22 Chelsea Schula

Salahaldin still recalls his home country fondly, even after he had to flee for his life. He was born in al-Fashir, the capital of the state of Darfur in northwest Sudan, in 1976 and he spent most of his life there. al-Fashir was where Salahaldin went to school, where he started playing soccer, and where he first got involved in human rights work as the secretary general of an “al-safa” organization. “al-safa” means fairness or serenity in arabic and Salahaldin says the organization did mostly volunteer work to help the community.

Salahaldin speaks very fondly of his hometown. “…Darfur is in my mind, in my heart,” he says, holding both hands to his chest as he speaks, “all my family is in Darfur, in al-Fashir.” He is eager to show me pictures from his life, friends and family he has left behind. The first is a portrait of his intermediate school soccer team. Perhaps fifteen boys stare up from the photo in bright green collared shirts that resemble bowling shirts more than American-style soccer jerseys. “We won!” Salahaldin says with a grin, “We were champions for intermediate school in al-Fashir.

Soccer teams and volunteer organizations would not seem out of place at an American high school, but Darfur had its fair share of hardship as well. Salahaldin outlined some of the problems that led to the 2003 conflict in Darfur. “The government, they don’t give us equality of opportunity for jobs. We don’t have clean water, we don’t have electricity, we don’t have roads, so there’s a lot of problems, no?” Here he paused to outline a discrepancy in the local distribution of resources. Darfur is not a poor state. They have plenty of resources including diamonds, gold, and livestock, but the Sudanese government had been siphoning resources away from Darfur to the capital in Khartoum leaving the people in Darfur without the money to build their state.

When armed conflict broke out in 2003 Salahaldin was still a student in highschool. In response to protests for a more equal distribution of resources and an end to government discrimination against non-Arab citizens of Sudan, the Sudanese government assembled the Janjaweed militia to “fight black people in Darfur.” This militia included members of the Sudanese military and police as well as members of local Arab tribes. Shortly afterwards the government began an aerial bombing campaign against Darfur. Salahaldin estimates that around a million people were displaced in the conflict with more than a hundred dead. “…and that,” he said, “is genocide. That is why the United Nations said that there was genocide in Darfur.”

Salahaldin knew he had to leave. His family belonged to an anti-government political party, of which he was a leader. He fled southwest from Sudan to the Central African Republic (CAR). He was taken from the border to the capital, Bangui, where his asylum claim was processed. After meeting “with the UNHCR and some people from the CAR’s dept of immigration” his claim was approved and he was given a document from the UNHCR to confirm his refugee status.

Salahaldin stayed in the CAR until 2008 when he was approved for resettlement. In the meantime he worked for NSR, an import/export company, as an accountant, and continued to live in Bangui. He also did some volunteer work for LCDH, a human rights organization based in the CAR and started a soccer team with other Sudanese refugees called the Sudanese Team. “I created that just because you get a lot of refugees from Sudan coming to Central Africa and they don’t have anything to do.”

Salahaldin considers himself very lucky to have been selected to go to the United States. “The United States really really gives refugees special attention when they come to the United States of America,” he said. Salahaldin was initially resettled to South Dakota where he was sponsored by Lutheran Social Services (LSS). “When I arrived at the airport I met with the LSS, who were waiting for me at the airport and took me from the airport to my apartment.” he says, “They had already set up an apartment with a bed, a couch, food. So the first night I just stayed at my home, I took a rest.” he pauses here to take a deep breath as though recalling just how badly he had needed that rest.

The next day was less restful. Salahaldin describes a whirlwind of paperwork that had to be completed as soon as possible. “The case worker came to my home and took me to an office where I had to sign some papers. Then he took me to the social security office to get my social security, then took me to human services to get food stamps, and I also had to get medicaid.” The assistance program for newly arrived refugees lasts 8 months, after which they are expected to find a job so they can support themselves.

Salahaldin found a job in laundry, but also found himself wanting to give back to the people that had helped him. “When I came here I said hey these are all nice people but I should do something for my country,” he says, touching his heart again, “so I worked as a volunteer for… LSS welcoming people to the United States.” He also planted flowers and painted the building, and all of his extra work got him a letter of recommendation to start at community college.

Salahaldin moved to Iowa City to begin his college education in 2012. He took his general education requirements at Kirkwood before transferring to the University of Iowa to pursue a degree in international studies and human rights. After he graduates he plans to run a non profit he founded in 2014 called the Arab African Organization for Peace and Development. The organization has started to help people transition to living in Iowa, and currently works in both the Sudanese community and other communities. “We hope to eventually work overseas,” says Salahaldin, “and have another program in Ukraine or Central Africa or Sudan or Chad because we have a lot of refugees there and they need help. We have not started yet but our plan is to help provide books or school materials. After I graduate I plan to focus on running this organization.”

 Personal Reflection

I was really anxious about this project from the outset. Coordinating interviews has always been my least favorite part of my journalistic studies, in large part because I dislike making phone calls. My journalism classes were also the hardest hit by my recent health problems, so my biggest hurdle in completing this project has actually been my own self doubt.

That said, I did find myself referring back to skills I learned in my journalism classes when it came to formulating questions and in preparing for and conducting the interview. It wasn’t the best interview I’ve ever done, but it wasn’t the worst either and there’s some comfort in that. I ended up with a lot more information than I thought I had, and Salahaldin was fairly easy to talk to which was calming.

However I would like to take this opportunity to note places I could improve, for the sake of my future self. First, I should have reserved a room at the library sooner to alleviate the stress of maybe not being able to find a space. Second, when I did reserve a room I should have done so for a much longer time frame. An hour was more than enough time to conduct most interviews for my previous journalism classes, but those interviews were very brief. Additionally, Salahaldin was running late that day by nearly forty minutes, and I ended up wishing I’d worked in about a thirty minute buffer between myself and the next person who wanted the room- especially when she walked in towards the end of my interview. If I’d had more time I would have liked to go back over my notes and tried to encourage a few more emotional stories. In the end I felt like I collected most of the facts of Salahaldin’s story, but I wish I’d had time to dig just that much deeper.

One thing that really stood out to me as I was listening to Salahaldin was his constant dedication to human rights no matter where he was. He led a human rights group while he was still a student in Sudan, and continued that work through his stay in the Central African Republic. When he was resettled to the United States he continued to work as a volunteer for the same resettlement agency that helped him and through that work was able to pursue an education in human rights which he plans to use to start his own human rights organization. It was nice to talk to someone with such a singular dedication to helping other people.

Talking with Salahaldin also made me reconsider some of my biases about the United States. I personally feel a lot of resentment towards our current economy and the way we treat minimum wage workers. Learning more about our resettlement program and finding out that most assistance ended with refugees acquiring a ‘survival job’ honestly made me really angry. There are a lot of places in the United States where a ‘survival job’ doesn’t actually enable you to survive. It almost feels like a trap– come to the United States you’ll be safe here as long as you don’t end up homeless first. But that wasn’t Salahaldin’s experience. He liked and made friends at his first job, and he’s managed to get himself back to school. He was just so genuinely grateful to be here at all, and I’m not sure how to reconcile that with my own feelings about my country at the moment.

There was one moment where Salahaldine described the Darfur crisis as a conflict where the government-backed Janjaweed militia was sent “to fight black people in Darfur.” In the work I did to prepare for the interview I had always seen the distinction made that this was a conflict between Arab and non-Arab or African people in Darfur, so it was interesting to hear Salahaldin use the word ‘black’ as a shorthand for that non-Arab ethnic group. I wonder if this is a common local term that was not picked up by international analysis of the events in Darfur or if it is a term Salahaldin started to use after living in the United States?

It was also amusing to note that, like our professor’s husband, Salahaldin spent a significant portion of his life playing soccer. Is it especially common for refugees living in proximity, either in a town or a refugee camp, to create sports teams? This commonality also makes me want to learn more about other sorts of social structures that refugees or otherwise displaced people might create as they adjust to a new situation.

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Now My Future Begins: Stories of Resettlement Copyright © by Fall19 Global Crises and Human Rights Class. All Rights Reserved.

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