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Student Recalls Terror of War in Sudan
by Bethany Leatherwood
David enjoys his classes here at Mars Hill College
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In the darkness of night, a gunshot goes off, followed by a thousand more. He runs to the door, not knowing what to expect. "I see people running, and, scared for my life, I do the same."
He was only seven, but still he could tell that the war had finally come to his village. That was what it was like for David Thon, a student here at Mars Hill College, when life as he had known it was destroyed in his homeland of Sudan.
He started running toward others, not sure of where he was going, but knowing that if he didn't, the troops would kill him. In the small village of Jolong, which was in the Bor region in the southern part of Sudan, people were being attacked by government troops from the north of the country, just as had happened in other southern villages.
David didn't know what to do. For him and his family, this was the first time they had ever heard the sound of a gun, let alone so many.
He ran with others, trying to find any refuge that he could. After staying in a forest for a couple of days, the people knew that they had to get medicine and food or they would die. So they started walking, not knowing where they were going. Diseases such as measles, chicken pox, and diarrhea killed many, while others simply died of malnutrition.
Others died because of "the 'inner fear.' Sometimes it is like you say you are okay, but there is something inside that is troubling you," David says. Still, David kept walking.
He was lucky to have found a relative in the middle of all the fighting, but he couldn't find the rest of his family. All he had was an uncle, only in his teens, to help him through this tough time. "We didn't worry about building a place to sleep. We slept where we were, then got back up again…we were terrified by the war, by the enemies. None of us thought about other problems."
"The road was narrow, and people walked one behind the other," David recalls. They walked at night, to stay out of the sun, conserve water, and to keep from being seen from helicopters that would kill them if they saw.
"At night we could hear lions roaring, other animals making noise in the forest." David relied on his faith. " I think God was really with me. He did all to protect me."
David tried to stay strong during all of this process. "I was really small when I left my parents, and the only thing I worried about was how I can be reunited again with them…There were other boys like me. If I cry or say I don't want to walk anymore - why should I give up if they don't? So my friends inspired me to make it."
Agencies such as the Red Cross now estimate that as many as 25,000 Sudanese children were separated from their families and forced to flee from their villages at about this time in the late 1980's. Most of them were boys because in many villages the boys were out herding livestock when their villages were attacked. Some have called them The Lost Boys of the Sudan.
No one really knew where they were going. Many older boys had spears that they used to kill animals, while berries and leaves were their only other source of food.
Before this all started food wasn't a problem. David's father had kept cattle and goats, and also raised sorghum, maize, peas, and peanuts. Now, there was none of that. For about 30 days they walked, until they finally found refugee in Ethiopia. He lived there in a refugee camp until 1991, right on the border of Sudan.
Click to enlarge inset
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All too soon though, civil war broke out there too. They had to flee Ethiopia. Now there were rivers that they had to cross. "There were crocodiles. The enemy was right there, ready to kill us. People who didn't know how to swim drowned. Some got eaten by crocodiles. I knew how to swim."
Once back in Sudan, David and the others were again exposed to troops, so they soon started walking again. They crossed the border of Sudan and came to Kenya, where he stayed till 2001 when he got the chance to come to the states.
In his original village, most of the people were illiterate. "They know how to count dates, using a traditional way, but that doesn't get the exact day." This is why David doesn't know his true birthday.
In the refugee camp in Kenya, schools had been set up where he could learn English and get schooling. However, there, "once you finish high school, that's it," says David.
There were also a lot of missionaries. "They told me about America, and I used to listen to radios also…so I learned about America. I said well, maybe I can go to America and see if life will be different."
The process wasn't easy. He and the other refugees had to fill out applications and go to interviews. "Those who passed the interviews are the ones who are here," David said.
Those weren't the only obstacles that David had to overcome to reach America. Around the time he was supposed to leave in September 2001, terrorists attacked the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon. It became much harder for refugees to get into the U.S. David did, however, get a visa and was able to come to Charlotte right after the attacks.
To get to the U.S., he had to go to Nairobi. "Nairobi was a big city, big highways, a lot of traffic, a lot of people. It was different from Kakuma, the refugee camp where I lived. That prepared me to come to the US."
David enjoyed the flight to the US, while some of the other refugees were scared. "Some got to the U.S. without eating. The foods were very different. It was kind of hard getting used to it," David explains.
In the Charlotte airport, he and his friends tried to ask directions and discovered that language would be another barrier to overcome. Even though they had learned English at a school in the refugee camp, their accents were very different and hard for Americans to understand.
In Charlotte he got in touch with St. John's Baptist Church and stayed with friends that he had met.
"When I got here, I felt like I wanted to be part of this culture. You know what the American dream is- to get a car, to live in a better place, to have good clothes, and go to school. So I started thinking, I need all these things, and time is always a critical thing." So David started going to a community college and working at a warehouse driving a forklift.
Sixteen years had passed, and David had heard nothing from his parents or four sisters that he had left behind. He didn't know where they were or if they were alive. He had however, been keeping in touch by e-mail and letters with other relatives who were in Uganda. Those relatives finally managed to locate David's dad, who was alive and was back in Sudan with his family. David finally got in touch with his father in 2001 and got to talk to him on the phone. His dad was glad that he had gotten to the United States and said that the situation at home had improved.
David would like to one day teach in Sudan
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In the meantime, a couple he met at church, graduates of Mars Hill College, took an interest in David and told him about the college. They said that he could go there and see if he liked it. So he ended up coming here, thanks to the Bonner program and other scholarships that he received.
David wants to get his B.S degree here, and double major in mathematics and chemistry. Once he gets a degree, he would like to go to graduate school, but he realizes that money could be an issue. "If I don't get the money to go to graduate school, then I think that I'll go back to Sudan." David believes that he would be able to get a teaching job back in Sudan, which he would like to do.
David does believe that it's getting better over there, and he has his own philosophy of what happened in his country. "They have been fighting for all these years, from 1983 to 2003. So they are tired of war right now, and they are now negotiating for peace. They are talking, because I think they now believe that war will not be a final solution to the problem. So they might come up with some kind of settlement or agreement. So eventually there will be peace. So now, because they are negotiating, they have signed a cease-fire.
" So there is no war going on right now in the southern part of the country. Still, another war broke out in the western part of the country, because --- we have all this small portion of people in the northern part of the country who are controlling the resources, the power, and everything. So a lot of this region of the country felt neglected. The western part of Sudan is really dry. The southern part of the country where I'm from, it's wet. They keep a lot of livestock and do agriculture, do some kind of farming. All these resources are not benefiting the people in any way. So that's why people felt really bitter and said, we need to do something about this. That's why the war broke out."
Click for David Thon's reflections on service learning
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