Dialog transcription- A GREAT WONDER- Kim Shelton, Dir.


Santino: I am asking them, “ Where have you seen my parents? They look at each other as if they know something. then I have realized that something has happened. I kept quiet for some time and then I asked them again, “ Where have you seen my parents?” They just said “You are young and you know what is happening. We have seen your brother who has been killed and also your sister”. I sat looking at them and then I cried.


Information Card : 17,000 children of the Dinka and Nuer tribes fled Southern Sudan when their parents were killed during civil war in l989.

For eleven years, they fled the war and lived in refugee camps.. They’ve become known worldwiide as “The Lost Boys of Sudan”.

4,000 refugees, including 50 girls, have now been resettled in America.


Narrator: this is the story of the first 18 months in America for three of the Sudanese refugees now living in the Pacific Northwest. Martha Arual Akech and her sisiter Tabitha were placed with a foster family on the outskirts of the city.

Mom: hey ,  that’s beautiful,Christopher gave her that for Christmas. Isn’t it nice Christopher?


Martha: They told us you are going to be safe. you fear here but when you go there you will not fear. You’ll have a mother and father.

I just wake up when I hear the sound of guns and it was making me crazy. I was six at that time.

Narrator: For more than 20 years, the ruling Arab Muslims of Northern Sudan and the Christian Balcks of the South have been fighting a civil war. Two million people have died. during massive attacks in l989 the government  soldiers destroyed numerous villages. most of the adults were killed but many of the children, who were out in the fields with the cattle,  were able to escape.

Martha: Everybody was scattered everywhere. you don’t go back and look for your child. The first day we came, I was just worried, when I looked at them and I said, “Hey are we going to be permanent here? Will they love us?” We have been with different people all our life who were not our parents. If somebody did something bad to me I would just take it. I don’t talk about it.

Foster Dad: That’s the frustrating thing for me is not be able to get... I’m anxious to
 
know that part of Martha, but I am not able to get inside her head. I am not able to.. i can’t feel her feelings. “You say, yeah, I saw my friend die next to me, I can’t quite comprehend that.”

Abraham: My name is Abraham Dut Jok Aguek.  I am from Sudan, in Africa. I was born with war, I’m sorry to say that.

Now we are in America


Narrator: All the refugees were required to learn english in the camp before coming to America. Abraham was taken into a foster home along with his friend Peter in the small town of Arlington.

Abraham: We are living together as foster children also with my sister Sharon and you can see her here.

Sharon: Hello. We’re one big happy family.


Foster Mom: I just felt sorry for them. They have no parents. they went through a lot of hardships and I want to offer them something better. We don’t have a lot to offer, we just have a home, food guidance, but I figured that’s better than what they had.


Sharon: First time I burped, they thought I was a lion. They said “ Oh, Lion!” Other Sister: We said, no that’s just Sharon.

Girls: What’’s up? Come on you wimp.  Que pasa? You did it with me, Come on, you wimp. Chicken, chicken, chicken. What’s Up?

Abraham: No, I don’t want to do that.


Taco? taco, taco, taco, 99cents Come one, Come all, choose one of your choice. Taco, 99cents, Choose one of your choice


And now, I enjoy being in America, sleeping in a good bed, not thinking of where to hide at night.

People came at night and they started burning the houses. We ran to the forest. I was with other kids. if you were sleeping naked, then you run naked, if you sleep with your clothes on, you run with those.

Martha: So we go to Ethopia. It was a long, long journey.
 

Narrator: Thousands of children walked for three months to reach Ethiopia. When that government changed the refugees were forced back into Sudan. Fleeing the on-going war, they set forth once again to seek safety in Kenya. in all, the children walked 1,000 miles.


Abraham: When we were in starvation, we just take any leaf of tree.; we try to eat that one. many of our friends, they die. people just die around us. A person dies, you just sleep near that person. You don’t mind.

But hunger is not like thirst. Hunger, you can just take mud. Interviewer: Eat mud?

Abraham: Yeah. I decided; do we have somebody who has urine that we can drink? i just try, just try and then I got a little urine to drink. I drink urine. Some of the people, they refuse. I say, “ Ok, if you chose to die, it is your choice” And now, I got a good place to study and good food to eat and it was because of that urine I drink.

When I sleep at night, I think about my sisters. I have two sisters and they are in Sudan, and if there is no peace, I can not even find them. I feel a part of me is missing. And I hope if I concentrate on my school, maybe they are still alive, and I will find a way to meet with them.

Student: This time of woe affords no time to woo. madam, good night, commend me to your daughter.

Teacher: Do you understand that? These times of woe afford no time to woo. When you say woe, you say poor me, bad times, so this time of sadness, like when you were in Africa, walking across Ethiopia, that was a time of woe. No food, much pain. Ok? So affords no time to woo, and you know what woo means, ‘ to court, to get a wife”. Does that make sense.

Abraham: It is my planning that I will follow the road of education.I say that education is my parent, wherever I go I can get a parent.

Volunteer: Go for that! Maybe not so thick, Santino. Ok?


Narrator: Santino Thiep Lual lives in a group home for young men who are over eighteen. They’re expected to get jobs and live independently within three months.

Boy: This is my main food, man. It’s my traditional food. What I eat in my motherland. What’s up man? It’s called “ugali”.

Santino: People call us “lost boys”. It doesn’t work anymore. If somebody call me lost boy, I say I have family here. If you want to see my moms, they are very many. is that going to surprise the world, to have more mother than one?

Volunteer: I’ve been accused of probably spoiling them. I drop in and out several times during the week. I’ve talked to them about saving money,that, the first one you pay is yourself. I was pretty excited because I saw this on Oprah, or something, and I’ve never had a financial advisor and that is what they vare doing.

Another volunter: I think there biggest challenge is shopping.


Santino: The survival in Sudan is different from  here. In Sudan you don’t talk of something like money, you talk of life. How will you survive tomorrow? And here, I’m talking about the money and what to buy for myself.

How do people eat it?


Man: They grill it. Eat with lemon, salt, pepper, black peppers


Santino: We have this in our own country. We just get it in the water, we don’t know the worth of it. I was surprised when I saw them here.

Man: They are expensive Did you see that? Almost $4 a dozen Santino: I need to go to my country and bring them over here Man: yeah, bring them over here, and then you make money.

Santino: Ok. It is very far, I can’t go there.

Sant: We were crossing the River Gilo. That River Gilo, we lose a lot of our friends and brothers. They firing us whiule we are swimming in the river. On that time, I was very young, and I cannot imagine why things are happening like this.

Martha: They shoot one man who was just near to me.All his intestines came out, and I just see, and they shoot another boy on the cheek- on this side to the other side, you see all throughout his mouth. So you just feel scared all the time; maybe tomorrow will be my day to die.

Announcer: Tonight, “The Lost Boys”, a Dateline Special, reported by Tom Brokow. T.B. Tonite a story of survival that really does involve life and death. They came to becalled the “lost boys”. this is the story of their odyssey and the safe homes they finally found here in America.


The kitchen can be a confusing place. Two young men were trying hard to find out why this chicken broth didn’t have any meat in it


Santino: What do you think is in that?


T.B. And if you’ve never used a telephone, you may not know which end is up.

Santino: No, get out of here.

Martha: When we came here, we thought all our sadness would be left there. But, when we first got here, everything was very different. we feel like we never get used to this situation- the cold- we thought that we not even see the sun again.

I don’t get enough sleep. my heart is not there. I can’t get my head relaxing. So that’s my big problem, I can’t let anything go.

When I first got here, I felt like I would never get used to the people and the school. Some people just ask me my name and where I come from but another day they will just see me and walk away. maybe I look different or they don’t need more friends. If I have no one to talk to, tell all my problems, my mind will get so busy and fill up with all, my heart will get so bitter, I will just want to cry. It’s so hard.

Foster Mom: I think the lonliness thing is a big thing. They’ll say, “You love this person better than me because he is your son and I’m not and I don’t have a mother. Of all of them, Martha struggles the most with feeling that sadness. You know, there are those times that just kind of shock us and we’ll think, I don’t know that I treat them any differently than I treat you, and yet they still feel that insecurity, so we continually  try to let them know they are just as much loved, and just as much a part of a family-- and that even though I missed having them when they were babies and I missed seeing them when they were nine, I want to experience all that they are now, I don’t want to miss this.

In Sudan they have a custom among the Dinka which I believed when I was in Sudan but now I cannot believe it. They remove lower teeth from everybody, whether a boy or a girl. And they don’t use something to numb the mouth. they use a knife, it’s like a nail.They put it under the gum and they try to move it around, and then they bring it out. It is very painful.

My teeth they bother me a lot, because they affect my speech when I talk with other people and also they way I look like is not good.

Dental: There you go. good job, I’m gonna have you take it out one more time and then I’m gonna show you how to take care of it. Ok? Go ahead, big smile for me first. Abraham: Mareng and I are going to pretend like we are dancing differently to go to the same girl and compete.


Abraham: there is a place where it was wet, and the wild animals walk on it- then it got dry and we walk on that. It was like walking in thorn bushes.

Other boy: And when you walk, you just walk like this because your feet are scrunching, and it is really very hard.

Abraham: When you get tired you don’t have any idea what to do so you try to use your hands for a short time because your feet really hurt

Other boy: You crawl like a baby and walk like a monkey


Other boy: trees are just falling down in the bush. I was running and I hit my leg two times

Abraham: this is scary because we’ve never been in a police station before

Police: Just give me 30 seconds to make some copies for you and i’ll be right out. OK? Abraham: To see people in uniform with a gun like that, it feels like we are in Sudan
again.


Police: hello. I want to welcome you to the East precinct. My name is Officer Tim Greeley. Well, I am really glad you guys are here today. This is kind of exciting for me. I’ve never given a presentation to try and explain how law enforcement in America might be different from any law enforcement department somewhere else around the world.

Abraham: If you still follow your culture- you not go to America culture- you still follow your own culture, will you be in trouble for that?

Police: We would like to think you can still enjoy your own culture here in America just as long as you obey the laws, so just be curteous, polite and be gentlemen, and you won’t get in trouble, you won’t get in trouble.

Police: Do we have everybody? Ok, we’ll just proceed down the hallway a little bit. Each precinct has a detective assigned to it, and all that detective’s job to do is to analyse all of the reports that we write.Her name is detective Sharon Heath, and we love Sharon because she likes Star Trek. So, you guys like Star Trek?. it’s a tv show; it’s a television show! So, we’ll move on....

Regardless of whether or not the suspect goes to jail or I release the suspect to go home, I have to go over here to where our computers are and I have to file a police report so there is a documentation of what I did..
 

Ok? Question.


Boy: I have a question... if you caught somebody committing a crime in the community, do you come and kill him or punish him, like beating him?

Police: do what to him?


Other boy- For example, you box him or you kick him.


Police: No, we can’t do that. Not in America. No, we don’t do that. No, we use handcuffs, and we’ll cuff you up and that’s for your safety and mine. We’ll put you in the back of the patrol car, and if I were to hit you because I don’t like you, I would lose my job.

Announcer: Can I get attention here. Welcome to this occasion today. I’m very happy to be here and welcoming you. I want to ask the “lost Boys” to stand up and I want the people here to welcome them and give them a big hand. Boys, can you do me a favor, Lost Boys stand up.

Can you say “welcome Lost boys”


Girls: What about the girls?, what about the girls?


Announcer: Oh, ok, all right now. Keep it cool, let’s not fight now...Can I ask one more time, “lost girls”, please can you stand up? Please, the lost girls, can you stand up?

Martha: People always talk about “lost boys, lost boys, lost boys”, there are “lost girls” too


When we were in the camp in Kenya- when we got there we found a woman that we knew before- our neighbor- that was the woman who stayed with us. In Dinka culture, they don’t allow girls to learn, to go to school. Girls are there just to give you income. The men will pay you to get married.

You get married and your husband take care of everything. you just sit there, bear children.


They tried to force me to get married to an old man who was even 40 years. Even tho he is old, using a stick to walk, he can marry a 15 year old girl. They tried to convince me; they send me some big boys to come and beat me. they make an agreement with the man and say, “You just have to take her by force”. And once they take you and maybe do to you something, that’ll change your mind. You’ll say, I am no longer a girl. I said “no” I want to learn. I don’t want my life to be hard again. I want to change. Santino: We stayed in Kakuma. We spent nine years. it was a place of dust.

Martha: At first, we thought it would be a safe place, but when we stay there for a year, it wasn’t safe anymore.

Santino: There were some locals -- they start shooting us at night. Abraham: Everybody begin to worry; who is going to be shot next? Martha: You have no where to run: you don’t have any place to go to

Abraham: The food that you get there is not enough

Martha: We had the boys go and catch the birds: there’s some kind that we eat.-- small birds like maybe this big

Mom: a what? Family: a bird? mom: oh! a bird

Martha: yeah, they bring a lot of them and we cook them, just plain


Martha: Kristopher, what are you doing?


Brother: No, stop it, stop it, you are pulling her hair... Sister; no

Mom: Kristopher, now do the other side. it’s called a french roll


Martha: we get used to the people around us. Now, everything is getting easier, a little bit

Mom: We’ve both had times where we hurt each other’s feelings that have had to end in like three hour talks... what you did hurt my feelings and she’ll say what you did hurt mine…Kirk would have to say, “Sounds like you both just want to be loved and accepted”.


Martha: Who wants to be in my Dinka class?
 
Mom: There you go.... you teach Dinka


Martha: I want to teach Dinka


Kristopher: Aken ping is “I don’t understand”; yin nuash is “you stink”; yin nuash araish is “you stink a lot”. Pieth is pretty You put yurrite or pieth .. and say you are ugly!

Brother Kyle: Kristopher, what did you say?

Kristopher-- You are pretty..no you are handsome

Kyle: thanks

Tabitha: You are ugly!

Kyle: Oh yeah

Tabitha: I told him, “You are ugly and Kyle say “yeah”

Kristopher: Oh, this is fun

Martha: You are wa, this is nan


Abraham: I came here in December. My life was changed to a good life and lately, starting from May, my life was changed again. It didn’t change as bad as it was while I was in Africa but lately, I was not feeling good. I ask myself , how do people say that there is freedom in America? I can see it in other homes, but here, I cannot see it. There is a time you are told “You eat” and a time you want to eat and you are told. “ no you cannot eat at this time”. They say it is the rule here in our house.

Foster Mom: I can’t spank them. The honeymoon stage is now over so they feel comfortable testing as a normal teenager. Right now, it is “I’m right ,you are wrong”. You live in my house these are the rules. That’s the way I’ve raised both of my girls, and that’s the way these boys are going to live as long as they live in the house.

Hello, Yes, pardon me? Who are you looking for? he’s about ready to walk out the door. You have about one minute to talk to him

Abraham : Hello (then he speaks in Dinka...

Mom: Abraham, let’s go

Abraham- more Dinka language
 
Mom: Abraham; it is time to get off. I am going to unplug it. Off


Abraham: I want to take the time, mom


Mom: No. We have to go. Off. Now Bye


Abraham: What  I dislike here is only argument always.  They play us like soccer. They try to kick us just around like the way people kick soccer.

Mom:  Part of it I think is that they are eighteen, and they have been living on their own probably most of their life and they don’t know how to deal with structure.  And we’re
very structured with these two. I mean when I have, when I whistle for them they have to come by the second whistle or they’re in trouble.

Santino:  It was not very simple, you know, to get a job, it was hard.  And I was getting worried that I was not, that I may not get a job soon because I have never worked in the United States. The sixth interview was very nice, I passed the interview. My job is  an elevator operator in downtown.  Everybody’s saying, “Wow, it’s a good job, you’re the lucky one”. Then I said, “Wow”, also too.

Santino: How are you today?  I’m doing fine, thanks.  Ok, sir. Man: Thank you. Have a good one.

Santino: You too.


Man:  Well, we’re already to go back to work. Santino: How are you today?

Man:  I need another week or two.


Santino: I’m very excited because I’ll be independent.  I keep going to work and I keep going to school. But sometimes its hard and I have to encourage myself to do that.

Santino:  I wasn’t expecting that I would be on the cover of the magazine, and I say, “Well, it is the life that I went through and it is the life I will never forget”.

Woman’s voice: Do you get tired of telling your story?


Santino: Well, I’m very tired because it seems that there is nothing coming out from it, like, there’s no helping from people.  Why are people interested to know my story but they don’t t even stop the war?  We are all ready in every corner to tell this story, but my question is, is there any hope for that?
 

SLEEPOVER AT A FRIEND’S HOUSE

Abraham:   You have to sleep together close to each other because then you get warm. Sometimes you kind of squeeze each other, then the person who is at the end, he’s the one who is gonna feel cold.  But all those people in the middle feel warm.

Elizabeth, Martha’s friend (singing)


Martha: I think we survived because of the elders. They say, “Your parent might be there”, just in case you have hope, to make you walk.  Whenever you go somewhere you feel like you will get your parents there, or you will hear about them.  They try to encourage kids.  They say, “if you walk now, we reach that place, it’s so great you’ll sleep in a good place.”

Abraham: So, if somebody get me playing with people, they may even ask, “Why is this older person playing like a kid?  And it is because I miss it in my life.

Abraham:  Kids there are like adults The situation turned them to be like adults.  We learned to be a father, a mother, and the child at the same time.

Santino: Well, I will be moving from Payam on the 15th of this month.

Santino: Being in an apartment by yourself or maybe three people is not an easy one because we were so many in Payam House and it seemed that it was good for us to stay together. But now is quite different here because it is very quiet. We are feeling lonely and it is very far from here to Payam House. The Apartment is ok, but the problem is nobody’s interested to talk with us. We don’t even see the neighbors that are close to us.  You just stay in your house and that is it.

Abraham:  I’m now in trouble, and that’s why I’ve been punished to cut all these bushes around the fence, because I talk in my own language.  I work like a horse, or I work like somebody who is going to be paid, a servant, I don’t know.

Mom:  You know, for someone who has come from a country that doesn’t have very much they sometimes don’t show that they appreciate what they do have now, and I think that’s a huge challenge for them. They need to learn that.

Abraham:  A lot of things didn’t work out there.  But I didn’t choose to leave that place. She said, “I will not favor you anymore”. They don’t want us anymore, so we move.


Abraham:  I was crying and Peter came to me and say, “Abraham, you don’t have to cry.  You passed different dangerous situations and those situations were like to kill you, but the word cannot kill you”.  And I say, “Well, Peter, when somebody say bad word to you it is very painful.”


Martha: I dream a lot, about running, people running after me, want to kill me, and I see many people die.  Everything just came and I dream about  it.

Martha: When I hear the noise of the woods, the trees make noise, I feel like there’s something coming out of it.

I hear that it is tomorrow that we are going backpacking.  I don’t like it.  They say it is fun.  Everything here is fun.  They say sleeping outside, looking at the sky and the moon, and everything is good. I say I have many years sleeping outside under trees, carry bag and looking at the sky.  It will be fun to me in some years to come but not right now.

Abraham:  And now I’m here in Seattle with a family.  They came from Africa, and they are very nice to me because I have two days now in the house  and they give me the key and I can go anywhere. And in the family I just left there is no trust.

African Foster Mother: They told me that Abraham was a very good kid and he needed a home to stay, and since we had the room we decide Abraham can come in.  And I can’t complain so far.  He’s good, helpful in the house, he plays with my son, takes company of him. they are great together.

Son:  You know there are snakes here. Abraham:  What?!

Son: There are snakes.  they don’t bite, they’re not poisonous, no they’re so thin, they wouldn’t harm you in any way.

Abraham:  I’m thinking a lot about being moved from place to place.  There is a saying that they say in Dinka. They say that “The bad thing can be followed by a good thing, or the good thing can be followed by a bad thing. I just came from a place where there are a lot of problems but I dont’ want a place with problems again.

Santino: When we turned on the television we saw what happened in New York, the tall buildings crushed by the plane. Until this time I couldn’t believe that would happen to
the United States


Abraham: Starting from September 11 I have been dreaming constantly.  I dream that all the Sudanese boys who came here were called to go and fight.  I opened my eyes in the bed shivering.  It was really scary, looking outside, is this Africa or the United States?  I’m thinking a lot about what has happened. If we heard  that place is safe and we go to that place that place will be not safe again.  Ethiopia, like, was good, but after
 
we went there, they follow us.  And from Ethiopia we run to Kenya. Kenya was safe and when we came to Kenya, it is sad.  People being killed at night and when we came here it happened also. So in my own thought I say, “They don’t want U.S., they want us.  We are brought here, that is why they kill these innocent people in America.”  And if it continues to be a war, where can I get food to eat?  There is no trees here like leaf of tree that people can eat.  Even I don’t know the direction. Like now I am in Seattle and I don’t know which way is north and which way is south.  Where can I go again?

THREE MONTHS LATER


Santino: I just decide, the only way people will know much about the life we went through is to show them the dance and sing the song.  And then, I just asking, “Do you know anybody that can give us a drum and a house to perform?”

African man: We have to welcome our brother, Michael,  and to present the drum. MICHAEL MEADE, MYTHOLOGIST, STORYTELLER

Michael:  Also.  So, may this drum help you find dance, may it help you find song, joy, strength.

DANCE PERFORMANCE AT SEATTLE ART MUSEUM


Santino: Sometimes I feel lonely, but when I dance together with them I feel like we are one family.

Santino: The dancing is really motivating us. It encourages us and makes us think the life we went through we will not forget it.   We feel like we are in Sudan, we feel like we are now at home.

Abraham: It’s not my aim to stay in America. I say when i am 35 years then I have to come back to Sudan, whether there is peace or not, I have to come

When I am a person who can do something for others then I will go back.

I dream of my sister. I dream that I was in Sudan and I was just walking along the road and then my sister was standing beside the road. She called me. She say “please can you tell me your name?” And I say it. And she jumped on my neck. She say, “You are my brother” I lift her up. It was so good, I feel like I am home and I’m there with my sister. Nothing can compare to it. It’s a good thing to be with a family.

Martha: I got a call last night from a boy. The boy that’s called before.
 
Mom: Oh, the same one, wanting money? Martha: No, not the one wanting money Mom: A different one?
Martha: that want to be a boyfriend


Mom: The one that sent the valentine cards?

Martha: Oh, the other one

Friend: Well, how many do you have?

Martha: I don’t know

Martha: When we came here, I was afraid to talk to her about what  I want or my feelings. As time goes, I don’t think there is fear like before between us. Now I can just talk to her. I understand that they love me and they want me to be with them. They don’t do anything to make me feel like I’m not their child.

Martha: Ok, I’m gonna take your blood pressure now. I am now working in a nursing home. It’s my first job. I don’t want to end my school in highschool. I want to continue to be in college. Can’t hear anything, are you dead?

Dad: I’m relaxed


Martha: That’s funny. Can you listen to this? See if you can hear anything?


Dad: I don’t hear it. Let me see if I hear it at all. It should be working. I don’t know why, it’s funny.

Martha: I don’t know. I am not alive either.

Martha: I work with old people, take care of them. I’m scared of everything. I don’t like seeing blood, I don’t like seeing people naked. I know it’s hard but that’s what I want to do. Once you suffer and you face difficult problems, it’s not very hard for you to help somebody.

(text) Martha is now attending Lake Washington Community College. Santino’s dance group has begun performing in other cities
 
Abraham discovered that his father and sisters are alive. He spoke with them by phone for the first time in 16 years.

As of 2003, the war in Sudan continues.


Thousands of Lost Boys and Girls remain in Kakuma Refugee Camp.