No Wings to Fly

I m born from Dinka tribes where Polygamy is predominantly pride of cultural values in Southern Sudan, Eastern Africa. My mother is the last of the eleven wives of my father and Im the last-born of the fifty siblings. I am not exactly sure of my birth date, because of no written records from my parents. However, based on the date that was given to me by the United Nation, I was born in 1984 and grew up in a traditional cattle- herding from Pakeer, Ciir in Jongeli State. In the late 1980s, I was only four years old child amongst the fifty siblings living an incredible life of illiteracy. The nomadic cattle life valves a lot more than education. So, education was not something I ever dream of. My peers and I played different games that dont exist in the western countries when we were at our sweet village where there was no electricity or clean waters. Those games such as Gugura, molding cows from clay and the Dinka games of kids playing marrying your wife and built toggles and slept in it while looking after calves was the best game we enjoyed the most as kids. We were very much happy like the rest of the kids before the Sudanese government troops began bombarded our village from the sky with helicopters, and Russians made airstrikes-antinovels in Arabic. In 1987 when Civil war reaches its climax and Sudanese government keeps sending troops South and burned down our villages to ashes and obliterated the entire villages; I fled into the bush with my brothers and cousins when we were looking after cattle to escape the bullets and not to be captured and made slaves. The chaos and violence that happened forced me to fled into the bush when bullets were whizzing in the air and burning smoke at nearby village rise up high into the sky. This led to uprooting and drifting through horrendous lives I never imagined. My first nights ever in the bush were horrible, which led to unknown journey of which none of my great grand parents or parents ever, had been before. We then became orphaned and began to walked thousands miles on foot to Ethiopia, guided by army rebels known as Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) not to be killed or kidnapped by Murle militiamen on the way. On our way, I witnessed the deaths of cousins, friends and colleagues. Besides, I witness the born and sculpture of humans remains on the way that I had never seen before. During the journey, I starved to death and got thirsty to the point were I drank my own urines to quenched my thirsty for the survival. Through my entire time, I had lived in refugees camps for fourteen years before coming to America. I passed through hunger, violence, and fatigues and became malnourish child living on one cup of maize and one cup of beans of which to last for six days. The violence and suffering I went through had left very many people dead from Sudan to Ethiopian and then Sudan to Kenya, but not sure of what kept me a live. I am very happy that with God grace, I am who I am today In April 3, 2001, I came to Rochester, New York and later joined by my close friend Peter Agok. I had lived in Rochester for the past ten years. On my arrival to the United States, I had often faced with cultural shocks and shaken by F and B words, an Americans favor expressions while adapting to Americans life, both at work and school. I had been chasing Americans dreams and the dreams are too far yet to be reach. During the course of stays at U.S.A, I went to high school for a year before enrolled at Community College to improved my English. After two years at Community College, I transferred to University of Rochester and graduated in May, 2oo7, with major in Biology and minor in Chemistry. I work at Xerox, Webster, New York and looking forward to go back to school and pursuit field in medicine specially Pharmacy to return back to Sudan to alleviate the suffering my people are experiencing.