When William Mayom walks across the stage at Old Dominion University's Ted Constant Convocation Center to get his diploma on May 9, he'll be completing a long and difficult journey and feeling particularly grateful that the ending has turned out to be happy.A little more than two decades ago, he was a 6-year-old playing in his Dinka village in southern Sudan when a raiding party arrived bent on destruction. His father and most of his siblings were killed, but William ran into the bush and joined up with thousands of fleeing youths who became known as the Lost Boys of Sudan.
First, the Lost Boys trekked to Ethiopia, a journey of 200 miles during which many died of hunger, wild animal attacks or continued fighting in Sudan's civil war. Not long afterward, they were ejected from a refugee camp in Ethiopia and had to trek again across hundreds more miles of very inhospitable terrain into Kenya. It still makes Mayom shudder to think of trying to survive as a 6- and 7-year-old. At that time, he thought he was the only member of his family to have survived the fighting in Sudan.
Flash forward to 2001, and Mayom is one of approximately 3,000 Lost Boys who qualifies to come to the United States. He is among 42 who are settled in Hampton Roads by sponsoring organizations. And by 2003, he is among a half-dozen who are studying at ODU.
At commencement this year, Mayom and another Lost Boy, John Mator Lueth, will be the first of their group to get bachelor's degrees from ODU. Mayom's is in economics and Lueth's is in finance. (Lueth is at left with Mayom in the photo.)
Five other Lost Boys are ODU students: Dau Lual in engineering, Deng Awuou in finance, Chol Maker Thiong in economics, Bul Thuc Dut in management and Angelo Maker in political science.
It is Mayom who has become the face of the Lost Boys at ODU because of media articles and a fundraising campaign organized on his behalf in 2006 by the campus's Cante rbury Center. A story in 2005 in Old Dominion University alumni magazine had told how Mayom was informed by the Red Cross just before he left Kenya for the United States that his mother and a brother were alive. He talked with her by phone, but could not travel to see her.
The fundraising campaign, aided by an article written by The Virginian-Pilot columnist Kerry Dougherty and by the volunteer efforts of Alicia Herr, senior laboratory specialist for the ODU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, raised several thousand dollars to pay for Mayom to travel to a refugee camp in Kenya during the summer of 2006 to be reunited after two decades with his mother, brother and other members of his extended family. Part of the money was used to buy gifts, clothing and other essentials for inhabitants of the refugee camp.
The Rev. David LaSalle of the Episcopalian Canterbury Center has coordinated support for Mayom and other Lost Boys.
During his summer visit to Kenya, Mayom was married, and after he returned to Norfolk, his wife, Mary Kuel Ajok, gave birth to their son, Deng Kuol Mayom. After Mayom became a U.S. citizen in 2007, his wife was able to get a visa that will allow her to join him in this country. Now she is working to get immigration papers approved for young Deng.
"I wish my wife and son could be here to see me graduate," Mayom said. "But it looks like it will be the summer before they arrive." He said he is very eager t o see his son. "So far I have only seen pictures of him, and he is already 2 years old."
Mayom earned his degree with the help of an ODU Presidential Global Scholarship and other financial support from the Lincoln Lane Foundation in Norfolk and the Ridley Foundation of the Episcopal Church Diocese of Southern Virginia. He also has worked steadily in food services at a hospital and a retirement facility, as a tutor of schoolchildren and as a student worker in the chemistry department on campus.
He said he plans to get a full-time job after graduation in order to get his family settled in America, but that he hopes after a year or two to be able to enter the Eastern Virginia Medical School master's program for physician assistants. Eventually he wants to return to his homeland as a medical professional.
"I started my primary school under a tree as a child," Mayom said. "We shared pencils and books. Fifteen pupils shared a book. Three people cut one pencil into three. We used stones as our chairs. When there was rain or wind, the school was closed. I never dreamed of being in a good school like ODU, but it has happened. I look back and see how far I have come. Thanks to the United States of America. Thanks to the American people."
There will be a reception in honor of Mayom and Lueth at 5:30 p.m. on commencement day in the Canterbury Center on 49th Street. "I hope all of our friends and the people who have supported us c an come," Mayom said.
0 comments:
Post a Comment