2006 - What is the What (64 page)

There are three. The first is from Madelena, the admissions officer at a small Jesuit college I visited months ago and which all but promised me entry at that time. Since then, they seem to have arrived at a dozen or more reasons why my application is incomplete. First, they said, my transcript was not official enough; I had sent a copy, when they needed a certified original. Then I had failed to take a certain test that earlier they told me was unnecessary. And all the while, every time I have tried to reach Madelena on the phone, she has been gone. Periodically, though, she calls me back, always at an hour when she knows I will not pick up. I am not sure how she does it. She is a master at this. This message is more informative than any other:

‘Valentine, I’ve talked to my colleagues here at the college and we think you should get some more credits under your belt from the community college’—and here she fumbles with her papers, finding the name—‘Georgia Perimeter College. The last thing anyone wants to happen is for you to come all the way out here only to be unsuccessful. So let’s get back in touch after a few more semesters, and see where you’re at…’ This continues for a while, and when she hangs up I can hear the relief in her voice. She will not have to deal with me, she assumes, for another year.

In much the same way as happened at Kakuma, people have been astonished by my difficulty achieving some objectives that they imagine would be easy for me to reach. I have been in the United States five years and I am not much closer to college than I was when I arrived. Through assistance from Phil Mays and the Lost Boys Foundation, I was able to quit my fabric-sample job and study full-time at Georgia Perimeter College, taking the classes I had been told that I would need to apply to a four-year college. But it has not gone as planned. My grades have been inconsistent, and my teachers not always encouraging. Is college really for me? they asked. I did not answer this question. My Foundation money ran out and I had to take this job, at the health club, but I am still determined to attend college. A respected college where I can be a legitimate student. I will not rest until I do.

This fall it seemed I had finally reached a place where I was ready. I had four solid semesters of community college under my belt and my grades were on the whole fine. They dipped after the death of Bobby Newmyer but I did not think these few mis-steps would hamper my applications. And yet they did. I applied to Jesuit colleges all over the country and their response was confusing and conflicted.

First I toured. I visited seven colleges and always did my best to take notes, to make sure I knew exactly what it was that they were looking for in a prospective student. Gerald Newton had told me to ask them point-blank, ‘What will it take to make sure I am a student here in the fall?’ I said exactly those words at every school I visited. And they were very encouraging. They were friendly, they seemed to want me. But my applications were rejected by all of these schools, and in some cases the admissions officers did not respond at all.

When I finally spoke to an admissions officer at one school, a man who agreed to be candid with me, he said some interesting things.

‘You just might be too old.’

I asked him to explain. He represented another liberal arts college with a small undergraduate population. I had visited this school, its manicured topiary, its buildings looking much like the catalog we had passed around while waiting for the plane to take us away from Kakuma.

‘Look at it this way,’ he said. ‘There are dorms here. There are young girls, some of them only seventeen years old. You know what I mean?’

I did not know what he meant.

‘Your application says you’re twenty-seven years old,’ he said.

‘Yes?’

‘Well, picture some white suburban family. They’re spending forty thousand dollars to send their young blond daughter to college, she’s never been away from home, and the first day on campus they see a guy like you roaming the dorms?’

In his opinion, he had explained everything he needed to. He was trying to give me frank and final advice; he imagined I would quit. But I refuse to believe that this is the end of my pursuit of a college degree, though it seems to me now that I might have to be creative. At Kakuma we could invent a new name for ourselves, a new story for whatever purpose, whenever the pressures and obligations necessitated it.—You have to innovate, Gop said many times, and he meant that there were few unbendable rules at Kakuma. Especially when the alternative was deprivation.

There is a message on my phone from Daniel Bol, who I have known since Kakuma. He was in the Napata Drama Group, and though he does not say it outright, I know that he needs money again. ‘You know why I’m calling you,’ he says, and exhales dramatically. Normally I would not consider calling him back, but something occurs to me, a way I might solve my problem with Daniel once and for all. I call him back.

‘Hello?’ It is him. He is awake. It is 3:13 a.m. where he is. We chat for a few minutes about general things, about his new marriage and his new child, born three months ago. Her name is Hillary.

Daniel is not a particularly graceful man, and I take some pleasure in hearing how clumsily he arrives at the purpose of his call.

‘So…’ he says. Then he is silent. I am supposed to glean from that that he needs my assistance, and now I am expected to be asking him which Western Union is the closest to his home. I decide to have him explain his situation a bit more clearly.

‘What’s the matter?’ I ask.

‘Oh Achak, as you know, I have a new child at home.’

I remind him that we were just speaking about her moments ago.

‘Yes, and she was sick last week, and then I did a dumb thing. I am very ashamed of what I did but it is done. So.

And again I’m supposed to infer the rest and then wire the money. But I will not make it so easy for him. I put on a bit of theatrics for old time’s sake.

‘What is done? What happened? Is your baby still sick?’

I know that his baby isn’t sick at all, and was not sick, but I am surprised when he drops this part of his gambit.

‘No, this isn’t about the baby. She’s fine now. This is about something stupid I did over one weekend. Two weeks ago. You know what I’m talking about.’

It is always curious how he prefers not to say the word
gambling
, as if he doesn’t want to pollute our conversation with the word. But I push him one step further and finally he explains what I knew to be the case when I first heard his voice on my answering machine. Daniel leaves his wife and child for days at a time and travels forty-five minutes to the Indian reservation, where there is a casino he favors. There he has lost a total of $11,400 over the last six months. All of us who know him have attempted various methods of helping him, but nothing has worked. For some time, many of us made the mistake of simply giving him money. I gave him $200, all I could manage, and only because he told me that he had no insurance coverage for his child and had to pay the birthing expenses out of pocket. Americans from his church, and Sudanese all over the country sent him money at that time, and only later did we learn that he had been insured all along, and that every cent of the $5300 or so provided to him, from twenty-eight of us, went back to the casino. Since that time, he has been gingerly feeling out those among us who might still be tapped for donations. His approach this morning is to claim a new direction, and salvation.

‘This is the end of it for me, Dominic. I’m finally free of this habit.’ He still will not say the words
gambling
or
blackjack
. I listen to him for ten minutes and he refuses to say the words.

‘If I can’t pay this off,’ he says, then drifts off for a moment. ‘I just might have to…end it. Just give it up, dammit. Everything.’

For a moment I don’t understand what he’s saying. An end to the gambling? But then I understand. But I know this threat to be hollow. Daniel is perhaps the last person I know who would ever take his life. He is too vain and too small. We sit with his threat for a few moments, and then I decide that it is time to play the card I have been holding all along.

‘Daniel, I wish I could help in your time of need, but I was attacked last night.’ And so I tell him the entire story, the ordeal from the beginning. Though I know him to be a self-centered man, I am nevertheless surprised by how little he seems to care. Along the way, he makes curt sounds that he hears what I’m saying, but he does not ask how I am doing, or where I am now, why I am awake at 5:26 a.m. But it is clear that he knows he cannot continue to ask me for money. He only wants to get off the phone, for he is wasting time with me when he must think of who to call next.

By many we have been written off as a failed experiment. We were the model Africans. For so long, this was our designation. We were applauded for our industriousness and good manners and, best of all, our devotion to our faith. The churches adored us, and the leaders they bankrolled and controlled coveted us. But now the enthusiasm has dampened. We have exhausted many of our hosts. We are young men, and young men are prone to vice. Among the four thousand are those who have entertained prostitutes, who have lost weeks and months to drugs, many more who have lost their fire to drink, dozens who have become inexpert gamblers, fighters.

The story that broke everyone’s will was widely told and unfortunately true: One night not long ago, three Sudanese men in Atlanta, all of whom I knew here and in Kakuma, were out carousing. They drank in no-name bars and later in the street, and eventually were awake and intoxicated while the rest of the city had found reasons to sleep. Two of the men began to argue about money; there was $10 at issue, which had been loaned and not repaid. Soon there was a fight between two of them, clumsy and seemingly harmless. The third man tried to break it up but all three of them were sloppy and blurred and one of the men attempted a kick to the chest of his debtor, and lost his balance, landing on his head. That effectively ended the dispute for that night. The three dispersed, and the third man helped the kicker home, where his head swelled. Half a day later, the friend called an ambulance but by then it was too late. The kicking man fell into a coma, and died two days later.

Does this sort of thing happen to Americans? A man tries to kick another and then dies? Could anything be more pitiful? Did it need to be over $10? I find myself cursing the third man, the friend, for not bringing the kicker to the hospital sooner, and for telling everyone that the dispute was over so little. The Sudanese, anyone can now say, will kill each other over $10.

I send money to many. Because everyone at Kakuma knew I had a job there, they assume I am wildly successful in America. So I receive calls from acquaintances in the camp, and in Nairobi, Cairo, Khartoum, Kampala. I send what I can spare, though most of my money goes to my younger brothers and stepbrothers, three of them in school in Nairobi. They were so small when I left Marial Bai that I can remember little about them from that time. Now they are grown and have plans. Samuel, the oldest and shortest, just graduated from high school, and is applying to business schools in Kenya. Peter will graduate from a British-run preparatory school in Nairobi; Phil helped to pay for his tuition. Peter is perhaps the most like myself; at school he is very involved—he is a prefect, he plays basketball and is a black belt in karate. He is quiet but is respected by his peers and his teachers. Because he is the most reliable of my brothers, I send funds through him for distribution to Samuel and to Philip, who is sixteen and wants to be a doctor. I am happy and proud to send them money, sometimes as much as $300 a month. But it is never enough. There are so many others for whom I cannot do what I would like to. My father’s sister lives in Khartoum with three children, and has very little means of taking care of herself. Her husband was killed in the war, and his brothers are dead, too. I send her money, perhaps $50 a month, and I wish I could send more.

The last message is from Moses. Moses of Marial Bai, Moses who was brought north as a slave, Moses who was branded and escaped and later trained to be a rebel. Moses who went to private school in Kenya and college in British Columbia and now lives in Seattle. I have not seen him since Kakuma and I am so grateful when I hear his voice. His is a voice so unwavering, always bright, lunging forward with hope.

‘Gone Far my man!’ he says in English. He always liked this nickname for me. He switches to Dinka. ‘Lino called me and he told me what happened. First of all, don’t be mad at Lino. He said I was the one and only person he would call. And I won’t tell anyone else. I promise. He also said that you’re doing okay, and that the injuries weren’t so bad. So I send you my best wishes for a quick recovery.’

Every time I wonder about where we’re going and who we are, if I speak to Moses, I feel assured. If only you were with me now, Moses! You would be strong enough to carry us both through this horrible morning.

‘Now, I know this sounds like a bad time to bring this up…’ he says, and I catch my breath. ‘But I’m organizing a walk…’ I exhale. He says he is organizing a walk to bring attention to the plight of the Darfurians. He plans to travel from his home in Seattle to Tucson, Arizona, by foot.

‘Achak, I want to do this and I know it will make a difference. Think of it! What if we all walked again? What if we could all get together and walk again, this time on roads and in view of the whole world? Wouldn’t people take notice? We’d really be able to get people thinking about Darfur, about what it means to be displaced, chased, and walking toward an uncertain future, right? Call me back when you can. I want you to be part of this.’

There is a pause, when it seems that Moses has put down the phone. Then he picks it up again in a clattering rush.

‘And I’m so sorry about Tabitha. Achak, I am so very sorry. You’ll find another girl, I know. You’re a very desirable man.’ He pauses to correct himself. ‘That is, to women, not to me. I do not find you desirable that way, Gone Far.’

He is laughing quietly when he hangs up.