Place of Refuge

Story by Natasha Walker // Photos by Michael Leese

By sunrise, the troop had swelled to nearly 20,000 displaced people. More than half were like Garang-young, orphaned boys who, dislodged from their families and unwelcome in their homeland, would come to be known as the "Lost Boys of Sudan."

The uprooting in Pachella was only the beginning of the relentless relocation that would plague the boys, who ranged in age from 8 to 18. A civil war had erupted in Sudan, setting the Islamic North against the Christian South. Representing the future generation of Southern Sudan, the boys were honed in by the North and over the next four years, the Lost Boys (affectionately named by United Nations aid workers after Peter Pan's parentless posse) navigated thousands of miles in search of a place to call home.

Like cattle, they traveled in protective columns and clusters across unforgiving deserts, callous savannahs and merciless mountains, facing ethnic and religious persecution in every city where they dared to pause. It would be three grueling years before Garang and the others would step foot in what they thought would be their final destination and a chance to start anew-a U.N. refugee station in the sweltering desert of Kakuma, Kenya.

"When we arrived, there was nothing except U.N. workers waiting for us," Garang says. "The ground was bare. We were really starting over."

For many individuals fleeing their homeland, refugee camps mark the end of one harsh journey and the beginning of another-resettlement into a new life.

Garang says he and the first Lost Boys who arrived had to build the huts and dig the wells that would sustain them for an indefinite number of years. The boys began to attend school, and in some cases, start families. Despite hardships, it appeared they were creating a new beginning for themselves.

"The first three months was hard," he says. "I was 8 years old. You had to build your own house. But we liked helping and being a part-helping build something."

But, Kakuma was not intended to be a permanent residence for the boys. By definition, a refugee camp is considered a temporary place of sanctuary for those fleeing their homeland. The next step is for camps to foster permanent resettlement of refugees into the countries they have fled to, says Sandra Van Der Pol, the refugee project coordinator for World Relief in Seattle. However, she says this is frequently not possible, as many refugees are often unwelcome in even their shelter countries.

"These countries do not have the resources to provide for hundreds of thousands of refugees," she says. "They can barely stomach having the refugee camps."

Due to these conflicts, refugees often lead a life in limbo-not belonging anywhere and not wanted anywhere.

But for .05 percent of the 12 million refugees worldwide, hope for a new life arrives in the form of the U.S. Embassy. While this may seem like a small proportion, the U.S. accepts more than double the number of refugees than the other nine countries that carry out resettlement programs combined, according to Office of Refugee Resettlement.

With the assistance of the U.N. workers present in the Kakuma refugee camp, the U.S. government began the lengthy process of redistributing 3,800 Lost Boys of Sudan into metropolitan cities in the U.S in 2000-the largest number of resettled, unaccompanied youth in U.S. history.

Garang remembers his plane ride to the U.S.: brimming with fidgety boys, who grinned anxiously at the thousands of other refugees who lined the dusty airstrip to wave goodbye.

Each day after that first departure, the remaining Lost Boys huddled around the Kakuma camp posting board, waiting for their names to appear on the mysteriously calculated U.S. Embassy departure list. The list, Garang says, became a source of hope for the Lost Boys.

"The United Nations were taking care of us. They were like our family," he says. "And I had this in my mind that the U.S. government would take care of me too and provide me with resources and get opportunities to go to college."

As the plane lifted off from the ground, Garang waved goodbye to the arid, three-digit temperature climate, sparse meals and recurrent violence associated with life in an overcrowded refugee camp. On the plane, talk of the "American dream" was ubiquitous.

However, Van Der Pol says refugees face particular obstacles they might not expect upon arriving in the U.S-especially the Lost Boys.

Garang says his hardest and most surprising struggle was grocery shopping. He says he toiled over American-English labels. When trying to find corn in a store, he would look for its European-English name, "maize."

"I say to myself, 'What can I buy?' I don't know. So all I eat for the first while was roast beef," he says.

Van Der Pol tells similar stories of refugees' "firsts." She recalls a refugee woman pouring bathing water down heat registers, believing them to be drains. Van Der Pol has also found clothing stored in the refrigerator, onions in the freezer and milk in the cupboard of newly resettled refugees.

But these adjustments come quickly, Garang says.

"Before, I never had a snack. I didn't even have breakfast," he says. "Now, I love snacks."

Eventually the euphoria of starting anew begins to fade, and a harsher reality of life for a foreign-born in America often surfaces-one of cultural confusion, oppression and discrimination.

"Here they come with such high hopes to start a new life," Van Der Pol says. "But sometimes, when they arrive, they can't even hold a pencil."

Merri Anne Osborne, a family support manager for the Southern Sudanese Community of Washington, says that the biggest concerns refugees harbor is they often misunderstand and feel misunderstood.

Shamsu Said, 19, is a Western freshman who immigrated to Seattle from Ethiopia in January 1999. Much like refugees, individuals who emigrate to the U.S. experience culture shock associated with resettlement.

"It was hard at first," he says. "It's hard to communicate. [Peers] didn't know what I was saying. I didn't know what they were saying. So sometimes it led to a conflict where I might get in a fight with them. I felt I had to defend myself."

For some refugees and immigrants, the new start is overwhelming. They may find themselves victims of their own cultural misunderstandings.

"Most come from the countryside," Said says. "They have never seen a city. They have never seen freedom. So when they come here, it's the end of the world. They have too much freedom. So sometimes they just go the wrong direction."

The new freedom can often lead to legal issues.

Anne Wennerstrom is program manager of the Newcomers Resource Project at the King County Bar Association. The Newcomers Resource Project provides volunteer attorneys for low-income immigrant, refugees and newcomers to King County.

"Even if you were born here, its really hard to understand all the various hurdles of getting what you need legally," she says. "And if you come from a system where the courts are completely corrupt, there's a lot of distrust with the court system."

For the most part, however, stories of new beginnings for refugees and immigrants in the U.S. are stories laden with success.

"Growing up [in Ethiopia], you don't have a dream of what you want to be," Said says. "But up here, they ask you in kindergarten what you want to be. I had never imagined that. I had never been asked that. I think its good."

The chance to come to the U.S. as a refugee or immigrant offers a new start on life that would be impossible otherwise, Garang says. It also offers individuals searching for an identity, such as the Lost Boys of Sudan, the chance to become a part of and have an effect on the community.

Pramila Jayapal is executive director of OneAmerica, the largest non-profit immigrant advocacy organization in Washington. She believes that part of the root cause of discrimination and oppression of foreign-born residents is a miscalculation of their value and contribution to the community.

"Twelve percent of the state population is foreign-born," she says. "So really, if you look at the whole picture, you can't escape the fact that they are a critical part of our society. If you look at our history, when we're able to effectively integrate immigrants in, it's good for us. Our economy grows, our culture grows."

Now 25, Garang is a Western senior majoring in business management. He became a U.S. citizen in 2007 and has since returned to Africa and reunited with his mother and father after nearly a decade apart.

Stepping foot back in his mother country in October 2008, he felt a deep connection with his people and plans to return to help rebuild Southern Sudan with the opportunities he has gained from his new life. No longer a Lost Boy, Garang has found his place in America.