And they know that no South Sudanese family could survive long without me.

I am the one who allows women to carry their heads high, wearing their freshly-pressed best dress to church on Sunday.

I left South Sudan in the back of a pickup truck, one braid among hundreds of others, headed for the camps across the border, where a quarter-million refugees were hungry for a taste of home.

We are a collective. We burrow, unseen, in huge colonies as deep as 18 feet below the surface. Each colony houses up to one million of us.

I do not merely rid the ground of litter. I clear it, smooth and open, so that nothing can hide there. Snakes and scorpions and poisonous spiders and camel spiders (eek!) prefer underbrush and clutter.

Almost always, it is women’s work to fill me, hoist me onto their heads and walk the long miles back to their village.

Every day he scooped up the ash leftover from a dung fire and rubbed it on my horns and spread it all over my hide to keep away the biting insects.

We are no longer instruments of brutality. We are things of beauty! Who could have imagined such a transformation?

My existence is itself a contradiction. Built by men who waged war for a living. Built to shield children from death by that same war.

It begins with an incision from a thorn or knife. Then the raw cut is rubbed with ash or plant juices to further irritate the skin. The healed skin forms me, a raised scar.

No wonder I am the most popular weapon in the whole world: 70 million of us are now being used in over 90 countries. Impressive, right?

She made me perfect for welcoming slivers of bright sunshine while keeping out the dangers that lurk. Have you not seen?