William Kolong Pioth’s unlikely journey from East Africa to western Canada began in 1983, when his parents and elders of Sudan’s Dinka tribe decided that he had to be rescued from the civil war then ravaging parts of Africa’s largest nation. Not yet 10 years old, William and 300 other Dinka boys embarked on a long march to safety. It took them precisely two months and 24 days to walk 1,000 kilometers to a refugee camp in neighboring western Ethiopia.
Across the vast plains, similar armies of Sudanese ‘Lost Boys’ roamed the countryside, sometimes being recruited by the guerrillas as child soldiers and porters, and always searching for a place of safety. Their saga became one of the most famous stories in refugee history, a tragedy of huge proportions and at the same time a heroic tale of survival.
He was just 21 when he resettled to Canada, landing at the Vancouver airport in the summer of 1998. It was like entering a wondrous new world in some distant galaxy. Shopping was a totally alien concept that required immediate mastery. "I didn’t know where to start" he said as he recalled his bafflement when presented with a cash allowance to purchase foodstuff and basic necessities.
Having spent so much of his life in a refugee camp environment, William was used to having rations provided for him. Indeed, so daunting was the prospect of shopping, that at first William stayed mostly indoors. Once, after successfully transacting the purchase of a chicken, the next hurdle was how to cook it. The unfamiliar-looking electric stove did not promise results, so he and his Sudanese companions ventured out to the same corner store in an unsuccessful attempt to purchase charcoal.
When the settlement worker visited them the next day, William said "We’re doing okay -- apart from getting charcoal for cooking". Handling the telephone correctly took a couple of weeks, as did the TV remote control. William laughs when he relates how intimidated he was by the word power on the remote control. "I knew what the word meant because I could read, but it conveyed a scary sense like it could blow up!"
While resettlement agency staff helped William and another Sudanese refugee find permanent lodging, obtaining work was another matter. New arrivals often complain of the ‘Canadian Experience’ conundrum: you need experience to get a job – and you need a job to get experience. William set to work stocking supermarket shelves to get the ‘Canadian Experience’, and today he is a handyman in the building maintenance section of a large shopping mall.
He insists that the most important aspect of his new life is the enduring sense of feeling protected. It is a sense of security that allows him to lead a normal life – to go to school, to have a job, to travel freely and to plan for the future. On this latter point, William marvels at the fact that at his company, he has a life insurance plan. "Canadians plan ahead" he exclaims. "In Africa you live day by day. I never knew anybody who had a life insurance plan back in Africa! But over here, I am 100 percent sure that I will be alive tomorrow – I am planning for things that are 25 years from now!" he enthused.
By Judith Kumin, and Nanda Na Champassak |
| Canada / Resettlement / William, who arrived from Sudan as teenager and has now been recognised as a refugee in Canada. / UNHCR / B. Dennehy / 2004 |
