June 24, 2008

Public Speaking enhances leadership of famous African refugee, Valentino Achak Deng

This last Saturday, June 21, I finished reading "What is the What" by Dave Eggars. It is billed as a novel but is essentially a biography of Valentino Achak Deng, one of the "Lost Boys" of Sudan who fled a civil war in Sudan.

Thousands of boys died during their 1,000- mile walk to Ethiopia, most from starvation and dehydration, some from man-eating lions, and others from attack by the murahaleen; Sudanese government-armed Arab militias. The boys live for a time in relative peace in a refugee camp – Pinyudo.

Then, Valentino and all refugees at Pinyudo are forced to leave Ethiopia when that country's dictator, Mengistu Haile Mariam, is overthrown. They were run out of the country at gunpoint and forced to swim the Gilo River where two thousand lives were claimed by shooting, drowning or crocodiles.

They ended up in a huge refugee camp – Kakuma in Kenya. Eventually, Valentino made it to the United States where he met Dave Eggars, a Bay Area writer who agreed to write his story. Valentino has created a foundation and uses his web site to tell the story of his efforts to rebuild his village (Marial Bai) in Sudan.

The setting: In the vast camp of Kakuma which houses 72,000 refugees from all over Africa, Valentino has achieved a position of leadership. He's been a model student in the camp's schools gaining an education he never would have had in his village in Sudan. He's participated in the camp's drama program and even performed plays in the other-worldly, bustling metropolis of Nairobi. He's gained the lofty status of coordinator for the Youth and Culture Program, a paying job with an office, unheard of for a Sudanese boy without any family.

Near the end of the book, it is September 2001, just after 911. Valentino and his fellow Lost Boys have been waiting in Nairobi, in a state of limbo. Finally, the flights to the U.S. have begun again. It is the night before Valentino is to fly to the U.S. There is much uncertainty and fear as half of the boys in his room are to depart the next morning. The memories of the aircraft flying into the World Trade Center Towers are fresh in their minds and they are to fly to New York the next day.

His ability to speak to the boys and express his thoughts has a powerful impact in leading the group and giving them a feeling of confidence:

None of us were sure we would ever see the Earth again. To fly from Africa, over the ocean, in an airplane, bound for the city where planes were flown into buildings. It wasn’t just about a country at war. We were leaving everything we knew, or thought we knew; each of us had only one small bag of possessions, and no money at all, no family where we were going. This journey was an act of reckless faith.

… The youngest among us, a young man names Benjamin, had turned to the wall, awake and shaking …
"Don't fear tonight, Benjamin. Or tomorrow … Already, we've seen more than most of our ancestors. Even if we disappear while flying to our destination, Benjamin, we should be thankful. Do you remember the flight to Nairobi? (None had ever been on a plane before.) We had to close every window it was so bright. We've seen the earth from the sky, we've seen the lights of Nairobi and all the people walking through it's streets. This is more than our ancestors could have dreamed."

Benjamin's breathing slowed, and the men in the room agreed that this was true. Emboldened, I continued to speak … I told them that the mistakes of the Dinka before us were errors of timidity, of choosing what was before us over what might be. Our people, I said, had been punished for centuries for our errors, but now we were being given a chance to rectify all that. We had been tested as none before had been tested. We had been sent into the unknown once, and then again and again. We had been thrown this way and that, like rain in the wind of a hysterical storm.

"But we're no longer rain … we're no longer seeds. We're men. Now we can stand and decide. This is our first chance to choose our own unknown. I'm so proud of everything we've done, my brothers, and if we're fortunate enough to fly and land again in a new place, we must continue. As impossible as it sounds, we must keep walking. And yes, there has been suffering, but now there will be grace. There has been pain but now there will be serenity. No one has been tried as we have been tried, and now this is our reward, whether it be heaven or something less than that."

When I was done talking, Benjamin seemed pleased, and words of agreement were sent up into the dark from all of the room's men. I climbed back into my bed but felt as if I was floating above it. Every part of my body felt electric. My chest ached and my head throbbed with the great terrible limitless possibility of the morning and when it came, the sky was washed white, everything was new, and I hadn't slept at all.

To learn more about what you can do to help the people of Sudan, please click here to see Valentino's list of Ten Things You Can Do for Sudan.

Here is some video of Valentino Achak Deng speaking at Google.