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 Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها (Re: Roada)
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At the same time, life in Kakuma is not entirely secure, either. As is frequently the case with refugee camps, those who live inside the camp are better off than the indigenous people living beyond its borders. In this case, members of Kenya's Turkana tribe, recognizing Kakuma's relative wealth, frequently conduct armed nighttime raids. A week before Peter, Maduk and Riak flew to Fargo in January, one of their peers, a 17-year-old boy named Deng, was shot and killed by marauding Turkana. He, too, had been scheduled for resettlement. "We were often afraid," Maduk told me, recalling the incident. "We would go to bed at night and not know who would survive until morning."
Despite the dangers and hardships in camp, not everyone at Kakuma applauds the wholesale export of Lost Boys to the United States. Several Sudanese elders in the camp have suggested that the State Department's money would be better spent encouraging peace in Sudan, echoing the philosophy of several human rights organizations that have argued that carefully orchestrated, pre-emptive intervention could stem the tide of displacement worldwide. The elders in Kakuma also worry that once absorbed into American culture, the boys will lose their African identity and with it any commitment to return. Accordingly, a number of the young men arrived in America armed with cassettes of taped lectures from their elders, warning of the myriad dangers they perceived in the boys' future. One afternoon in Boston, an 18-year-old named Jacob played part of his tape for me -- a mellifluous, urgent-sounding stream of Dinka. Jacob then translated. "He is saying: 'Don't drink. Don't smoke. Don't kill. Go to school every day, and remember, America is not your home."'
At 7 A.M. one March day, 15-year-old riak stood waiting for the public bus that would carry him to his second week of classes at Discovery Junior High School. He wore blue jeans (the only pair of pants he owned), a green T-shirt and a thin winter jacket. If spring was ever to come, he wouldn't have known it then, shivering in the brittle air as he stood with a backpack slung over one shoulder, waiting on a four-foot snowdrift for the No. 118 bus to appear. Five weeks after his arrival, he was finding life in America to be hard -- harder than anyone had told him it would be. At school, he listened quietly through a lesson on Elizabethan history, all but ignored by the white students around him. At lunchtime, he found an open table in the cafeteria, and amid the boisterous chatter of his peers, sat alone before a mound of whipped potatoes and gravy.
Nearby at Fargo South High School, Maduk was frequently alone as well, carefully copying passages out of his geography textbook, trying not to look at the short skirts worn by so many of the girls. He was learning to use a computer, which excited him, and there were a few other Sudanese boys who sometimes stopped him in the hall to talk. Still, after school he felt tired and overwhelmed, sharing a dinner of rice and okra with his brothers before retiring to the living room to pass the evening hours studying.
It was Peter Dut, though, who worried the most. He was attending adult-ed classes in the mornings, but found them unchallenging, adding that he was intimidated by the Bosnians, who constitute the bulk of Fargo's refugee population and who, Peter said, shot him dirty looks. Though he harbored hopes for going to college, he also wanted, badly, to find a job. Money was a continuous concern. The three brothers said they received just $107 in food stamps each month, and most of their $510 in monthly cash assistance went toward paying rent and utilities.
Without an American host family or church organization to help buffer the expenses, the three brothers seemed to grow more despondent with each passing week. Resettlement workers were encouraging Peter to stick with adult education so that he could pass his G.E.D. before finding a job, but the bills were piling up. On a particularly low night in mid-March, Peter Dut told me he was lonely and wished he were back in Kakuma. "We are not eating enough here," he said, his voice weighted with sadness. "My brothers are suffering."
I was uncertain how to take this. Amid waves of self-congratulatory media covering the resettlement effort, it seemed the ultimate paradox to have three boys claiming they were eating less in America than they had in their refugee camp. Had we actually failed the Lost Boys? When I contacted the brothers' case managers in Fargo and the national office of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, officials stressed that there was a "misunderstanding," that Peter, Maduk and Riak were receiving donated food to supplement their food-stamp allowance and were not going hungry. When I spoke to him again, Peter clarified: "They bring us tinned American food" -- canned food -- and it makes our stomachs sick."
I had seen smoother adjustments in other cities, but I also recognized that practically all newly arrived refugees struggle to gain their footing. Was this just part of the transition? Scott Burtsfield, who coordinates the resettlement of children in Fargo through Lutheran Social Services, told me: "The first three months are always the toughest. It really does get better." And according to Dr. Paul Geltman, co-director of the Boston Center for Refugee Health and Human Rights, it is common for a refugee's mood to fluctuate. "When someone first comes to this country as a refugee," he says, "there's a euphoria of starting anew. But when that starts to wear off, a lot of problems can surface." He names depression and post-traumatic stress disorder as two possible manifestations, adding that "the need for support is great."
But where would that support come from? Fargo's Lutheran case managers appeared overworked. A local church whose congregation was primarily Sudanese had sent some volunteers to check in on the boys, but being refugees themselves, they were short on both time and resources to help. Peter and his brothers, for better or worse, were left to grasp at the smallest glimmers of hope.
One of those came on a quiet Friday night this winter. The boys had set about making a dinner of rice and lentils, filling the low-ceilinged apartment with the smell of frying onions. As the food cooked, Maduk and Riak taught me an African card game, cackling gleefully each time they won a hand.
Meanwhile, Peter disappeared into his bedroom and emerged a few minutes later, resplendent in the African outfit he had brought from Kakuma, having traded precious food rations in order to obtain it. It was a finely woven, intricately patterned green tunic, trimmed in an elaborate lattice of gold thread, with a skullcap to match. In it, Peter looked regal and exotic -- a foreign king touched down in Fargo, if only for a night.
Just then, the doorbell rang unexpectedly. And out of the cold tumbled four Sudanese boys -- all of whom had resettled as refugees over the last several years -- their tall youthful bodies spilling into the apartment's small front vestibule. They hugged the new arrivals as if they were brothers. Which, of course, in a sense they were. I watched one, an 18-year-old named Sunday, wrap his arms encouragingly around Peter Dut. The two stood momentarily cheek to cheek in the entryway's stark light, with Sunday in a scuffed baseball cap and Peter in his African garb. "It's a hard life here," Sunday whispered to the older boy, "but it's a free life too."
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الكاتب |
Date |
 ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | يازولyazoalيازول | 01-21-04, 09:25 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | doma | 01-21-04, 09:34 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Tabaldina | 01-21-04, 09:48 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | doma | 01-21-04, 09:51 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | hamid hajer | 01-21-04, 10:39 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | يازولyazoalيازول | 01-22-04, 08:59 AM |
 Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | خالد الحاج | 01-22-04, 04:59 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | البحيراوي | 01-22-04, 07:49 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | bayan | 01-23-04, 05:36 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Roada | 01-23-04, 06:36 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | bayan | 01-23-04, 07:49 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Tumadir | 01-23-04, 08:44 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | bayan | 01-23-04, 09:34 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | farda | 01-23-04, 07:55 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | مراويد | 01-23-04, 10:26 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Roada | 01-23-04, 06:45 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Abureesh | 01-23-04, 07:20 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | bayan | 01-24-04, 04:46 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | ود شاموق | 01-23-04, 07:11 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | kamalabas | 01-23-04, 09:01 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | مراويد | 01-23-04, 09:12 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Osama Mirghani | 01-24-04, 08:27 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | garjah | 01-24-04, 08:43 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | يازولyazoalيازول | 01-24-04, 10:28 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Abureesh | 01-24-04, 11:54 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Roada | 01-24-04, 04:00 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Deng | 01-24-04, 04:33 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Roada | 01-24-04, 05:05 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Hisham Amin | 01-24-04, 07:59 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Roada | 01-25-04, 00:01 AM |
 Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Hisham Amin | 01-25-04, 06:30 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | يازولyazoalيازول | 01-25-04, 08:41 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Roada | 01-25-04, 12:34 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Roada | 01-25-04, 12:38 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Roada | 01-25-04, 12:41 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Roada | 01-25-04, 12:44 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Tumadir | 01-25-04, 12:58 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Roada | 01-25-04, 06:42 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Hisham Amin | 01-25-04, 09:28 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | يازولyazoalيازول | 01-26-04, 10:06 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | يازولyazoalيازول | 01-26-04, 10:19 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | ASAAD IBRAHIM | 01-29-04, 06:52 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Hisham Amin | 01-26-04, 11:43 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | يازولyazoalيازول | 01-26-04, 12:34 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Hisham Amin | 01-26-04, 01:39 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Roada | 01-27-04, 04:12 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Hisham Amin | 01-27-04, 07:38 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | muntasir | 01-27-04, 08:17 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | DR.NET | 01-27-04, 09:00 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Hisham Amin | 01-28-04, 05:24 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Roada | 01-29-04, 02:41 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Roada | 01-29-04, 02:51 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Roada | 01-29-04, 03:16 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | يازولyazoalيازول | 01-29-04, 08:39 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Hisham Amin | 01-29-04, 09:31 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Roada | 01-29-04, 06:06 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Hisham Amin | 01-29-04, 08:10 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Roada | 01-30-04, 03:46 AM |
 Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Hisham Amin | 01-30-04, 06:26 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Roada | 01-30-04, 10:58 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Hisham Amin | 01-31-04, 10:58 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Roada | 02-01-04, 01:08 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | abumoneeb | 02-01-04, 07:46 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Hisham Amin | 02-02-04, 04:32 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Roada | 02-02-04, 09:31 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | يازولyazoalيازول | 02-04-04, 09:25 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Hisham Amin | 02-04-04, 09:15 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | ASAAD IBRAHIM | 02-04-04, 09:29 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Roada | 02-05-04, 03:09 AM |
 Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | ASAAD IBRAHIM | 02-05-04, 03:14 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Muhib | 02-05-04, 03:53 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | يازولyazoalيازول | 02-05-04, 08:58 AM |
| Re: كل عام وانتم طيبين | shiry | 02-05-04, 12:36 PM |
 Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | ASAAD IBRAHIM | 02-05-04, 12:49 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Roada | 02-05-04, 01:47 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | ASAAD IBRAHIM | 02-05-04, 07:35 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Roada | 02-05-04, 08:02 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | ASAAD IBRAHIM | 02-05-04, 08:10 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Roada | 02-05-04, 08:16 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Hisham Amin | 02-06-04, 04:03 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | ASAAD IBRAHIM | 02-06-04, 04:10 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Hisham Amin | 02-06-04, 04:17 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | يازولyazoalيازول | 02-07-04, 08:55 AM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Deng | 02-07-04, 05:29 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Roada | 02-07-04, 07:12 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | ASAAD IBRAHIM | 02-07-04, 08:41 PM |
| Re: ظهور الخيل و (الله أكبر) تهزم أمريكا فى عقر دارها | Hisham Amin | 02-09-04, 07:50 AM |
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