"Lost boy" tells of Sudan's plight / Laud Lost Boys, focus on Darfur

Four related items from over the past few weeks:

From the Peoria, Ill., "Journal Star"...

One of the "Lost Boys of Sudan" told the story of his war-torn life and his early experiences in the United States during a speech [on] Monday at Western Illinois University.

John Bul Dau, 34, now of Syracuse, N.Y., was in Macomb to kick off WIU's International Education Week celebration.

Dau's life story is featured in the documentary "God Grew Tired of Us," which won several awards at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. He has written a book by the same title.

On Monday, Dau told the crowd of several hundred [that] he was there to present the "living testimony" of his life moving between refugee camps in his teenage years.

"You may use it for your own life, or tell it to someone else," he said.

Dau was forced from his Sudan home in the middle of the night in 1987, when he was 13. He said [that] armed government troops raided his town in a civil war. He was separated from his family, fleeing with a neighbor.

Dau told of strings of days without food or water, and walking for months at a time to reach refugee camps.

"I would cry at night," he said. "It was cold at night, and I would pray to God to make the night short . . . that was our life."

He talked of the numbers of people [that] he saw killed by war and disease, and said [that] many fleeing refugees also were beaten by the troops.

"Sometimes they beat us to the point where I thought [that] I was dead," he said. "But God is good."

Dau began his education in a refugee camp in Kenya.

"I started with my ABCs and 123s at the age of 17," he said.

In 2001, Dau came to the United States with two other "Lost Boys" who shared an apartment in Syracuse.

He talked about his first trip to the grocery store and his first experience with snow, which he brought home and put on his table [in order] to show others.

Dau eventually earned his associate's degree and is now working on his bachelor's degree.

In the United States, Dau's jobs included grilling hamburgers at [McDonald's] and working at UPS and as a security guard.

In 2004, Dau learned that members of his family were still alive in Sudan. He raised enough money to bring his mother and sister to the United States. His father and brother are still in Africa. Dau said [that] he became a U.S. citizen 10 months ago, which will now allow him to travel back and forth to Sudan [in order] to help with relief efforts. He has already started one medical clinic in his home country by raising $350,000, and is on his way to building a second one, 50 miles away.

He also has started three not-for-profit foundations to help Sudanese youth in the United States.

From the WIU "Western Courier"...

John Bul Dau witnessed death on a daily basis during his adolescent life, while war tore through his home country of Sudan, Africa. Due to these circumstances, Dau became a "lost boy" - and the subject of the award-winning documentary "God Grew Tired of Us."

Dau shared his story at Western Illinois University [on] Monday night, as part of the Global Perspective Series.

His journey began in 1987, when he tried to sleep in the gender-segregated village of Duk Payuel in southern Sudan.

"In the middle of night, the sound of guns, [and] the whistling of bullets and bombs woke me up," Dau said. "As I found myself standing, I realized [that] my village was under attack."

Troops from northern Sudan, comprised of Muslims, attacked the village of Duk Payuel in the hope of converting the non-Muslim villagers. Southern Sudanese men were shot if they showed any resistance.

As bombs fell and bullets whizzed through the air, Dau found himself running toward the sound of his mother's voice, which was screaming at the children to get outside. According to Dau, as soon as he left the house, he found himself lying low in tall grass with a neighbor [that] he had mistaken for his father.

"All of a sudden, the long line of troops were coming through our village, shooting," Dau said. "I kept quiet, because I knew [that] something was wrong."

Though he wanted to reunite with his family, Dau took the advice of the neighbor, who assured him [that] it was far too dangerous to stay in the village. Following that night of horror was a 14-year journey to survive in various refugee camps throughout Ethiopia and Kenya.

Dau talked about times of great struggle that often left the group of lost boys with no food or water, which ravaged their bodies.

"My skin started to turn white, and I would cry, but no tears would come out," Dau said. "I thought [that] it was the end of the world."

Whenever there was a shortage of food, he said, he was forced to regularly eat mud and chew grass [in order] to maintain energy. He added that mud resembled mashed potatoes, and eating it helped suppress hunger.

The numbers in the group of lost boys eventually grew to nearly 27,000 upon reaching an Ethiopian refugee camp. According to Dau, the government was not prepared for such an enormous influx of people, and diseases such as chicken pox, malaria, measles, and whooping cough swept through the country.

"I was in charge of one group of 50 refugees, and I remember seeing two or three lost boys dying every day from my group." Dau said.

Despite these tribulations, after four years in Ethiopia, life seemed to get better. He finally had some food and water.

But once again, the rebel army from northern Sudan began to attack, and were successful in overthrowing the Ethiopian government [sic].

"The new government gave us seven days, and they said, 'leave our country very quickly,'" Dau said. "We had to go back to southern Sudan, because there wasn't any other way."

The journey that followed the lost boys' stay in Ethiopia saw even more deaths, due to an attempt to cross a river filled with crocodiles on the border of Sudan. Dau said [that] the group was forced across the river by the rebel government, and many of the boys were shot and killed, drowned, or captured.

By the time [that] the group crossed the river, there were only 18,000 left of the original 27,000 lost boys. They found themselves struggling to survive again, with bare necessities nowhere in sight.

The lost boys were previously given clothes by the United Nations when they resided in Ethiopia, but when they resided in Ethiopia, but they were forced to sell them for food. According to Dau, the lost boys pushed on until they found themselves in Kenya.

"Kenya was a new chapter," he said. "This is where I started to go to school and learned my ABCs and 123s."

Dau said [that] he was 17 when he began the first grade, and he finally finished high school at 27. Dau found [that] life was good in Kenya and [that] school was even better.

"The smell of the new books was excellent," Dau said. "I still remember it smelling good right now."

In 2001, Dau was brought to Syracuse, N.Y., along with two other lost boys under sponsorship of the First Presbyterian Church of Skaneateles, N.Y. In 2004, after three years in the United States, Dau received an associate's degree.

Dau said [that] the help [that] he received from the United States inspired him to help others, so he formed various non-profit organizations to help the remaining lost boys get their lives on track.

"I was thinking about how the American people have been helping me out, and what I can do for my people," Dau said. "That is when the mood of helping people came into me, and I decided to do something."

His foundation recently built a health clinic in Sudan, and has raised enough money for construction of a second. His goal is to build five additional clinics, each located 50 miles from one another.

In 2004, after speaking at a refugee camp in Sudan, Dau learned [that] his family was still alive. He eventually raised enough money to bring his mother and [his] sister to the United States, though his father and [his] brother remain in Africa.

At the end of his powerful story, Dau addressed the audience as brothers and sisters, as he shared that life in America is difficult, and [that] sometimes the thought of giving up is overwhelming.

"I never thought [that] I would survive," Dau said. "But there is one thing that I didn't do, brothers and sisters. I didn't give up."

The lost boy delivered a powerful message to students of Western that was much appreciated, as the crowd thanked Dau with a standing ovation.

"Never be discouraged when you can't see a blue sky," Dau said. "Just because it is covered by gray clouds doesn't mean [that] it is not there."

Post-speech column by Rochelle Williams of the "Fayetteville [N.C.] Observer"...

As a teenager, John Bul Dau drank urine, ate grass, and walked barefoot and naked across the sub-Saharan desert.

He was among the nearly 25,000 “Lost Boys” — young boys, and a few girls, who were separated from their families during a civil war that ravaged Sudan for more than 20 years.

The young people endured starvation, wild animals, and bombings as they trekked to Ethiopia then later [to] Kenya.

The lucky ones like Dau survived and thrived.

Today he is in his 30s and in college — he didn’t start kindergarten until 17. He is a husband, a father, and a citizen of the United States.

Dau is also an author and a public speaker on a mission to help his brothers and sisters back home.

On Monday [5 November], he came to Fayetteville to share some of the heart-wrenching details of his 14-year escape from Sudan. He was the guest speaker at the Friends of the Library’s annual fall fundraiser at the Cape Fear Regional Theatre.

As he spoke, I couldn’t stop wondering, why didn’t I know about this as it was happening?

After the fact

The sad truth is that the story of the lost boys, with its epic proportions and sympathetic survivors, resonates with many Americans — but only now, after the fact.

Over the past couple of years, at least a dozen books and documentaries about the conflict have been released, including “God Grew Tired of Us” which features Dau and was produced by Brad Pitt.

But while the war was raging, the American media, government, and people paid little attention.

Even more disturbing is the fact that violence against civilians in Sudan isn’t over. It has shifted to a different region of the country — Darfur.

The government-sponsored attacks that destroyed Dau’s village and forced him to flee Sudan is a mirror image of the raping, pillaging, and plunder of the Darfur region of that country. The conflict began in February of 2003, and is a humanitarian crisis.

On Monday, Dau pointed out that a different religious group is being persecuted this time around. But the effect is the same: whole generations of children are enduring unimaginable atrocities.

Local resident

In the days following Dau’s speech, I felt compelled to do something to help. But like many Americans, I wasn’t sure what.

So I called another young Sudanese refugee who lives here in Fayetteville, and asked for advice.

Richard Onekayon is a sophomore at Methodist University who fled his Sudanese village in 1994 and walked to Uganda with his brother and [his] sister.

Onekayon doesn’t talk much about the civil war that forced him from his home. He prefers to talk about the current conflict in Darfur.

On Wednesday [7 November], he said that Americans have more power than they realize to stop the killings in Sudan. He said [that] our government can advocate for an end to the crisis. But citizens must press them.

It’s impossible to watch documentaries like “God Grew Tired of Us” or meet people like Dau and Onekayon and not be moved by the perseverance of Sudanese refugees. But the best way to honor them is to help the hundreds of thousands who are suffering now.

The ethnic cleansing in Africa’s largest country is happening again. This time around, we can’t say [that] we didn’t know.

Rochelle Williams is an Observer editorial writer. She can be reached at 486-3557 or williamsr@fayobserver.com.

Pre-speech "Fayetteville Observer" story...

John Bul Dau’s fortunes seemed to shift as swiftly as the sands of his native Sudan.

When Dau was 13, he ran terrified into the night from raiders ordered to slaughter every male in his village.

For the next 14 years, he was one of the “Lost Boys of Sudan” who trekked 1,000 miles from one desperate day to the next, one refugee camp to another.

Fast forward two decades. Dau is in Southern California. Lost no more, he’s chatting with Angelina Jolie at the premiere of a film where his face, and not Jolie’s, will be on the screen.

You could shake your head and repeat the comic’s phrase “Only in America ....”

Dau’s journey from the refugee camps of central Africa to the red carpet of Hollywood is as inspiring as it is surreal. Now a university student and [a] speaker, Dau has a story to tell — and his survival in Africa is only half of what he has experienced since a documentary about him and other “lost boys” won two awards at The Sundance Festival in 2006.

He will tell that story, and talk about his life’s mission [on] Monday [5 November] as the guest speaker for the Friends of the Library’s annual fall fundraiser at Cape Fear Regional Theatre.

How Dau was selected as the speaker is another story.

“A friend of a board member heard him speak and recommended him,” said Shirley Konneker, a past president of the Friends of the Library.

“We checked online to learn more about him, and learned that he had written a memoir,” she said.

That was important. The Friends of the Library’s benefit for the Library Endowment Trust spotlights authors only. Past speakers include Tim Tyson, Doug Marlette, retired Maj. Gen. Sidney Shachnow, Kaye Gibbons, and Nicholas Sparks.

The title of Dau’s memoir is the same as the National Geographic documentary, “God Grew Tired of Us,” which was produced by Brad Pitt and narrated by Nicole Kidman. In the documentary, filmmaker Christopher Quinn spent four years following Dau and other “lost boys” Daniel Abu Pach and Panther Bior as they left Africa and came to the United States to face new struggles in an unfamiliar culture.

The film won the Grand Jury Prize and [the] Audience Award at the Sundance festival, then took Best Documentary at the 2006 Deauville Film Festival.

To prepare for Dau’s visit, the Cumberland County Library and Public Information Center has shown the documentary twice. Another free showing will be [on] Nov. 13 at 7 p.m. at the Headquarters Library.

Konneker said [that] two local book clubs elected to read Dau’s memoir as a monthly book choice. Waldenbooks will have copies of the memoir to be sold and autographed after Dau’s talk [on] Monday night.

These days Dau, who arrived in the United States in 2001 at age 27, lives in Syracuse, N.Y. He is married, has earned an associate’s degree, and is working on a degree in public policy at Syracuse University. He is far from Sudan’s civil war and the deadly river of crocodiles that he and other “lost boys” had to cross [in order] to escape pursuing killers.

He is not far from southern Sudan in his heart, however. He started a nonprofit organization to help other “lost boys” who are settled in the United States. He then helped organize a medical clinic in southern Sudan. In Duk County, where Dau was born, the sick walk dozens of miles to find health care.

Dau puts time on the road himself, and in airports, and can be a difficult man to find to interview. He’s seen more of the United States than many born in this country, [in order] to promote the documentary and his book, which was published this year. The paperback will be released in January.

Among the places [that] Dau has spoken this fall [are] Colorado, Maine, Minnesota and, a few days ago, Tennessee. After Fayetteville, one of his next stops will be Arkansas.

But these days, Dau isn’t running anymore. He is moving forward to spread a message that, he’s said, is not about the despair of his childhood, but about perseverance, faith, helping hands, and hope.