Walking away from civil war - Sudanese refugees

When Peter Magai Bul and other Sudanese boys came to the attention of aid workers in the early 1990s, they presented a grim image: a river of thousands of children, uprooted from their homes amid the chaos of Sudan's civil war, rail-thin and often naked, walking hundreds of miles in scorching heat.

The world has come to know these boys--very few were girls--as "Lost Boys," named after the parentless boys of Peter Pan's Neverland, except the crocodiles in their stories were real and deadly.

As a group, they covered as many as 1,000 miles--from Sudan to Ethiopia, back to Sudan and then to Kenya.

They trudged into a dusty Kenyan refugee camp in 1992, nearly five years after their perilous journey began. Bul and roughly 12,000 other boys spent their adolescence there.

In 2000, having determined that repatriation was not an option, the United States agreed to resettle roughly 3,800 of the boys, now in their late teens and early 20s.

Bul got his chance in April 2001.

At first, his life in Chicago was filled with a flurry of new discoveries: refrigerators, stoves, flushing toilets, vacuum cleaners, elevators and other modem wonders.

Americans, however, speak an entirely different language from the stilted English he learned in the camp. Even that was a far cry from the language of his Dinka tribe.

But his optimism has not wavered. The way he sees it, Chicago has boundless opportunities. And he has his future mapped out--to learn all he can here and fulfill his dream of becoming a doctor.

To that end, he has secured a housekeeping job at a local hotel, and begun attending Truman College at night.

Bul, now 20, shared his experience with The Chicago Reporter.

When did you leave your village?

I left my home in 1988. The government soldiers came and attacked people in villages, killing people and trying to take some properties. I was on my farm. When they came and attacked, then everybody had to run in all directions. My family was all scattered. My parents ran their own way, and I ran my own way.

I didn't know where people were going, but we just walked. Another group of guys came and joined us. We just walked through the desert.

Things like mosquitoes and wild animals--they were there on the way. There's nothing you can do. If you meet a wild animal, and if it attacks you, that is the end of you.

Some other people were dying from hunger. People were just using small containers to carry their water. So, if your water finishes, there's nowhere to get it.

After you reached Ethiopia, what happened?

In 1991, war broke out in Ethiopia, and we were supposed to go back to Sudan.

On the way, because many of us were kids, and because they were shooting people, many died when we reached a river. We were under attack, and [Ethiopian] soldiers were following us. I didn't know how to swim. But I was lucky because I was above the water--the water was not deep enough. Many drowned. There were crocodiles in the river, so even if you can swim ...

Almost one thousand people died.

Soon after returning to Sudan, you were forced to move once again, this time to Kenya's Kakuma refugee camp. What was it like there?

When we first came to Kakuma, there were no houses... So we built our houses.

When they came with [food] rations, they would just bring things like corn mush, and some beans. They would give [it to] you in a cup like this [a small-size soda cup], and maybe you could spend two weeks with that. You would just eat once a day. Sometimes, if enough food was not there, you could just drink water and spend some days with it.

People died from [starvation].

How did you spend your time there?

[The United Nations] started some schools. They let you go to primary school. They tried to teach some English. But things like hunger can [prevent you from] going to school sometimes, or even reading.

You were then told that you were going to the United States. What did you know about this country? What kind of image did you have?

In Africa, when we talked about America, we consider it like heaven sometimes. Everybody wants to come here.

In America, things like hunger--it's not there. You can go to work and make money, go to school. And nobody can shoot you like the way we [were shot at].

It's been more than one year since you arrived in Chicago. How are you adjusting to the life here?

When I first came here, everything was new to me. To give an example, the idea of renting an apartment was [not familiar]. So looking for an apartment was a problem. It was difficult.

I was even scared to talk to people because ... they didn't understand me, and it was hard for me to understand them. But now, I'm getting used to talking to many people. I think my English is getting better.

To get adjusted to a new culture, it just takes some time, you know.

Are you happy with your experience here so far?

Yeah. Right now, I can go to school and study what I want to study. I can work and make money. So I'm happy.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Community Renewal Society
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group