Instead of like the grocery store, right? You know, the uh now you put
things in the refrigerator, you know, and you know, all of that stuff. Are
we ready? Yeah, so you know, much kind of much easier. Ok, so now we're
gonna be talking about um the refugee camps if you can tell me about, you
know, when you got there, the first one you got to and then the next one,
how many different refugee camps did you go to?
One or two? The first we, when we crossed the border into Kenya, the
assembly area with the looking that with the Watertown and then once they
got enough folks there, we got trans transported to Cancun. So we came to
Kakuma. I don't remember that the Zac month but it was maybe, maybe June
or July of 1992.
Um So I think it took them three months to move looking to uh I think the
last bag came there around September 1992. So in Kakuma it was a lot of
people, I've never seen that many people concentrated in one place
compared to the village we were living. So the transformation. So how many
thousands would you say? Well, at that time, I think it started with
85,000 people. That was the beginning. I mean, right now they have more
people than that. That number is true. But it was 85,000 starting. And
your village had about how many people probably we were all spread out. So
you can never even think of uh we had 80,000, more than 1500 but they were
all spread out huge, 85,000.
And again, it was, it wasn't the Dinka alone, but he had the new, you had
all these other tribe from South Sudan that you never had a chance to know
before. So it was kind of like I need the only way it was like a mountain
part of South Sudan where all tribes were there on. And then you have the
Kenyans not that far from the camp. So you have the Ethiopians not far
that were already there. You have the folks from Burundi, Rwanda, the
Congolese, the Uganda, all all there. So at its own way, I felt like this
is that's where I got introduced to the world outside of my church. So, so
in Kuma, they started to start with the schools and all that. And that was
the starting point when I started to go to school at the age of 12 that I
didn't go to kindergarten in first grade and I didn't even know my ABC DH
her colors. No, none of that. So, you, did, you like school? It was great
. I just felt like I was, I was an adult, like a lot of people were, we
had people as old as 4050 years old that were in the same class with us.
Some of them, 60 year old, some of them want to learn the colors they
were reading.
Right. Yeah. And, um, did, uh, was there a subject that you like the most
? Um, growing up I, I had, I've always liked math. Math. Wasn't something
that intimidated me a lot. Maybe until later when they grew calculus and
all this, then it start to get a little difficult, but I can understand it.
That's why you're in banking, right? I wish I had to deal with the
numbers and I would love it. But the process, how did, um uh how, how did
you, uh in the camp? How did you like, um, because of the food and the
scarcity of, well, you get used to it but sometimes you have little, you
get used to the little you have and then you, you know, you adjust
yourself to it. If, if it's one time a day we used to eat once a day and
they benefit people. They used to give out Russia the, the ration of food.
So they do every 15 days. So twice a month, people go to the center, they
give you the food, then put it together, you come home and make sure it
lasts 15 days sometimes when we finish seven days before. So that's when
you start to be creative. And some people will have a small little garden
where you can grow okra, you can grow vegetables, some you can sell some
of those. And then that will make sure you go through that seven days
before you, you get to the ration. Did your family grow any, did they have
a garden or did they really? Most of it was done by young folks like us?
So you do it with your parents, whatever you have to water it. So it's
also, it's also the job by itself. We didn't have a lot of water holes.
There were very few because people were put in groups. You may have uh
groups that have five for 700 people with one uh water holes. That's not
enough for a lot of people.
And that water hole doesn't run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It has
to have a generator. Sometimes the generator will break down. You will
wait hours in a day or you have to go to another group that has 1000 folks.
You have to line up from six. You probably won't, you won't, you won't
get water until maybe 1 p.m. waiting around. So by itself, it was an eye
opener, but it was like a training ground. How many years did you spend
there. I was there nine years, nine years, 1992 until 2001. So, it was
close to 10. Your English you picked up English pretty quickly. Yeah. I
mean, we were taught in English there that we didn't get a chance to
practice it. You just go to class and come home. That's all, you know,
it's your dialect. That, and so did you stay with your parents in the camp
? And they were advanced in each at that time? So they were like the one
which you could take care of.
Um How did you do in um And did you start applying to come to the United
States? The uh yeah, the process started but it was like a joke in my mind.
I never thought about it. I mean, like we always had this myth when you
go to America, you never come back to your homeland. Like I'm not going.
So it took me a while to, to catch on to it. I think around 1998 we start
to pick up a little bit. They were sending people there taking pictures
like what do they do? But the actual process I heard going back, learn
later. They actually started back in 1992. That's when they was an
agreement here with the US government. It didn't materialize until almost
67 years later. So when they were sending people to the camp to go and
surveys and all the miners living by themselves and all this. And then it
started by the year 1998 that pick up and then the first batch came to
America in 2000 sometime I think right after Thanksgiving around that time
, it was Jenny. Jenny was one of the first, one of the first ones. Ok. So
what year did you come? 2001? March 28? That's when I arrived in Arizona.
What changed your mind about wanting to come to America? The pictures
they were sending back or the pictures north of my nephew were the biggest
part. He came here. He went to a U I think he probably, I do. I think I
interviewed him. Yeah, I did too. Who were the biggest? He, he's probably
one of the folks that made sure that I came here. Otherwise, if it was up
to me, I probably would have not. I wanted to stay with my parents. I
didn't buy the idea. Somebody says, oh, we're just going to America. I
never thought it was that can happen in that to,
I guess the world I read about this story. But as you are living in this
story, sometimes you don't get to see how hard it is but other people
around it. So when you came here, what did you discover? Did you come
straight to Arizona or tell me, tell me about your, where you came. Um
Well, the flight took off from, from Kumo to, to Nairobi. That was like a
two hour flight. That was the first time being in a plane. And then from,
I was a little scared, a little scared. Yeah, I was a little scared but at
the same time there were other people there too. So, uh, from Nairobi we
took off and then I remember we landed in Amsterdam for about eight hours
to stay at the airport. But I guess the way it was set up, we were always
there were people waiting us at the airport. So we went, when we were in
Amsterdam, they took us to lunch, we ate there eating spaghetti from the
first time. Something else. How was that? Like when did this get cut? And
then you don't even know you have to go like that and it was like the
taste was ok, but it was bothering you, you know, spaghetti with a bo, did
it, did it make you think of worms or anything like that or no or just?
Yeah, I was just kind of the people eat it? That's ok. So that was one of
your first, the first food? You, so then from there you went to uh we came
to New York, then they took us to the immigration of New York. You trying
to, you are entering into the United States. Where did you think of New
York when you went there?
I didn't get, I didn't get that opportunity. We were at the airport, we
got put in the bus, we look at the anxiety was too much. The building
didn't even impress me that much. And they took us to the uh to the, to
the hotel to because they're gonna put us on the next day flight. So we
came around in the evening. So we went to the hotel and we almost burn
ourselves at night because we didn't know how to operate the, the air
condition. It was cold in New York that I remember. I think it was around
2028 29 degrees. It was cold inside that we put on the heater. They got.
So we were all sweaty. One night, we opened the door in order to turn and
shut it off. Finally, we found figure out that we keep pushing the button
until we shut it off. How many, how many of you guys were there for
our flight with about 46 F so when we came to New York, then there were
four going to Iowa four going to other cities and coming here to Phoenix.
I think it was me and, uh, I think it was four of us. So we took off from
New York, came to Denver, then from Denver to here to Phoenix, Phoenix.
And we got picked up at the airport a little hot all the time. So, was it
the year again? Was it, it was, uh, what month was it? 28? We arrive on
the 28th of March. Ok. So it wasn't as hard as, it wasn't that bad, but it
was, uh, compared to what New York was at that time, it was a little hot,
but the temperature wasn't the thing in our mind at that time. When you
came, did they put you in school or did they think you were too old for
school? Did you, when I came, I seem to always, I was always the youngest
person in the team. So when we went to the IRC with the sponsoring agency
, the International Rescue TV, uh with the sponsoring agency.