Lost Boys of Sudan

Lost Boys of Sudan plan fundraiser to aid homeland
Rachel Baruch Yackley
Posted Wednesday, March 07, 2007 www.dailyherald.com

Samuel Anei survived a war. At only 8 years old, he was forced to  run from his home, alone, from his family and friends, and find safety and security in a new land.
Anei is a Lost Boy of Sudan. You can hear his story as well as the  harrowing experiences of other Lost Boys at the Arcada Theater on Saturday when a local organization, Lost Boys Rebuilding  Southern Sudan Foundation, presents the 2006 Sundance Film Festival  award winning documentary, “God Grew Tired of Us.”
This fundraising  event will include a visit from former NBA superstar Manute Bol, also from Sudan.
The term “Lost Boys” was borrowed from the children’s story “Peter  Pan.” It is used to describe an entire generation of approximately 26,000 Sudanese boys who were driven from their tribal villages during a civil war between north and south Sudan in the late 1980s.
Regardless of age and current living situation, these survivors,  most of whom are orphans, continue to refer to each other as “Lost  Boys.”
“I left Sudan in 1987 for Ethiopia. It was very crazy,” said Anei,  who was only 8 years old when civil war engulfed the region. “My  village was attacked by militia (sent by the) Sudan government. A lot of people were running in different directions. I followed a group. 
“We walked for three months. I had no one to take care of me. No food,  no water. We survived by eating wild food and drinking stagnant water. In Ethiopia, I lived in a refugee camp for four years, then there was war in Ethiopia. We flee to Sudan. In Sudan there was still war.  Killing, still killing. So we flee to Kenya in 1992. We walked to  Kenya. We stayed in Pochalla (Sudan, on the Ethio-Sudanese border).  The town was attacked by the Sudan government. We were taken to  another town between Sudan and Kenya — Lokichokio. We stayed there.  It’s the base of United Nations Relief.
“But then the (Sudan)  government was sending militia to kill us. There were insecurities. Then we fled to Kakuma, Kenya. I lived there, in a refugee camp, for  nine years, until I had a chance to come here.”
Throughout all this, Anei said he came through with minor injuries,  but the emotional scars are great. “To run from war, you feel kind of depressed for a long time,” he said.
 The last time Anei saw his parents was in 1987. He does have two brothers left, an older and a younger,  who are still living in Kenya, in a refugee camp.
Anei came to Chicago on March 7, 2001. He, along with five other  boys, was one of the first Lost Boys to arrive.
“We were in a different situation (before 2001), under United  Nations care. Bill Clinton, the United States and the United Nations, arranged for (a group of) us to come here.
“The United States agreed to resettle 4,000 Lost Boys in 2001,” said  Jane Mooberry, who serves on the board of the The Lost Boys  Rebuilding Southern Sudan Foundation. “Then when 9/11 happened, the  resettlement stopped.”
Now, nearly 3,600 of the “lost boys” (now found men) have been  resettled in the U.S. For various reasons, only 89 “lost girls” have  been resettled in the U.S., according to transitionsabroad.com.
According to lostboyschicago.com, more than 125 Lost Boys live in the Chicago area. These young men are dedicated to  helping the next generation of Sudan, especially now that a peace agreement has been signed between the government in the north and the  Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement in the south.
“They are all living in apartments, working, and going to school.  Some have already become American citizens. That is the goal for all of them,” said Mooberry. “The majority of them will remain in the  United States because they feel they can provide more assistance from  here, than if they were to return to southern Sudan. They see the  hope for the future, for the youth of Sudan.”
 Now 26 years old, Anei lives in a house on the North Side of Chicago with other Lost Boys. He works at Tri-Lite in Bridgeport, and attends Truman College, where he is majoring in business  administration and taking a minor in management.
“It’s very good. It’s not like the life I had in Africa,” Anei said. “I miss Sudan a lot. I miss the friends who used to play with me. I miss Sudanese food. I miss the culture. One day I might be going back there to help.”
Until that day comes, Anei is helping Sudanese children who are  still living in Africa by serving as a board member of the Fox Valley-based Lost Boys Rebuilding Southern Sudan Foundation.
This organization came together in September 2006.
“The Lost Boys (who are living in the area) wanted to give back to  Sudan. They didn’t know how to do it, and they looked to Americans for direction,” said Mooberry.
Lost Boys who serve on the foundation’s board live in Elgin, Carol  Stream, Wheaton, and Chicago.
“I’m one of the persons who has been in the life that was so hard,”  said Anei. “Children in southern Sudan (still) have no school to go  to, and no place where they can play games. My main goal is helping  with their education, and with the chance to bring this new  generation to a new situation.”
Before war broke out in southern Sudan, Anei’s father was a farmer,  and the family had cows, sheep, goats and chickens. He was also a  chief of the village where their tribe, the Dinka, lived.
Testimony to the figurative smallness of the world, Anei is from the  same village as Valentino Achak Deng, the main figure of Dave Egger’s popular new novel, “What is the What.” While Deng lives in Atlanta, he has been to Anei’s Chicago home to visit his childhood friend.
Come learn the modern history of Sudan, the largest country in  Africa, and support efforts to aid the children whose lives have been  destroyed by 20 years of civil war, by attending the Lost Boys fundraiser Saturday.
“God Grew Tired of Us” will be shown at 2 and 7 p.m.. The theater is at First Avenue and Main Street in downtown St. Charles.
“God Grew Tired of Us” covers the life of three of the Lost Boys over a four-year period as they leave the refugee camp in Kakuma and move to the United States.  This film is narrated by  Nicole Kidman, directed by Tom Walker, and produced by Brad Pitt, Molly Bradford Pace, and Peter Gilbert. To learn more about this  film, visit www.godgrewtiredofus.com.
Following the showing of this 2006 Sundance Film Festival award-winning movie, Bol will speak, and will then be joined on  stage by the eight Lost Boys who are on the board of the foundation for a questions from the audience.
Bol is believed to have been born on Oct. 16, 1962, in  Sudan. At the age of 18 he was recruited to play college basketball in the United States. Bol was drafted in 1984  and played until 1995. He is the only player to block more than 300 shots in his first two seasons.
“Since retiring from the NBA, Manute Bol  has been working tirelessly to improve the conditions for people of southern Sudan,” said Mooberry.
Joining Bol on stage will be William Mou, Mayom Majok, William  Majak, Arkangelo Dut, Samuel Mayoul, James Mum Ajuong, Deng Deng and Anei.
Tickets are $10 general admission, $50 and $100.
Patrons who purchase $100 and $50 tickets get preferred seating and  will be able to visit with Bol and the Lost Boys at a private reception at 1 and 6 p.m.
Tickets will be available at the door the day of the event. You can  also make donations and purchase tickets online at www.rebuildsudan.com (click on events), or reserve tickets via e-mail to  info@rebuildsudan.com. Include show time, number of tickets  and price. Tickets will be held at the Will Call window. Donations of any amount are welcome. All proceeds from this fundraiser will go to the foundation.
“The mission of this organization is geared toward providing hope  for the youth of southern Sudan. The main goal is to build schools  and community centers where they can nourish mind, body and spirit,” Mooberry explained.
Donations will go towards building costs, and to the purchase of  educational supplies, as well as recreational materials.
Donations can be made online, or mailed to The Lost Boys Rebuilding  Southern Sudan, P.O. Box 6264, Elgin, IL 60121-6264.

A favorite quote ...

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearances, giftedness or skill. The remarkable thing is that we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past ... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play out the one string we have and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it."
-- Charles Swindoll

September 3, 2006

I just finished reading Elizabeth Berg's newest book, "We Are All Welcome Here." I laughed, I cried, I learned a bit about Freedom Schools started by African Americans in the early 1960s. It's a great read, inspired by a letter the author received from a woman who's mother spent her adult life paralyzed from polio.

Another good read is "That Girl Lucy Moon," by Amy Timberlake. I actually got to interview this author for the Daily Herald. Here's the interview:

‘Lucy’ takes on junior high injustices
Posted Saturday, September 02, 2006

Rachel Baruch Yackley

BIO
Name: Amy Timberlake
Born: Hudson, WI
Reside: Recently moved to Chicago from St. Charles
Family: Husband, Phil
Occupation: Writer
Web site: www.amytimberlake.com
Little-known fact: “I was born on Friday the 13th. That means it’s a good day for me.”

First it was “The Dirty Cowboy” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), which earned many awards and rave reviews, and now Amy Timberlake has done it again, with “That Girl Lucy Moon.”
Lucy Moon was written for an audience between the ages of 9 to 12, but I couldn’t put it down. Adolescence, independence, abandonment, rebellion, politics, and love are all concepts that Timberlake successfully brought to life through Lucy’s delightful story.
Published by Hyperion Books for Children, and just released yesterday (September 1), this novel was already selected by Kirkus for it's special edition "Debut Fiction," and garnered a very positive review. It was also chosen by Booksense, the independent booksellers organization, as a Fall 2006 Booksense pick.
Timberlake will be appearing at Town House Books & Cafe, 105 N. 2nd Ave. in St. Charles, at noon on Saturday, September 9, for a reception and book signing.
Recently Timberlake spoke to me from her new home in Chicago, while noise from the Air and Water Show pierced the background.

Lucy Moon lives in a small town. Did St. Charles have any influence on the setting in this book?
No. I grew up in a town in northern Wisconsin, right before you cross into Minnesota, called Hudson, Wisconsin. There are 10,000 people in town. There was always the sense that everyone knew everything.
The book started with my husband saying, “You should write about Hudson.” I was always telling stories about my home town. The book is completely fictional, but I started with writing down memories.
We were living in Virginia at the time. There’s no snow there, in the winter. So I just started with this image of a sledding hill. Across from where we lived (in Hudson) was a public sledding hill. I loved sledding at dusk, which is really dangerous. Out of that really came the whole book.

Where did Lucy Moon come from?
Lucy’s a compilation of me and of who I’d like to be. It’s more like, gosh, if I could be the person I’d really like to be.
When I went through adolescence, I lost a part of myself -- the self-confidence, the obnoxiousness. Adolescence was really hard, and junior high was really hard, and it took me a long time to come through it.

This protagonist is quite the activist. Were you an activist as a child?
Somewhat. I was very self-serving. She’s got a bigger sense of things.
When we learned about petitions in third grade, I felt there was this one girl who was the teacherÂ’s pet, and I got everyone to sign a petition to stop this bad behavior.
I was in band and played the flute. We always had to wait for other instrumentalists to learn their notes. We (flute players) went on a strike.

When you were writing this book, were you hoping to have a positive affect on your readers, maybe inspire them to look around and get involved?
Not specifically. I had such a hard time in junior high that I just wanted to say, here’s a story. I wanted to tell a good story, first of all, but I also wanted to be honest.
Also, I wanted to write a book that felt real to me. When I read it now, it seems kind of like a fairy tale, but with pieces of reality.
Things happen, and you deal with it. But the truth is that many difficult things, hard things, sometimes happen at one time, and you have to deal with them all at once. I wish that one thing could happen at a time and we could deal with it, and then there would be another.
It would be great if kids were inspired by this story, even speaking your mind instead of just sitting there. I would be really excited about that.
One thing I seriously tried to put into this book was I left elementary school, where everybody seemed relatively sane, and started middle school, and everything was different. Nail polish, bras. It was just three months (between grades)! Hey, you went to camp, I went to camp, how did you guys come out so differently?

“That Girl Lucy Moon” is so different from your young children’s picture book, “The Dirty Cowboy.” How did that story come about?
“The Dirty Cowboy” came out in 2003. It was my first book. I’d been writing before that, but Dirty Cowboy was the first book to get published.
I was working on my masters in English/Creative Writing at the University of Illinois in Chicago. I was thinking, at that point, that I would be writing for adults. I wasn’t sending much (writing) out, and then there was a big period when I was blocked.
I was writing an historical novella about counterfeiting for my masters thesis. I finished it and they gave me my degree! Yea! It was a huge thing to finish that.
But then, I was done, and didn’t know what I should do. I was sitting by a river and thought I should write the story of The Dirty Cowboy. My dad and my grandfather used to tell me this story. My great grandfather was a journalist and had written about the story in a newspaper. It turned into a tall tale, over the years.
I think (“The Dirty Cowboy”) got rejected 14 or 15 times, then FSG (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) picked it up. My family was really excited, because it was a family story.
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To contact Rachel Baruch Yackley with comments and future column ideas, send e-mail to RYackley@aol.com.