Finding Home
By Jenni Blackwell

Jenni Blackwell recently graduated, with honors, from Daemen College with a B.A. in Political Science.  In  August she will be moving to North Carolina to pursue her master’s degree in political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  In January, 2010, she will be moving to England to continue her studies at the University of Bath.  Jenni writes: “In the spring semester of 2007, I had the extraordinary experience of studying abroad in the country of Botswana through the CIEL Student Exchange program.  Both of these submissions to the CIEL online journal were written while abroad and are inspired by a few of the many experiences I had while living in Africa.”

On my fourth day at Dukwi Refugee Camp I met a little girl.  She is a 9 year-old beautiful little girl from the country of Sudan.  The following is an account of her status as a refugee and her journey to Botswana in narrative form:

             Growing up in the desert of western Sudan was the most wonderfully memorable time in my childhood.  My name is ‘Memory’. I am nine years old, and I am a refugee.
            My mother is the bravest woman I have ever known.  As a child, the security of her arms and warmth of her hands always brought me comfort and a sense of blissful ease.  She knew everyone in my small village and always cared for the needs and wants of our neighbours.  There weren’t many children in my small village because of the sickness but my mother always filled my desire for fun and games.  My father was murdered 2 years ago and has since been labelled a martyr from the other villagers.  My mother loved him dearly and proudly shares with me memories of their lives together
            Despite the surrounding turmoil in my country, I was always free to run and play around my home.  One night, without warning, my life in the Sudan and the innocence of my childhood was stolen from me at gunpoint.  My mother woke me up in a panic and I could hear the sounds of screaming outside our small home.  The night was illuminated with fire from the burning homes as men on horseback terrorized and destroyed my village.  At one point my mother grabbed my hand and told me to run.  With her hand in mine we ran west as fast as we could.  The men on horseback began to follow us and we ran faster and faster.  Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in the backs of my legs and I fell to the ground paralyzed by the pain.  My mother quickly picked me up and continued to run; I woke up in a tent in the country of Chad.  Somehow we had escaped and I was in a hospital with my mother sitting beside my hospital bed in tears.  When I asked her what happened she told me that I almost died and in order to save my life the doctor had to remove both my legs below the knee.  I tried to wiggle my toes but I couldn’t.
            The country of Chad was filled with my fellow villagers; almost 200,000 Sudanese in all had fled their homes to seek refuge.  But with so many people in the camp there wasn’t enough food for us to eat or tents for us to live in.  My mother and I were granted refugee status and we left the country of Chad and headed south.  My legs were still sore and I spent the majority of our journey in my mother’s arms.  We travelled for weeks and I soon began to loose faith that we would ever have a place to live.  Along the way my mother taught me how to walk again, she refused to let me be a crippled person and demanded that I learn to help myself.  After weeks of travelling, we finally came to a long dirt road and my mother told me we had arrived.  She told me Botswana was the safest country in Africa and that Dukwi Refugee Camp was our new home.
            My mom and I have been living in Dukwi Refugee Camp for 2 years now.  I like Dukwi because I go to school and play with other children.  Lots of children in the camp don’t have legs or arms.  We all play together because the other children won’t let us play with them.  When we arrived in Botswana my mother and I received a newly built home and although we don’t have electricity, and the water tastes bad, I like our home.  My mother is trying to build a garden in front of our home.  She went to the vocational school and learned to become a tailor, but there isn’t work to be found around the camp. 
            There are several people from Sudan living in the camp, although mother and I didn’t know them before we arrived here.  I don’t want to go back to Sudan but I think my mother does.  She speaks of home often and says that someday there will be peace and we will return to our village.  I don’t understand the hatred and killing that is taking place in my country.  I don’t understand what I did wrong to deserve to be  driven from my childhood and have my legs stolen from me.  The memories of the pain and the confusion I feel make me hate the idea of returning back to Sudan.  Botswana has become my home.  I love the safeness I feel here and I never want to leave the comforts of my home in Dukwi.

Two days before I left it was revealed to me that ‘Memory’s’ mother has HIV.  ‘Memory’ will most likely become an orphan within the next five years unless ARV therapy becomes available to refugees in Botswana. 

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