam, they did not see her at home.
“We only met her sisters who told us she went to the house of her uncle, and then we returned,” Simon said.
“Days later I went there and found her and she wanted to refuse my proposal so I kept on going there and good enough she was advised by one of my uncles to accept me,” Simon said.
Simon said that Borete accepted to get married to him convinced that he would take care of her due to his successful business.
“She accepted, so from that time I decided to pay her dowry, I paid first 300 South Sudanese Pounds and at that time it was big money,” he said.
“They wanted me to pay a total of 19,000 South Sudanese Pounds so I managed to pay some and I am now remaining with a balance of only 1,500 pounds.”
The couple has been living peacefully in Asanza in Yambio County with their 13 year old daughter who is currently in primary six.
Both Simon and Borete are farmers who grow different crops such as groundnuts, rice and cassava on their small farmland in Asanza.
“As a man, my responsibility is to take care of my house by bringing something that can make my wife happy and also doing what can make me happy,” he said.
“When my friends or any of my in-laws give me money for example like 1,000 pounds I would buy meat and come with it home and sometimes I buy fish to change the diet,” Simon said.
He advises married couples to live in peace and harmony.
“What other people can learn from our life story is that living together peacefully with your wife is the best thing without quarrelling and troubles, things like insulting each other in the presence of children is not good,” he said.
Sepura Borete said that she has been living peacefully with her husband since they got married about 15 years ago.
“We have been living peacefully since we got married about 15 years ago, he has not treated me badly and I have not seen anything bad,” Borete said.
“What we are mainly doing is we understand each other, cultivate together, buy our soap and wash our clothes together,” she added.
Borete prior to meeting Simon had thought she would never get married in her life given her height.
“In my life, I never knew I would get married and after the death of my father, a man came to our house and proposed to me and we got married,” she said.
She always tells her husband to avoid engaging in quarrels with her in order to preserve their marriage.
