African Insights Ezine – June 2005

This month’s newsletter is about a young Sudanese woman who escaped the violence of her country but was cut down too soon in a violent manner. She was one of the “unaccompanied minors,” that trekked across Sudan to Ethiopia and back and then on to Kenya. Years later she and her brothers were allowed into the USA through a special arrangement that took in  what was referred to by Life Magazine  as “the lost boys of Sudan.” With those lost boys, there were a few lost girls such as Roda Bec.

I used to work with some of these minors in a place called Natinga in South Sudan. I became very familiar with their stories and their plight. Recently it all came back when in the local newspaper printed the story of one those children and her tragic end…jon

Roda Bec – her journey ends too soon…

She was a woman who dared to dream in spite of all that was happening around her.  Roda Bec came into this world in a country that has not known much peace in the last 40 years or so.  She was born in Sudan, a country whose Arabic name means, “Land of the black people.”  Here African and Arab cultures touched each other, mingled and yet remained separate.

Roda was born in the midst of an ongoing conflict; her nation was torn by hatred and strife.  Her village was under the threat of constant attack from the Government Forces and their militia troops.  One had to keep an eye on the sky above for the sound of an Antonov plane that was about to drop bombs on the place that Roda and her brothers John and Jim called home.

It was during those times that many families in South Sudan were separated from one another.  Thousands of children, unaccompanied minors, mostly boys began their journey out of mayhem toward the seeming safety of refugee camps in Ethiopia thinking that it was only a few days journey, only to be walking in the wild of South Sudan, attacked by robbers, their meager things taken, sleeping with the voice (sound) of gunfire in the distance, and their own hunger pangs within. Many died on the way to the refugee camps of Ethiopia--alone without father and mother. 

Most likely, young Roda Bec, along with her three brothers embarked on a horrific journey.  Roda and her brothers proved to be survivors, driven by the hope for a better way of life--to live in peace -- to have food and shelter and be surrounded by love.

The United Nations Refugee camps meant food, water, shelter, relative peace, and even school for some children.  Things however changed in Ethiopia; the rule of Emperor Haile Selassie came to an end.  The new regime created a climate that was not hospitable to the refugees and the camps emptied.  The lost children of Sudan journeyed back into hell on earth--South Sudan--where things had not improved, war still raged, villages were still being raided, food was for the most part nonexistent.  

For the thousands that left Ethiopia to journey back into Sudan, the prospects were bleak--desert, rivers loaded with crocodiles, lions on the lookout for prey, bandits, soldiers of all kinds, bombs from above, and yet, against all odds, Roda and her brother made it safely through this maze of obstacles into Kenya where they found refuge in a United Nations Refugee Camp in Kakuma, Northern Kenya.  I have driven from Lokichoggio to Kakuma Refugee camp, through the desert of northern Kenya where camels abound, where scenery is bleak and it is simply and unbearably hot.

The refugee camp was filled with Sudanese, Ethiopians, and Somalis.  At this particular point in time,   86,000 people filled this camp in northern Kenya.  I actually had a delightful Ethiopian coffee treat in that camp, and yet as I walked along the paths, my heart was filled with pain looking into the tortured faces of the people I met during my stay at this refugee camp.

Roda and her brothers remained in this “oven on earth”, a place where hopelessness permeated the atmosphere. It was Roda that provided inspiration and together they hoped against hope and somehow, something truly wondrous happened and they were accepted as some of the “Lost Boys of Sudan” (including a few girls) and in 2000, found their way to the USA—the Seattle area in particular. It was also Roda who filled out all the forms that were needed for them to find asylum in the USA. 

Roda lived in Tukwila, Washington, just a few miles south of Seattle where she attended Foster High School, and from which she graduated with honors. She was a shining star in the Sudanese Community of about 350 located in the Seattle area.  

Finally, things were coming together in her young life.  A life that had seen much violence and destruction lived out on the edge of despair.  Now…upon graduation from high school, Roda had a bright future ahead of her.  She had qualified for a Bill and Melinda Gates Scholarship by winning a Washington State Achievers Scholarship and was just completing her first year at Western Washington University where her bright smile was readily noticed by students and faculty alike.  Roda wanted to be a teacher--to pass on what she had been learning; she wanted to impart the blessings she herself had been receiving.  She also was interested in working in international diplomacy, to sow peace instead of war, so that children would not grow up with the horrific images she had known from her childhood.

This young woman was a survivor, a luminary, who rose above her circumstances. She had left the violence and war of her mother country behind, but the shadows of her homeland followed her to her new adopted land.

Some people can adjust; some can leave things behind and embrace the new.  Roda Bec demonstrated that.  A man who had been a close friend, Kero Riiny Giir, was not able to do so.  He carried within his heart and mind the “demons” of war, violence, dominance, a lack of trust and grace, the desire to dominate and control.

Roda was learning to be true to herself--to become the woman that she had been created to be! Yet, tragically, her life was cut short by her ex-boyfriend Kero Riiny Giir, who stabbed her to death.  Afterwards he tried to kill himself by jumping off a freeway overpass, but survived and then told the police he had killed Roda.

Kero Riiny Giir killed Roda, according to him, not because she had broken up with him, but because she had been “unpolite” to him.  Kero was clueless, he grew up where force reigned, that is all he knew.  He was incapable of expressing himself in a rational way; and he senselessly took the life of a young woman who beaten all odds, except this one.  Kero robbed not only Roda by preventing her from living out her dreams of a better life in America…but himself as well. 

When I read of her account, my heart was grieved. I did not know Roda personally, though she stayed in a dormitory just three blocks from where I live.  I read her story in the newspaper and my heart was deeply grieved and touched beyond words.   I saw her smile, felt her heart’s yearning, along with the pain and shock experienced by the brothers and friends she left behind.

Sadly, Roda is no longer with us  in this world;  and yet she left an imprint on the hearts of people who may not have known her up close and personal, but who were  indelibly touched by her life story.   Roda represents the goodness and hope in all of us—the hope of becoming who were intended to be, empowering us to become, to be, to live life with a personal sense of fulfillment.

Thank you Roda for inspiring us to run this race called life with purpose.  May you rest in a peace that surpasses our comprehension.  Our prayers are with your family who are left behind…jon

In East Africa, one of the traditions is to be present with family who is left behind. There is often the passing of an envelope with something inside to help the family in a real manner. If you like to help Roda’s brothers John and Jima, you can make a donation to the “Southern Sudanese Community of Washington, 510 Second Avenue West, Seattle WA 98119 and designate it to “Roda Bec’s family”.  It will provide needed help to bring the family together to remember all that Roda was to them and still is.