.......donating the last few boxes of our Garage Sale leftovers and saw a woman with her two little kids. They looked like they could have very well come from Ethiopia or some such place as mentioned in the news article below (as she & her children were the darkest people of color I had seen in a very long time)......
Had me wondering if she, too, did not have to run away from such circumstances as stated in this news article below.....
8,000 miles away, the past still lingers
Posted by adn_jomalley Posted: June 24, 2009 - 9:30 pm
People hold prejudice in their hearts like a secret, Biringanine Bagalwa told me in his Midtown living room on Tuesday. You can’t see murderous intentions in their eyes or hear it in their voices, but don’t think they won’t arrive at your door late at night wanting to kill you. That is one thing he will never forget.
Bagalwa is part of small group of African refugees resettled in Anchorage by the American government. They come from Ethiopia and Sudan, Cameroon and Somalia, Liberia and Togo, Congo and Gambia. Many have lived for years in refugee camps. They have traveled 8,000 miles to start their lives over, but the people who work with them say the traumas of their pasts aren’t left behind.
Bagalwa’s story began in 2002 in the Congolese town of Bukavu, the day militiamen fired shots into his front door. The fighters were looking for his wife, he told me. She is Rwandan by heritage and he is Congolese. The country was being swept by genocide. Rwandans were being killed, and women were being raped and tortured.
When the men broke through his door, Bagalwa’s wife hid in the closet in the next room with their daughters. Bagalwa and his oldest son faced the militiamen. He told them no one was home, but they didn’t believe him. Bagalwa’s neighbors had told them his wife was inside, they said.
In Anchorage, he ran his fingers over a sunken spot on his head. He lifted his shirt and showed me a round scar on his back. He pointed to a puncture mark on his foot and searched for the English word to describe the weapon they used to attack him. A knife on the end of a gun. A bayonet.
As we talked, his wife was curled under a blanket on their couch. She was shy about her English, but I could tell she understood. Michelle Engebretsen, a Catholic Social Services volunteer, sat next to her. Engebretsen put a hand on her arm.
Bagalwa’s attack was brutal, he told me, but what happened to his wife was worse.
“They do many bad things to her,” he said.
Since last year, close to 150 refugees have come from Africa to Anchorage, resettled by the government because the threat of violence makes it impossible for them to return home. About 20 more are expected to arrive this year, according to Catholic Social Services. Many carry scars, both physical and psychological, from the days when their lives were upended in ethnic conflicts, when their family members were killed, when neighbors betrayed them, when they were forced to flee, leaving loved ones many have never seen again.
Engebretsen works with a family mentorship program, helping refugees adapt to life in Anchorage. Her family and Bagalwa’s have been sharing meals and holidays and soccer games since Bagalwa’s family arrived last year. Engebretsen and her husband decided to be part of the program because they wanted their children to gain perspective, she said.
“You can read about it in a book, but these are real people,” she said. “I want them to know these people and appreciate their lives, appreciate their suffering.”
Most of the families’ interactions are mundane. Engebretsen has taken them to doctor appointments and to the grocery store. The grocery was shocking because they were used to outdoor markets, Bagalwa told me. They had never seen so many things wrapped in plastic.
But sometimes the differences between them become more pronounced. Like when they celebrated Christmas together. Bagalwa and his family are Pentecostal.
“It was just sort of like, we don’t do that,” she said. “They had no income. There were no presents. There was nothing unusual or special.”
Michel Villon, another volunteer, has been working with Dede Osibande and Sarah Mbombo, a Congolese couple who live in Muldoon. Osibande is Rwandan by blood. He used to be a teacher in his country, but he fled the Congo after his parents were killed by militants, he told me with Villon translating from French. Their daughter, Cynthia Ngankoy, was born while they were on the run. Now she is 7.
When they arrived last year at their apartment in Muldoon furnished by a charity with secondhand couches and dishes, they were surprised and happy, Villon told me. Africans always say American people have everything, they said. They were sure it was true.
Villon taught them how to use the stove and shower, and how to lock their front door. He walked them to the bus stop, because for many months they didn’t have a car. Mbombo works as a housekeeper at the Marriott; Osiban is in job training. Ngankoy is taking summer English classes. Their past seemed mostly behind them, but then, on New Year’s, the sound of fireworks made them hide in their bedroom.
“They thought it was gunshots,” Villon told me. On Monday, Engebretsen was taking Bagalwa’s daughter to soccer practice. I watched her lace up her cleats in her bright orange jersey. Engebretsen told me that Bagalwa got a job as a custodian at the airport and the family has a new car.
“They are survivors and they are going to make it,” Engebretsen told me. I could see she was right. They would get used to Alaska’s long winters and bright summers, the snow and the indoor grocery stores. Their children would learn English and find friends in school.
But I wondered if any amount of time or distance could help Bagalwa trust his neighbors, and stop him from expecting killers from his past to show up at his front door.
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