6 Katherine Dircks

Narrative Summary

Dukan Diew

Running from your own home, wondering if your family members are still alive, escaping by the skin of your teeth.. These are situations that for some of us, only exist in our nightmares. Unfortunately for Dukan Diew, this was her reality. She had to run from this life and come to America in order to save her own and her family’s lives. Her upbringing was incredibly different than what we experience in the United States. In South Sudan, her family faced violence unlike anywhere in the states, a culture that is rarely practiced, and the fear of losing family members every day. Coming to the states helped their family reach peace and safety, and Dukan will be forever grateful for the life she lives with her family now.

Before Dukan came to the states, her home was never developed or very stable. There was not any structure or instructions of anything in the country where they lived. She said that back then before the war, it was peaceful. However, looking back now, it was not even a home but more like a jungle. They did not have electricity or running water, and she described it like a movie. She had a very large family. In Sudan, a man can have as many wives as he wants as long as he can afford to pay their dowry’s. Her father was important in their village, and he had four different wives. He and a lot of her siblings were killed in the war, and she said there is only about ten members of their family left. They do not have birth control in Sudan, so they can have as many children as they would like. She was the oldest out of those who moved here, although she did not specify how many there were in total.

Dukan came to the United States in 1994, at the age of sixteen. She initially came to Des Moines, after fleeing the country in 1987 during the Civil War that was happening in Sudan. The country was fighting with itself over their opposite religious beliefs. South Sudanese people were pretty much all Christians, yet Dukan explained that since North Sudan had most of the power and they wanted to convert everybody to be Muslim. The war was going on for twenty-two years, until a peace agreement in 2005. In 2011, the country split and became North and South Sudan. Dukan grew up in a refugee camp, as she left Sudan in 1987 at nine years old and was not resettled until 1994, at sixteen. She first went to Ethiopia, and then Kenya on her journey to the states. She was in refugee camps in both countries. They had to leave initially because their entire home and village were burnt down and they needed to literally run for their lives. They were running for days and nights until they could find some safety. Her family was unable to take any of their belongings with them, as they had to flee so quickly without any preparation. Her pictures and memories are what she misses and regrets leaving the most, but as they were running they could not carry anything that was unnecessary.

As a child, she said the camps were not an easy life but since she was so young, she was unable to recognize a lot of what happened. Being so young, she typically just ran around and played with the other children, went to school, and lived as normally as possible. The school was not very structured, it was just what they could find, but still it gave them some sort of routine. The UNHCR provided everything for them in the refugee village, including food, water, supplies, etc. She travelled with her mom, sister, brother, and cousin to Des Moines, although she had family come to Nebraska, Tennessee, and other states as well. Dukan is still in contact with many people from the refugee camps. She described the camps as separated into different cultures, so she stayed mostly with people who were also from South Sudan. Many of them came to Des Moines as well, she said about 60%, and they all remain in some contact today. They were sponsored together by Lutheran Social Services, and eventually went on their own ways and moved to different states. They each had a host family, and when asked about what was the most helpful she had nothing bad to say. They helped them find schools for the kids, taught them how to assimilate into the country, and even went as far as to help them learn everything they need and would want in order to live here.

Until they were in the States and seeing how we live, she did not realize that what they were experiencing was abnormal. She spent eight years trying to move through the countries. They lived in Ethiopia for six years, until moving to Kenya. As the time went by, they lived in a city and were able to attend regular classrooms and live a more normal life at the time. They left Ethiopia due to the war there and traveled to Kenya, which meant they had to cross the border and needed some sort of documentation, such as a passport or something. Unfortunately, since their village was burned down, they did not have the proper paperwork, or any for that matter. Since they were refugees, a lot of people had to cross through the jungle and sneak to Kenya. Her family was luckily able to cross the proper way, and they stayed with a host family for about two years until they were able to travel the rest of the way to Des Moines.

Traveling to America was not Dukan’s first airplane ride, yet it was the longest one she had ever taken. When I asked about the process of coming to America, she said it is not like just travelling somewhere you want. They did not have money and had to go through a lot of approvals and a long process to come. They did different interviews about why they wanted to leave, where the rest of their family was, and then they had to come back later and repeat the same answers. If their answers were not the same as before, they would have failed the interview. Once they came, they were given a few classes and some background in about America and what to expect. She described it as her family basically having to be reborn and start completely over. They were also tested for diseases such as HIV, because due to the time period they were no treatment and they were unable to be approved to travel.

In Dukan’s child imagination, this country was a golden land. She was not expecting to have so much barren farm land. She said that she expected to walk up to a machine, tell it what you wanted, and it would put out the exact food she wanted. Dukan said that coming to New York, she realized how much longer people live and how much healthier they were. When she left she knew she would be safe, although she was nervous about having to restart her entire life. Everything she knew was going to change, and it was like becoming a child as an adult again. The first thing she did when she arrived was take ESL classes, because she was not fluent enough to take the normal ninth grade classes. When she got a job, she worked with South Sudanese women to become resettled and find jobs, interviews, schools for their children, etc, for about four years until that business was closed. She then moved on to work in a domestic abuse shelter.

Dukan has travelled back to South Sudan three times. The first trip was very emotional, because when she was young her family members mostly had passed on. Aunts, uncles, everyone she used to know. Now, she was not recognized by anyone. They have all passed from war and disease. She used to know everyone, and now felt like a stranger. The village that she lived in was in a river bend, and her favorite memories from being a child were after sunset when they would all go outside and just play all day long. They would play in the river and outside the whole time. They considered everyone family there, whether they were blood or not. She cherishes that memory even today. Now, she has eight children with her husband and describes herself as a “busy woman,” which is an understatement. She took four of her kids with her to Sudan on the most recent trip she took.

Dukan described the United States as the land of opportunity, because of everything she was able to accomplish after moving. She is grateful for the clean water, electricity, and all the luxuries that were unavailable in her home country. Her passion lies within helping those back home, because they are living as she described the “Jesus way”, with no water, telephone, electricity, etc. She said “I do not have a lot of things, but compared to them, I count my blessings”. Dukan works to raise awareness for her previous home, and she wants to start an orphanage back where she grew up. She works to help adults and children work through the trauma that they experience before they move. Dukan made very large strides in her life and has done impressive things, coming from such a hard background and after suffering the losses that she did.

Personal Reflection

I really enjoyed talking with Dukan Diew and learning about her story of coming to the United States. She experienced things that I have only ever heard of, and it was really interesting to hear her story first hand. She travelled here at a very young age and was able to overcome very scary obstacles. Now, she lives here with her very large family of ten and is able to safely live her life. She has assimilated a lot to our culture and is now working to help others to do the same, with an emphasis on women and children and the rights we all deserve.

Unfortunately, instead of meeting in person like we had previously planned, we had to talk over Facetime. The snow that day was too dangerous and scary for us to attempt to meet in, and it was just easier for us to talk over the phone in order to stay safe on both sides. I was going to meet her, and she did not live very close, so I appreciated her idea to meet electronically as well. Sadly, this caused a few difficulties with staying on topic as her many children were needing her help and attention, understandably. We were talking as she drove at one point and that made it rather difficult to stay on topic. It did cause me to lose track of what I was asking a couple times, which was a little distracting on my side of the conversation, but other than those few hiccups Dukan was intriguing to listen to and I wish we would have had more time to converse.

One fact that she shared with me which I thought was very interesting and different from our culture over here, was the size of her family back home. She did not tell me in total how many siblings she has, but she mentioned between her mom and dad specifically she had about 10 brothers and sisters. I say between her mom and dad because her dad had more than one wife. In South Sudan while she was growing up, this symbolized wealth and money. A man was allowed to have as many wives as he wanted, as long as he could afford to pay the dowry’s. Her father was able to support multiple families and a lot of children, and this is very impressive where she was raised. Many of her siblings were killed in the war and she only traveled to the states with a few of her sisters and one brother. Also, in their village, they considered everyone to be family. It did not matter who you were blood related to, but who you loved and cared for, which was everybody.

Another interesting thing that she shared with me, was her expectations of coming to America. She pictured it as this golden country, where food literally just popped out of a machine whenever you wanted it. I think this is how they pictured McDonald’s being, which was very funny to hear her say. She was virtually unafraid, except for the differences in culture that she knew she was about to experience, and I think that is very impressive. Moving to an entirely new country is a very scary situation, but coming from the experiences that she had, it was the only option. She was in refugee camps for eight years and was still able to come and thrive in this new country. She did her learning in the camps at the makeshift schools the UNHCR created for them. Dukan did not speak English very well and learned everything as a ninth grader when she finally arrived in the states. Still, she has overcome those obstacles and created a life for herself that she can be happy and safe in.

One of the most heart wrenching things Dukan shared with me, were the losses that they experienced. Most of her family was killed in the war or by disease in South Sudan, and her entire village was burnt to the ground. They have rebuilt what they could, but that is still not much in a country with as minimal resources as they have. She lost all of her childhood belongings, which she described as very different than American belongings, but it is still a major loss. Their pictures and memories were all destroyed, as they had to run on foot to reach safety. Imagining the terror which they must have felt was a new thought for me. Most stories you hear about a war or people fleeing danger, however entire villages being burnt down is not very common, let alone talked about. She was unable to bring a single object with her, and that had to be very hard for their family. It takes a very strong person to survive those experiences, and it is very impressive that Dukan’s mother was able to bring her family to safety the way she did

I truly enjoyed hearing about Dukan’s story of travelling to the United States. The day she spoke to our class, I was unable to attend, and I feel that this only helped me to talk to her. I was able to ask a lot of questions and she gave me great detail about her experience. She came from somewhere without electricity, running water, basic necessities and was able to create a life for herself from virtually nothing. That is very impressive, and even now she has dedicated her life to helping others make the same transition that she did, as well as those with problems within the states. I very much appreciate Dukan taking the time to share her story with me.