Throughout the One Book program period, interviews with members of Philadelphia's Sudanese community will appear in the City Paper’s Naked City section and on www.citypaper.net . All published stories will also be available on this blog.

The latest story in this 10-part series focuses on James Lual:

As young boy living in Ajueny—a Dinka village of 5,000 in southern Sudan—James Lual and other children would work together from nine to six each day, tending the goats and cows in cattle camps on the outskirts of the village. Isolated, Ajueny did not immediately receive news of the war in Sudan, and village elders were unable to explain the drastic changes that Lual would soon experience.

He watched while older boys left the village to fight the government. "I didn't know why my cousins were leaving. It wasn't until I saw a plane go and drop bombs that I knew what was happening." When government soldiers set fire to Lual's village, he was forced at gunpoint from his home.

Wearing a hand-me-down school uniform and a pair of bedroom slippers cut from rubber tires, Lual walked with a growing number of boys to Ethiopia, 500 miles away. On the emotionally painful and physically dangerous journey across the desert, the boys were plagued by starvation, thirst and wild animal attacks. Lual carried only a water container.

"It was so painful to carry above my head or by my side, but I couldn't throw it away," Lual says. After nearly three months of walking, Lual reached Pinyudo, the first of three refugee camps he'd call home over a period of 10 years. There was little food at the camp and the boys relied on fishing and foraging in the jungle for food. Six months later the United Nations became involved, providing food, clothing and shelter. They sent adults to help care for and teach the displaced children, now deemed "unaccompanied minors." (Lual's father had been killed; his mother was lost to him somewhere in southern Sudan.)

It was here that the importance of education took root for Lual. "Our first school was under the trees. We would sit on stones and use the dirt as notebooks. We learned our ABCs and 123s," he says. Each day, boys were recruited by the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). "I was so excited about the SPLA recruiting kids. I wanted to join the army. Either you could go and kill or be killed, or die in the camp. Because of my size, I was turned down," he says. Lual remained behind in Pinyudo for four years, continuing to learn, until another civil war broke out, this time in Ethiopia and the camp was no longer a safe place to stay.

In a struggle to survive, Lual and the other boys began another trek, this time across the flooded Gila River back to Sudan as shots were fired. "There was blood in the water. People would hold onto you until you were both dead. I was lucky that I learned to swim in Ethiopia," says Lual. When he arrived in Pachala, a camp on the border between Ethiopia and Sudan, it took time for the United Nations to find a way to provide sufficient aid.

"A cup of beans would be rationed for seven people and would have to last five days," Lual says. Soon the Sudanese government discovered Pachala, and boys were forced to dig holes in the ground to try to protect themselves from the bombing that ensued. Pachala was invaded by ground troops, and Lual was once again forced to move, walking along the border to Kenya.

"The 15-and-unders were taken on the UN convoy trucks. It was so crowded that people stood on top of each other, but I felt lucky to get a ride," Lual says.

Eventually he reached Kakuma, the final destination for most refugees — a hot, dry desert region with no river. The camp here was very crowded. The UN provided a water tank for the refugees three times a day. People woke up at four each morning to get in line. The Sudanese refugees were often attacked by local tribes who had too little food themselves.

Life became more permanent, and shelters and schools made of mud and thatch were erected. Kenyan teachers were hired and paid to teach the boys, though many were understandably more concerned with getting up early to stand in the water line and to obtain their daily food rations. Lual did not miss the opportunity for education. Living without his parents, "Education was the only opportunity for me. I didn't take it simple like the other boys who dropped out," he says.

In 1997, the United States developed a program to relocate the "unaccompanied minors." Immigrating to the United States was a dream still very far in the distance. He had learned not to get his hopes up over the long year of interviews with U.S. officials. Lual's perseverance paid off when he received a letter from the United Nations, offering him the opportunity to live to the United States.

In 2001, Lual arrived at JFK International Airport in New York City around 9 p.m. A short flight to Philadelphia delivered him to Janet, a member of Lutheran Children's Services (LCS) helping Sudanese refugees get settled. On his way to Quakertown, Lual went to his first McDonald's, and learned how to pronounce "water." At 20 years of age, Lual's life in the United States had just begun. Quakertown church members working with LCS volunteered their time to taking care of him and getting him prepared for the GED and then enrolled at Bucks County Community College.

Even as life changed dramatically for Lual, a "Lost Boy" far from his native land, education remained critical in shaping his future. Today, Lual is a Chestnut Hill College graduate with a degree in political science. For the past six years, he has lived with his "mother," Doris Brown, and recently with another helpful woman, Martha Fisher. Now 27, Lual works with Global Education Motivators as a public speaker at schools, libraries, and humanitarian organizations to tell his story and to make people aware of the suffering in Sudan and Darfur. He's in the process of applying to graduate school with hopes of someday working for the United Nations.

          - Monica Singh and Amy Brammell

Throughout the One Book program period, interviews with members of Philadelphia's Sudanese community will appear in the City Paper’s Naked City section and on www.citypaper.net . All published stories will also be available on this blog.

The latest story in this 10-part series focuses on Nyoun Yok Gargik:

My name is Nyoun Yok Gargik. My mother gave me my first name and I inherited my last name from my father. It is a strong name, strong because my mother gave it to me and because it refers to a building material composed of cement and grass that we use in Sudan. I do not know the year of my birth. One memory I have is of drinking milk directly from the cows at cattle camp with some other boys - a far cry from the Ph.D. I am now pursuing at Drexel University to become an Electrical Engineer.

I remember the day my mother came with a policeman to the cattle camp holding a telegram message from my father. My father had been in Kosti, north of Leir, working as a business man along the White Nile River, and now he wanted us to move there. I was too young to realize the telegram concerned the fighting. I became excited about the prospect of travel.

It was not until years later, after many nights staying up with my father listening to SPLA news reports, when I would come to know of Islamic government soldiers burning villages and bombing cattle camps in the south. Leir, my home region, became a battleground.

I was lucky. I never saw any rebels.

I moved to Rufah to attend boarding school in 1993. I remember a man at the school who spoke speculatively about Islam and often made religious jokes--something you did not do. Word spread. Islamists climbed the walls and cut the power so nobody could be seen. They broke into his room and slit his throat with a knife because he spoke badly about Islam. His blood was on the walls.

In 1996, I graduated from school in Rufah and gained admittance into Khartoum University, located in North Sudan. Although I was admitted, I could not begin my studies for another year and a half. There were no students. They all joined to fight for the government, burning crops,
bombing cattle camps and tearing down homes built of the material from which I'm named.

North Sudan is dominated by Islam. I am Christian. I am the minority. In Khartoum, I was the enemy.

After some time at the university I led a bible study group. I received threats often, but there were others that shared my faith, and I was not alone. We knew of the unwritten law to not "reach out" to Muslims, but we organized a "Bible exhibition" anyway so we could demonstrate our faith to others.

A few Egyptian men who were part of our group did not show up the day of the exhibition. They had seen the written warning from Islamists posted the day before, threatening violent demonstration. Even professors from the university signed it. We propped up our tent and laid bibles out
on tables. There were 15 of us, so when the 300 Islamic students showed up with sticks, throwing rocks and wielding knives, we ran for our lives.

Rocks flew into the tent striking peoples' heads. A group of men cornered a friend named Peter, which is the English equivalent of his Arabic name. Peter was light skinned, and did not look southern. They yelled at him, hitting him with sticks saying, "You are not from the South, why are you Christian?" Some protesters did not know what to do because he looked innocent, but Peter was trapped in a corner. A man knifed Peter's side. He fell to the ground. Blood stained the walls built of cement and grass.

All the bibles burned.

This happened on a Saturday. The next day, Sunday, students from Juba University--a southern Sudan School - stormed Khartoum, climbing over the fences. Juba brought many to chase the few Islamic students and faculty into nearby mosques, threatening to burn down the buildings with the people still inside. I heard people say these things, but I did not support this. I did not want to waste more human life. Luckily, nobody went through with it and the mosques remained.

I pursued legal action against the demonstrators. My lawyer was Arab and Muslim. Because I was a Christian, he did not do anything. The case never went anywhere. He even cussed me out when I questioned him about it. A few of the demonstrators were connected with Sudanese Security, an organization similar to the Secret Service in the United States. My case against them
made me a target, like the man killed at my school for talking badly about Islam. In Sudan, it is very common for people to be taken in the night. Many pastors of churches disappeared this way. My nights became sleepless. I feared for my life and knew I could not stay.

I applied for a U.S. student visa and was granted political asylum. I moved to Columbia, South Carolina to live with a Sudanese man I knew from childhood, From there I moved to Indianapolis, Indiana. I was not working and had little money. It was in Indianapolis where I learned of the "Lost Boy" community in Philadelphia. An American family in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, members of the New Life Presbyterian Church, took me in. I've been in Philadelphia ever since.

One day I will help in building a stronger Sudan. One whose boundaries do not reflect the composition of the North or the composition of the South but of one,composed Sudan.

-Brett Haymaker and Titus Codjoe

Throughout the One Book program period, interviews with members of Philadelphia's Sudanese community will appear in the City Paper’s Naked City section and on www.citypaper.net . All published stories will also be available on this blog.

The latest story in this 10-part series focuses on Fatima Haroun:

Fatima Haroun's delicate handshake reveals nothing of her tormented life back in Darfur. Today she is a social worker for the City of Philadelphia, a mother, and the vice president of the Darfur Alert Coalition , a nonprofit based in Philadelphia.

Darfur is under the rule of "dictators who discriminate," she says.

"Those who are not favored are marginalized," says Haroun. "People like me don't find many chances in our country for work and education."

Survival, however, was the primary reason for Haroun and her family to come to the United States.

"The government [of Darfur] is racist," she says, "killing the darker-skinned people first because there is hate and jealousy. Darfur is the second darkest region. They see the natural resources in these areas and want them, and use the Christian religion as a cover, saying they are killing them in a 'holy war.'"

The villages surrounding Nirtity, her birth village, were systematically destroyed.

"The people came and attacked the village and set fire to everything," she says. "Because of the noise, people came running, and they shot right at them. The elderly were burned, just like that," she says, flicking her hand.

"They wanted to kill boys because they wanted to make the tribes weaker. They would take valuables before burning the villages, and they took my father's mill and some corrugated metal and destroyed and hid them, because they wanted to destroy people economically."

Haroun does not see the situation in her homeland changing anytime soon, pointing out that the president of Sudan recently appointed a suspected Janjaweed leader as his new adviser. "Janjaweed" translates to "devils on horseback."

Haroun plans to get her master's degree in the U.S., most likely in social work, and then return to Sudan to pursue her dream of running for parliament.

"I will work for stability," she says, "and return when there is finally a peace that I agree with."

Haroun believes that the international community has not done enough to stop the atrocities in Darfur.

"They announce this is genocide, but still didn't take the right action," she says. Haroun believes that the U.S. government has proven reluctant to help because of a past relationship with Sudan involving Osama bin Laden. As a result, she says, only non-governmental organizations are sending relief.

She urges all Americans to contact their congressional representatives and to spread the word.

"People need to put more pressure on the government to help, because political help is a necessity," she says.

-Sarah Mason