Surviving Darfur

My name is Souleyman, and my last name is Adam, the same name as my grandfather.

I was born in Darfur, in the western part of Sudan. I don’t have a birth certificate. But according to my mother and my grandmother, I was born in 1996.

My life is caught in three parts. I lived in Sudan when I was younger, before the war. Then after the war, we were in a displacement camp inside Sudan, and also lived in Chad. And then we went to the US.

In Sudan, our life was a combination of living in the city and living in the village. My grandparents had a farm. They had cows and camels and a lot of other animals. So during the dry season, my mom and my father brought us back to the city. We went to school, and then during the rainy season, we went back to the village. That’s where my mom and my father helped my grandparents to farm.

I remember living a very simple life. My parents were very, very busy but for us, the younger ones, we ran around. It was all fun and games, always. I had a bike. It is the center of my memory because I was the only one with a bike in the entire village, and it drew a lot of friends to me. Whenever we went back to the city, I couldn’t wait for the rainy season to come so that we could go back to the village. It was a very, very beautiful life.

When the war started, we were in the village, and we all had to run away. That meant leaving our animals, our farms, everything. We left it all to save our lives. My grandpa took one cow to milk it on the way for the young kids. We went to the city Nyala to a displacement camp that was created outside the city for everybody who got attacked. We got food assistance, water, and medical care.

But it was not totally safe because this displacement camp was a couple of miles away from the Janjaweed (*note: Janjaweed was the proxy militia groups for the military led government in Sudan) and the government militia. They still had access. They could just go there and kidnap or beat or kill whoever they want. Their main focus was to kill all the men. They don’t care if you are a child, or if you’re elderly, or if you’re in the middle. They tried to kill all the men because they say that if you’re male, then it is more likely that you’re going to join the rebels and fight against the Sudanese government.

It was not safe for my father, so he decided to leave Sudan. My father, my mother, and my two sisters went together. They got a ride to the border and then they walked across the border to Chad, and hopefully make it to a refugee camp. They left me and my brother with my grandparents. We went to the displacement camp inside Nyala called Otash. We stayed there for 4 years.

In the displacement camp, it was very, very difficult. We lived off one meal a day, and it wasn’t one meal a day like the food that we are eating. It was tasteless, and it’s just good to keep your stomach full. I used to go outside of the camp and get food for my grandmother to cook. Sometimes I would get wild fruit. One day my best friend and I went far away from the displacement camp. We were on top of a tree, getting fruit, even though it was not safe. I saw some men coming towards us on their camels, and thought they were attacking us. So I jumped, but I was wearing this long dress, a jalabiya, and it got stuck. I fell face down. I still have the mark on my lip! I went home, and I was covered in blood and everybody thought we had been attacked. But no, I just fell from a tree.

There was no school in the displacement camp. So my grandfather, I think he sold his car. He told me that my car died, but I believe he sold it and he didn’t want to tell me. He enrolled me in school in the city. He walked me from the displacement camp to the city. While I was at school, my grandfather went to the market, and there he sold stuff so he could make a little money.

Sometimes when school was canceled, I would go hang out with my grandfather in the market to see how things work. I found out that my grandfather bought used clothes from a wholesaler. And then he just put them all on his arms and then went around selling them individually to people. But then he got some issues with his knee so he couldn’t walk anymore. He couldn’t take me to school so I had to go by myself. But because he couldn’t go to the market and hustle, I didn’t have any money to buy notebooks or shoes or anything. So I decided to do something similar to what he did in the same market. I went to the market and bought napkins. A lot of people use napkins because the bus is very, very crowded and very very hot. It doesn’t have AC. I decided to buy napkins for half, the equivalent of $2.50, and just go around the bus station and sell them.

The first day I got the same money back because I sold them cheap. The next day I was able to get some more money out of it. Little by little, it worked so well, my other friends also started to sell napkins. They didn’t come and serve the same area that I did, because I would fight them. That was my territory! So they had to go to the bus stop downtown.

My grandmother always encouraged me to go to school. So I went to school in the morning, and after school I went straight to the market. I did that for two years. When I had more money saved, my grandma suggested to me that I use my money to buy sugar and tea bags. And then we opened a really small shop in the house. My grandfather took care of the shop while I was in school and then after school I sat there doing my homework and selling our stuff.

But I felt like– I have a mother. I have a father and I have siblings. I needed to find them because after all that time, I didn’t hear anything. I didn’t know if they were alive or dead. I started crying every night, not sleeping. I said to my grandparents, “I need to go find my parents. If you don’t send me to my parents, I will run away.” And one thing my grandfather knows about me for sure is that if I say I’m going to do something I will do it no matter what. So my grandfather told me okay. He told me to wait, because it was still not safe. He said he will try to find out if any group of people are going to Chad. My grandpa thought that our extended family could just take us to the bus stop where all the travelers come and we could ask for my father. Maybe we can find somebody who has a phone and we can call them to try to find them.

When I was going to Chad my grandfather dressed me up as a girl. I had a scarf and a dress. I looked just like a girl! I was thinking, you know, I’m providing for my grandfather. I am providing for my brother. I’m doing all these things and now he’s dressing me like a girl! In our society there, girls do not go out and shop and go see stuff. They just stay home. For us, growing up, when somebody told you you’re a girl, that means it’s very bad! So it was very, very difficult for me to wear this dress and pretend I’m a girl. My grandfather told me, “Look, don’t take your scarf off. Don’t take this dress off. And then if you want to pee, go far away from anybody else.” I didn’t understand what’s going on. I tried to take my scarf on the road but my extended family slapped me and said, “Shut up!” So we made it. There were a couple of checkpoints when they stopped us and there we heard stories from the people on the bus. Like, two days ago they struck a pregnant woman on her stomach to see if the baby in the stomach was really a boy she was hiding.

We got to Chad. At the bus stop we kept asking for my father’s name and surprisingly some people knew about him. My parents hadn’t gone to the camp yet. They were still in Abeche city in Chad. My father was working at this travel agency. For those people who came to Chad and were trying to go to the capital city, he would help them to get a bus. The people at the bus stop told us, “Go straight” and this and that and this big tree and that’s how you get to my father’s house. We took the tuk tuk. We saw the big tree as described and then under that tree there were a lot of kids playing and guess who I found there? My sister! I screamed from inside the tuk tuk, “That’s my sister! That’s my sister!” I ran to her and I hugged her. We went inside the house and I saw my mom. It was very, very emotional. It was a huge surprise, especially for my mom. She didn’t expect to see me just like that, because there was no formal communication that I was coming. She asked about my little brother and about my grandparents. I told her that they were doing well. I told her I said I was gonna run away, so my grandparents had to come up with solutions.

We didn’t last long in the capital city. My dad’s job did not pay enough to support us to live in Abeche. So we moved to Gaga, to the displacement camp. It was a lot better for our family. Because my parents were still having babies.

We stayed in the camp for many years. There I suffered from a serious illness affecting my urinary tract. It was painful to urinate and there was blood in my urine. But, my family didn’t believe I was sick. One doctor in Chad gave me the wrong medicine and made my condition worse. I almost died. In Chad, they didn’t know how to treat my illness.

Fortunately, when I was about 19, we came to America. That was in August, 2014. We didn’t choose to come to America. We were assigned to America by a United Nations agency, the UNHCR, which helps forcibly displaced and stateless people relocate to safety. In our case we were assigned to America because the agency knew I was seriously ill and would get good medical care in America.

We were resettled in Kansas City by the Jewish Vocational Services (JVS), which provides job training and placement services for those in need.They helped me so much. It was JVS that got me to good doctors. My treatment was an ordeal but I’m cured now and feeling fine.

I was enrolled in high school in January or February of 2015. I was 19 years old and at that age, not speaking any English was very, very difficult. But the second day, I walked myself from the house to school and I went straight to the principal’s office.

I heard that when you’re 20 years old they kick you out of high school. So I was trying to convince the principal to let me have the experience of high school, to just at least take some classes. They were telling me to take the GED. I know the GED is something most people do. They try to pass the GED but they end up working in a warehouse or something and they never actually go to college. I didn’t want to be in that situation. I wanted to go to college and I wanted to do something with my life. So I convinced the principal to let me stay in school until I’m 20. Then, you can kick me out. So the principal said, “Okay, I will let you be here, but when you’re 20 years old, no questions asked, you’re out.”

I was stressed every day because I spent a lot of hours trying to learn English. I would go to YouTube and then from Arabic to English, trying to learn it. I used a lot of internet at home. My English was getting a lot better very fast. The other thing is, I was helping my family with everything. I was the first to get my driver’s license, a permanent driver’s license. And I was the first to know how to use GPS and how to use Google Translate. That’s why I got exposed to so much English. While my other friends were playing, I would just be sitting in a corner, reading and trying to learn English. Sometimes the principal came and he saw me in the corner. I started getting 90s on all my tests. All my teachers were saying good things about me.

The principal called me in the office and told me that he would try his best to help me graduate from school, because he could see that I was very willing to learn. I was very excited about that. It was the best news. They gave me some classes that I could take online so that I could meet all the requirements. While I was in the camp in Gaga, I took some classes, so I had my certificate translated and they gave me some credit for that. So on May 15, 2016, I graduated high school with my high school diploma.

I ran cross country and track in high school. Because of how fast I was, I got a scholarship to college. But I broke my ankle and was not able to continue. So I came back home in 2021. In 2022 I volunteered with iACT, an organization based in Los Angeles. They help with opening schools in refugee camps. They provide meals, and then also help refugees and train them to become teachers in the schools. The mothers cook for the children in the schools. I went back to Chad with iACT. But I didn’t go to the same camp that I came from. I went to other camps. I volunteered with them for three weeks. It was the best. That’s everything that I wanted to do because I know where these people are coming from. I have the same background and we have been through everything. So I understand them very well. When I was there, I just kept remembering all those years that I spent in refugee camps. All my memories are from refugee camps.

Last year I volunteered with iACT again. For the second time, my grandparents were under attack. I had to do something. In the beginning of June, I took my vacation hours from work to go help. I went to Chad to try to do whatever I could to bring my family out of Sudan. It was very, very difficult, but I was successful. So they are safe.

Then I went back to the refugee camp that I came from because there’s also a huge number of new refugees there. This was a big deal for me and for the people there. I provided them with some soccer balls and stuff. It was the best feeling ever, especially to go work on the same street that we used to live and make people smile and just go into my bedroom in the camp. I was even able to visit those who gave us a farm there. It was amazing.

It was a crazy time.

Right now, I am enrolled in Rockhurst University. I am graduating next May with my bachelor’s. I’m doing Peace and International Studies and also my minor is in nonprofit leadership.

We came here nine years ago, not knowing any English, not knowing anybody. We were just blind. We thought, We are going to America. We’re going to this place. We’re going to call it home. But it will not be home if the people of America are not very welcoming and not very understanding and very kind. This all comes together. That’s what made us who we are today.