The following is part three of a three-part series. See part one here and part two here.
The ravished lands of Rwanda, with vengeance in the air and poverty more prevalent than ever, were no safe haven for three children who lost everything. Their lifestyle, their family, and even those sunny evenings kicking around plastic bag balls were faint memories.
The three Rwandan refugees, Simon Mudahogora, his cousin and his sister, were adopted by Elizabeth and Albert Globus. The Globus family lived in Sacremento and had already raised six successful kids into adulthood. With Elizabeth being a counselor and Albert being a psychiatrist, they had a great foundation for the three new additions.
The new move meant starting back at square one: new language, new life — pretty much a whole new world.
In Rwanda, Simon walked six miles a day in pursuit of water and took cold showers, so he was euphoric when he turned on that water and felt the comfort of a hot shower: “It was the coolest thing ever … like a dream come true.”
Simon began to be home-schooled as soon as he arrived in America, and though his parents could not communicate with him, his aunt served as a translator when they couldn’t understand one another.
He remembers watching cartoons and reading baby books to learn new words. He was basically in first grade all over again: “It was frustrating.”
Starting regular school as a seventh grader, Simon had no communication skills, no familiarity with our way of schooling, and felt isolated from society.
His only friend in school was a French exchange student who didn’t know English either. Simon had learned some French because Rwandan children were forced to learn in French from fourth grade on.
“I was just so different,” said Simon, “I just wanted to be normal.”
He sat in the back row, quiet as a mouse, not understanding any of the gibberish the teacher was speaking. But while he struggled in the classroom, the Globus family back home continued to do everything they could to teach him English and introduce him to American culture.
They were a well-educated family who produced very educated people; they motivated Simon to succeed and to be a role model for his younger siblings.
There was still no crying, even though he was homesick and flustered by his inability to express his emotions.
By eighth grade, he finally began to come around: learning to speak “baby sentences,” adapting to the culture, and even playing soccer — with a real ball. It took him a while to accept that he didn’t have to blast the ball as hard as he could every time he touched it. (As you can imagine, the physics behind a wad of plastic bags banded together, and a real, rubber ball, are significantly different.)
Simon couldn’t tell you the exact moment he realized was fully capable of speaking English, but he knows that it was sometime in high school.
That was where Simon flourished, developing some good friends, playing soccer and golf for the school, and even picking up a couple girlfriends along the way.
Cruising down the street in a beat-up black ’89 Pontiac Firebird, on a paper route lobbing newspapers out of both windows, Simon quickly recognized the value of hard work: “I was in love with money.” He worked an assortment of jobs throughout high school, from construction to caddying.
He graduated in the class of 2003 with a GPA at or near a 3.0. Both of his younger siblings followed his lead and graduated, as well.
It was what his mother would’ve wanted.
After high school, Simon did a some bouncing around between community colleges in Rocklin, Calif., and Coos Bay, before deciding to finish up school at the University of Oregon. Now in his last term, he is preparing to walk with a bachelor’s degree in economics and a minor in math.
Simon has spent about 14 years in America, but he still thinks about home — the simple life, the walks to the river, the lush jungles that served as a hiding spot in murderous times, and the comfort of sleeping in a village full of family members.
“I still love the country,” Simon said. “I haven’t erased the thought of going back.”
Since he has been in the U.S., Simon has been a member of the Friends Of Rwanda Association, a group that puts on dances, barbecues and silent auctions to send money to orphanages in Rwanda.
“We’re helping kids going through the same struggles that I did in ’94,” Simon said.
Sadly, this tragic story is not an uncommon event on the defeated soils of Africa. There, new Simons are born everyday, bravely fighting their way to safety in the face of great peril.
Usually, they never escape the death grips of the war zones they inhabit — they die forgotten and never acknowledged.
As you read this in the comfort of the EMU, the campus library, or in your old, tattered-yet-comfortable computer chair (as I often do), I challenge you to really take some time and appreciate what you have.
Because for people like Simon, it’s much more than a recycled quote: “It’s not just a saying to me anymore — I lived it.”
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