The Daily Campus

Issue date: 11/6/09 Section: Focus

Media Credit: Paul Shim Refugee speaker Gabriel Bol Deng from Sudan talks about his life, beginning from his escape for his war-torn home country to his journey to the United States, and how he dealt with the culture shock along the way. He spole Wednesday in Konover auditorium.

With a warm smile and a hospitable handshake, Gabriel Bol Deng greeted students on their way into the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center Thursday night. A Sudanese refugee turned humanitarian, Bol Deng shared his inspirational story with UConn students in the dim lights of the auditorium.

Bol Deng was living what he calls a "beautiful life with [his] parents" in the then-peaceful nation of Sudan before the devastating effects of the country's second civil war hit home. At just 10-years-old, he witnessed four militiamen kill civilians before his very eyes, the body of one falling on the young Bol Deng. Of the life-saving tactic he utilized in this experience, he said, "Pretending to be dead was the best way to stay alive."

It was after this harrowing brush with death that Bol Deng was forced to flee, leaving behind both his parents and all eight of his siblings. After a 12 hour journey across the Nile River, during which he used bundles of papyrus for transport and witnessed the deaths of more than 50 people, he arrived in Ethiopia. He sought refuge at the Dimma Refugee Camp, where he learned to write in English using cardboard and charcoal as paper and pen, before relocating to the Kakuma Camp in Kenya in 1992, where he joined drama and debate clubs and took a shine to soccer.

Despite the joviality and amiableness of his character, Bol Deng made sure to touch on a darker time in his life, one that was not shrouded with hope.

"There was a time when I was an angry, disillusioned boy,î he said. ìI thought I was just waiting for my death."

Before these thoughts had time to take hold, Bol Deng said he had a vision of his parents telling him to be resilient and regain a fighting spirit. He recalled a time in his youth when his father told him that despite the odds, man was capable of moving mountains.

While the greater message did not sink in at the time, he drew from these words in his time of desperation.

Continued...

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