October 21, 2010

I got my shots for my trip to Kenya. I had to get four shots--yellow fever, typhus, hep A, and polio. It was really scary, but fortunately I didn't get any reactions. The shots were so expensive-$400.00--and insurance doesn't even cover it though the US won't let you back into the country without a yellow fever certificate. I hope the trip doesn't get cancelled with all this live virus in my body. I just can't believe that they give you all these shots at once. There does seem to be a lot of activity going on beneath my skin and my stomach is mildly upset and my arms really hurt. I'll be careful to sleep on my back tonight.

Lea Remembers

Today as I sat editing footage from the 2009 Reunion Project I wondered when James and Mary would be taking their trip back to Sudan to be reunited with their families. Although this is not the first time that the Writing Program has worked to raise awareness about the Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan, this year was particularly special because we were able to send two people back to be reunited with their families, instead of just one.

This year, the Drexel University Writing Program led a Read-A-Thon to raise money to reunite a Lost Boy or Girl with his or her family. Students took pledges of around $10 per book and could read up to 100 books from a list of works focusing on the crisis in Sudan, African folktales, genocide, and more. In the meantime, Sudanese Lost Boys and Girls applied to the Reunion Project by writing essays, explaining how the trip home would affect them and help them with their lives in the United States.

When the essays started coming in, I was lucky enough to be one of the writing tutors assigned to read them. The stories were heartbreaking. Each person described in detail the trauma of being separated from their families and their homes. There were passages about losing friends and siblings, missing meals for days at a time, and coming close to death itself. I knew that it would be nearly impossible to pick a "winner" out of the participants in the Reunion Project, but we moved forwards nonetheless.

When I met with participant, James Deng, I knew that his story must be heard. We spoke for a while over coffee about his essay—about his life then and about his life now. Although it was my job to help James revise his writing, it was difficult to critique such an emotional story. We mainly focused on adding more description—which was difficult since James was only about 5 when he was separated from his mother and couldn’t remember all the details.

While writing tutors were reading the essays, other participants in the Reunion Project were doing their best to raise money to support the cause. Six Drexel University students who formed a genocide awareness group teamed up with the University Writing Program and Center for Civic Engagement who co-sponsored a “Jam against Genocide” benefit concert on May 5^th from 7 to 10 PM. Also, in honor of Mother’s Day, postcards with original designs by a Drexel writing tutor, Sarah Solomon, were sold to raise money.

On May 19^th, 2009, the final decisions were announced at The “Lost Boys” of Sudan Reunion Project Celebration. James Deng and Mary Ayom took the stage and spoke about their experiences, reading from their winning essays. Also taking the stage were Michael Kuch, last year’s Reunion Project award recipient, College of Arts and Science Dean, Donna Murasko, and Drexel University’s Senior Vice President for Finance and Treasurer, Tom Elzey, who presented the final check for $10,000 to James and Mary. The audience was filled with all different types of people; there were students who helped raise funds, members of the community, and friends of the recipients.

Sitting among all of the people who worked so closely with this project, I couldn’t help but feel that I was a part of something special. The respect that I felt for James and Mary was only augmented by my admiration of the people that chose to help fight for this cause. The Reunion Project Celebration was a perfect culmination to months of fundraising. Taking time to revisit the project now, I am even more eager to find out about James’ and Mary’s trip back to Sudan.

Stay tuned for more!

Josh's Journal

The following day, my family took Michael and his mother to a Koala Sanctuary. It was the first opportunity that Michael had to spend time with his mother alone without the company of his siblings. Not to mention, it was their first mother-son experience together, one which they will remember forever. Walking side by side, they led us into the sanctuary. We were all about to embark on our first encounter with native Australian animals. The sanctuary was full of furry koalas sleeping in the eucalyptus trees drugged off their leaves. The creatures were incredible with their long nails dug into the bark of the trees. We even saw a mother carrying its baby on its back. I couldn't help but think of Mama Majok and how she would have loved to have held her baby those 19 years, but then I looked ahead and saw the mother and son walking side by side, arms locked, and realized that although they could never relive those years, they were finally together after all the years of hardship. Following the koalas, we entered a field full of kangaroos. My dad, my mom, Teddi and I approached a kangaroo. It was a great experience to feel the kangaroo lick food pellets off our hands. We took pictures and petted the amazing creature, one of which I have always been fascinated by because of the countless projects on marsupials that I've had to endure in school. Michael and Mama Majok went to the kangaroo next to stroke it and feed it as well. The best part was watching the sheer joy from Michael's mother as she bonded with her son like she had never done before. My father took a great picture of Michael's mother, which embodied all of the emotions that she was feeling at that instant. The day was magical. We continued the tour by hanging out with more kangaroos and then watching two dingoes playfully chase each other around their pens barking and growling, then attacking one another. There were tropical birds, as well as boar-like creatures called wombats. We all ate lunch and talked about the fabulous tour. The journey through the Koala Sanctuary was concluding. However, it was the start of a new beginning for the Kuch's.

Rick's Thoughts

The trip started with meeting Michael in LA.  I have been to LA before but never under such exciting circumstances.  Traveling to Australia was actually so much easier than I thought it would be. The flight was at night so we were able to sleep most of the way. Getting through the terminals went pretty smooth and we were all psyched with anticipation after we collected our luggage and headed into the taxi towards Michael's family's temporary Brisbane residence.  My heart was pounding with nervousness as we pulled up the driveway, unloaded our luggage and waited for the moment when Michael would finally realize the purpose of this odyssey.

When the gate finally opened and Michael's family members came rushing out to greet him with hugs and tears, I choked up and couldn't help but feel a sense of accomplishment in helping this dream come true.  His mom was crying and trembling as she held onto Michael as though she never wanted him to leave her again.  One by one, each sibling came toward us and hugged us and then finally Michael's weeping mom hugged me tightly. I tried the best that I could to capture some of the moments on film but it was one of those times where the goosebumps just took over.

The experience of reuniting Michael with his mother has been an incredible journey.  From the moment I met him at our home for dinner, I knew there was something special about this young man.  When my son, Josh, suggested that maybe there was the possibility to begin a campaign to raise money and awareness about bringing Michael and his mom together after all these years, at first I thought it was a stretch.  Now, after being there to witness the event, I see how thoughts like these can become a reality!

My thoughts now are about how rewarding it is to do something good to help people and how in this small way my giving back can repay some of the favors that people did to help my ancestors when they came to America.  Michael is going to be someone great some day.  I am happy to participate in helping him get closer to his goals.  I am looking forward to returning to Brisbane on the last leg of our adventure to hear how his week has turned out with his newfound family.  He has already texted us and told us that he has many stories to share.

Achieu and His Courage

After we left Michael and went back to our hotel, we took a walk along Brisbane's South Bank. It's a really beautiful part of the city with restaurants and cafes along the river that won the Wall Street Journal award for being the best planned city walk in the world.  And it was.  With an art museum, a performing arts center, botanical gardens and a University all leading into one another, the river walk was both convenient and beautiful.  We had a great lunch and relaxed.

Later that night, Ellen and I hopped in a cab and went back to Adior's house to meet her brother, Michael's uncle.  In the Dinka tradition, the mother's brother has a special tie to the mother's son.  The best English equivalent I can find to describe this relationship is godfather, but I think this relationship is even more powerful.  Think of the horse's head scene in Godfather I and you'll get my drift.  Just a little sideline here to introduce Ellen. Ellen is an Australian student whom I met while she was studying film at Drexel this past term.  It turns out that Drexel's study abroad program for film students is in--of all places--Australia!  Talk about coincidences. So, when I was looking for a videographer to document Michael's reunion, Tom Quigly, one of my students majoring in film, told me about Drexel's exchange with Swinburne

 University in Melbourne.  Then Dani Ascarrelli of Study Abroad sent out an email to all the Swinburne students on exchange in Philadelphia and within five minutes Ellen responded. Within ten minutes, Ellen and  I were lunching together at the Creese Cafe and she was accepting my invitation to come along.  Ellen lives in Melbourne (she was planning to return home at the end of that week) and she flew from Melbourne to Sydney and met our plane when it arrived on the 28th at 6 AM to document the trip. She's making a short film that will be ready later this month that we'll upload here when it is done.  Anway, she and I wanted to go back to Michael's family's house on Moggill Road to meet Michael's uncle and videotape him for the film.  We thought it would be less intrusive if we went without Teddi, Rick, and Josh, so I hope they get to meet Michael's uncle when we go back to Brisbane at the end of our trip.

Michael's uncle came to Brisbane about 8 years ago and it is he who sponsored Adior and her family's resettlement here.  Without his support they would not have been able to immigrate to Australia. During the interview he filled  us in on the events in Michael's village after Michael and his brothers, Isaiah (who was four-years-old at the time)  and David (who was three-years old), vanished.  He told us how the military had armed Arab Baggara (cattle herders who live in Southwestern Sudan) to destroy their village and what it was like to live in constant fear of being attacked again.  The village was bombed, torched, and attacked by Baggara on horseback who rounded up the adults and raped and abducted the women and girls.  He said that after the attack it eventually became much too dangerous to continue living in Bor and he and his wife, Elizabeth, started their own thousand mile trek through the desert to Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya.  In addition to the threat of attack, the famine of 1988 compounded the situation making it impossible to stay in Southern Sudan.

When I first met Michael, I was overwhelmed hearing his journey of trekking through the desert.  He walked barefoot and dressed in rags, if wearing any clothing at all, with thousands of other boys through a war zone constantly threatened by wild animals and without water or food.  I didn't know then that average people also were subject to this situation.  Michael's mother, father, stepmothers, uncles, aunts, and even grandmother all survived this journey to Kenya.  

I have read that on the average 1 in 4 people died on this journey.  When I first met Michael's mother, she said to me, "Your family is blessed and my family is blessed."  Survival on such a grand scale is not something to be taken for granted.

As Michael tells me, survival is a combination of "good choices, good luck and good blessings." It's interesting to me that Michael's attitude resembles very much the attitudes of successful immigrants I've met in the US, particularly a Vietnamese immigrant who runs a house painting company on the Main Line and does awesome work, Ta Dieu, and what I remember of my grandmother.  I used to smile and wonder why Yetta and her two sisters, Annie and Rosie, were always thanking God, when one of us children would say something negative.  Instead of berating us, they would say, "God Bless America." Thankfulness and a childlike almost blissful state that I used to consider naive, but now see as the consequence of great wisdom, was their day to day state of being.  When it comes to survival, the mind has a larger role to play than any of us can imagine.  Despite evil portents and actual life threatening situations, the Dinka who survived their walk to Kenya and their years in refugee camps were able to do so with their positive thinking.

Michael's Uncle, Achieu,  reiterated all these ideas during our interview of him.  He told us about the Bor Massacre in 1992 when there was a split between the rebel forces, which resulted in revengeful attacks on the Dinka.  The book to read about the Bor Massacre is Emma's War, which I highly recommend.  The book is written by Deborah Scroggins, who through another freak coincidence associated with our journey, is a dear friend of our brother-in-law, Mark Gloger and Ellen Epstein.  Those in Michael's village who survived the 1988 attack which forced many of the Lost Boys on their trek across Sudan, did not survive the brutal Bor Massacre. 

It was hard to listen to Achieu while imagining all he endured.  In spite of this, Achieu's sweetness emanated from his face as he spoke.  Fluent in English and a father of eight children, he is presently in seminary school training to become a minister.  Michael attended a special sermon that Acheiu gave at a church in Brisbane last Sunday.  I'm sure he mentioned Michael in his sermon and that it was moving and inspiring.  Achieu's story is representative of social upheaval characteristic of the modern day Dinka.  The Dinka have been in contact with other civilizations for centuries, but living in the West presents the particular challenge of retaining values based on a way of life that favors the community over the individual.  When the coverage of the Harriton High School Hunger Banquet appeared on the NBC10 website and Philadelphians were able to post comments, some people wrote in that they didn't understand why Michael couldn't raise the money to reunite with his family in Australia without our help. Frankly I was appalled by these comments and embarrassed by the ignorance of my neighbors. Since Michael's arrival in the US when he was 15 years old and still a high school student,  he has been working two jobs in addition to fulfilling the obligations of his soccer scholarship while a student at Chestnut Hill College and supporting himself solely on his own and sending money home to his extended family in Africa. Once Michael learned that his mother and siblings were alive and living in Kakuma, he sent monthly checks to them there.  Don't think Michael is unique in this.  As many of you know, Africans and other immigrants typically send money home.  People living in refugee camps subsist on a half a cup of runny porridge a day. With Michael's support they were able to buy a little more food--maybe a small piece of gristly meat every so often.   Americans have many lessons to learn about survival from cooperative societies.  Without the support  of our parents, friends, coaches or teachers, how far would each of us ever get?

En Route to Syndey

Our plane from Brisbane to Sydney has been delayed, so I thought I'd start writing some about the past two days with Michael's family and begin to organize my thoughts.

When we first arrived, we were impressed by the sheer size of the house.  So it seems like Australia is a good choice for the family to be resettled in after all.  I doubt whether they would be placed in such pleasant surroundings in the States.You enter the house through a wood fence that is about 100 yards from the front door and to get to the front door you have to walk through a yard and down a path.   It's more like a compound than a single family house and Michael said that it's a good house for the family because it has grass and places to play and is removed back from the road.  The birds here are tropical.  We saw a couple of magpies around the house--they are big black birds something like ravens--and some other birds that are white and red with crested tufts.  Brisbane is like a big outdoor bird sanctuary.  You can see these red parakeet birds and white cockatoos just flying around.  After the emotional explosion of Michael seeing his family for the first time, we dragged our bags to the entrance and walked inside and sat down.  The inside of the house is large with many rooms and almost a separate little guest house through a door attached to the main house that was set up for Michael to stay in, with its own bedroom and kitchen.  

Michael's mother, Adior, or Maman Majok (the Dinka call their mothers by the name of the their first born child, and in this case, it is Michael) had gone to a lot of trouble to make Michael comfortable.  In the center of the room was a big double bed with a yellow sheet on it embroidered with flowers and the same matching patterns on the pillows and chair cushions. It was simple and beautiful and clearly adorned with much anticipation and love.  The room, as is the rest of the house, was stark and clean and fresh.  Noticeably, there was nothing extraneous around, no nicknacks or children's toys or pictures, a shocking reminder that Adior and her family had lived in Kakuma Refugee Camp for the past decade and had just come to Brisbane in January.

Even as we entered the house, Adior was still weeping.  Michael had been sitting down next to her but then he got up for a moment and she looked utterly forlorn as if she had lost him all over again. I sat down beside her then and took her arm and hugged her and asked her what she was thinking.  Even before she answered, I knew what she was going to say.  Afterward, I checked with Teddi and Ellen and Josh and Rick and they knew too.  It was one of those moments when the air was so electrified that her words just hung there before she said them and hearing them was verification.  She said, ''The years, the years," meaning that she would not be able to recapture all those years from the time Michael was five years old until now, notwithstanding Michael's brother, David, who was only three years old when their village was razed and with whom Adior has not yet had the opportunity to reunite.

Despite the tragic amplifications of Michael's life, his mother's life is the ultimate tragedy. Michael's future lies ahead of him, but for his mother, all is lost.  And don't forget that her tragedy gets multiplied by the thousands.  The devastation that occurred was systematic, village by village.  Michael's mother's father had been a chief and Adior grew up as the first daughter of a powerful man.  Nyankurdit, Adior's mother, and one of the wives of that chief, sadly still lives in Kakuma.

It was going to become intrusive for us to stay at the house, so after we were served tea and cookies, we started to bring out all the gifts we had brought for the family. This was a magical moment. The first gift I presented were the scarves my thirteen year old neice, Emma Phillips, knitted for Dut and Riak.   The scarves are very colorful and the children loved them. Aweil grabbed one and wrapped it around her neck.  We have some pictures of the children playing with the scarves, which they proceeded to do for the rest of the time we stayed in the house.  In the pictures, the children are so gorgeous that they look like models in a GAP ad, which gives you a clue about our culture.  When Michael gave his mother the gold Fossil watch and the earrings she was clearly moved. She just kept staring down at the gifts on her lap.  Then I gave Adior a bag of Ahava products we bought for her and explained how each of them get used.  We also brought a goodie bag for Aweil filled with hair products and lip balms.

Then we took a group picture together and hugged goodbye for the time being to leave Michael in private with his family and for us to go check in to our hotel.

Tedra's Testimonial

In a checkerboard pattern, the Kuch family and our own dragged our luggage up the brick path to their new yellow-tan Australian home.  The house was very open and looked as if they had just moved in.  The only thing that was missing were cardboard boxes full of their possessions.  Then I realized that coming from a refugee camp, what sort of possessions could they even have?  Barely any.  The mother urged us to sit down on the blue couches decorated with printed doilies and pillows.  The shy brothers stood around us and Awiel perched herself on the other side of the room.  After we were settled, Michael went to retrieve the huge bag recently purchased from an army surplus store.  My mother sat next to Michael's mother, who was silently crying, and started rubbing her arm, whispering things like "You have raised such an amazing son," wondering if his mother's nods meant she could actually understand what my mother was saying.  When Michael came back in and sat down, she immediately threw her arms around him in a heap.  She then collected herself by going into the other room and wiping away her tears with the gigantic shaw she wore, one of the several layers she was sporting.  Tea and cookies were served, and the family was able to produce laughs and smiles.  There was definitely some awkwardness, as their Dinka and our English were not easily traded.  We were surprised, however, about the amount of English the younger children knew.  After taking a family picture of the Kuch's, the first complete family picture they have ever had, we did another round of hugs and they watched as our taxi took off, leaving Michael to stand with his family for the first time.