A life on track at last

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, May 6, 2001

‘Lost Boy’ who fled war, massacres finds a better reason to run in Lynnwood

By Janice Podsada

Herald Writer

LYNNWOOD — A tin of corn was all it took to make Daniel Mayen run — across the desert, on jagged stones that poked out of the sand like thorns.

He ran wearing old shoes or animal skins tied around his feet like bandages.

The slim rations he received in the Kenyan camp gave him the strength to run 30 minutes in the 120-degree heat.

"When I got something to eat, I wanted to run," said Daniel, whose round face bears four ritual scars that identify him as member of the Dinka tribe of Sudan.

Daniel, some asked, why run, when you can rest and let the one meal of the day sweeten the skin upon your bones?

"Because I cannot sit still," he would answer.

When 16-year-old Daniel runs now, it is on the numbered, asphalt lanes at Lynnwood High School with a new pair of Nikes on his feet — a far cry from his life even six months ago living in a crowded, hungry refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya.

But Daniel is no track star brought from Kenya to race, and no Olympic gold medalist, unless there is a medal for survival, Lynnwood coach Ernie Goshorn said.

At 6 feet 2 inches tall, and only 124 pounds, Daniel is as thin as a javelin.

Goshorn must remind his long-distance runner to eat — in quantities that seem a king’s feast to Daniel — breakfast, lunch and dinner.

"He has to stoke up the engine first to get it going."

In the United Nations refugee camp where Daniel lived for eight years, he sometimes went five days without food.

In the camp, he was considered a strong runner. Daniel was the breeze that cooled the little children as he ran past.

"People liked that I ran, they’d say oh, hi, hi, hi. Little kids would follow you."

Running, he left the refugee camp far behind.

Daniel cannot keep up with his fellow runners in the states. Years of malnutrition have taken their toll on his body, Goshorn said.

But that hasn’t stopped him from competing.

Here, because he cannot be the wind, he is content to chase it.

Daniel arrived at the Lynnwood home of Don and Lynn Harding four months ago from a refugee camp in northern Kenya.

Daniel is a member of a group of children the world has dubbed the "The Lost Boys of Sudan," so-called because civil war has stranded more than 20,000 orphaned boys in crowded, hungry refugee camps in Kenya with no way to go home.

Until he was 3 years old, Sudan was home, but civil war forced him and thousands of other Dinkas to flee east to Ethiopia.

In the turmoil, Daniel was separated from his parents.

"You just scatter when they come to kill you," he said.

Daniel last saw his mother and father 13 years ago in 1987. He prays they are still alive.

In 1991, a new Ethiopian government expelled the refugees and then proceeded to hunt them down. On the banks of the Gilo River, the Ethiopian army massacred more than 1,000 children as they slept. Six-year-old Daniel escaped.

"I grabbed hold of an older guy," he said.

Together they swam the river, dodging the bullets. Another 1,000 children drowned.

More than 60,000 refugees —among them the 20,000 orphaned children — crossed back into Sudan, where civil war still raged, and then fled again, this time south to Kenya.

The yearlong journey took them on a trek across the Kenyan desert, where an estimated 3,000 people died of starvation and thirst.

"You go a whole day without water," Daniel said. "I dreamed about water."

Those who hear his story are reminded of another.

"Like the Israelites wandering in the desert," Goshorn said.

As the children come of age, they face a blank future. The Kenyans do not want them integrating into their society.

Boys who return to Sudan are conscripted into the army and forced to fight.

In 1997, U.S. refugee agencies began resettling them. Since then, more than 1,000 boys have been placed with foster families in the United States, said Chak Ng, director of Refugee Foster Care with Lutheran Social Services in Seattle.

Orphans who have lived in the camps longer than five years are eligible for the program, Ng said.

"And there must be no chance of them ever getting back with their parents."

Daniel, so to speak, was one of the lucky ones.

In the past four months, 31 boys have been settled by the agency in Pierce, King and Snohomish counties. Another 30 boys have been resettled by Catholic Community Services in Tacoma.

Two weeks ago, Daniel’s best friend, Chol Kuol, 17, arrived from the camp. The Hardings took him in. His first day there, Chol ate seven meals.

"I was never hungry in the camps. Here I am always hungry now," Chol said.

Since coming to live with his foster family four months ago, Daniel has gained 4 pounds.

Sometimes he stands in front of the refrigerator not knowing what to eat.

"I don’t know what food to eat. Is this good? Do I eat this? So I wait for someone to say, ‘Take this and eat that.’"

The Hardings are trying to give the two teen-agers a home.

"They are really nice people," Daniel said. "They know how to take care of children."

But they can’t provide everything. Both boys need dental work. When a boy reaches manhood in the Dinka tribe, five lower teeth are extracted to mark their coming of age.

"It affects their speech," Lynn Harding said.

At track practice, Daniel cheers on his teammates in near-perfect English.

"Good job man, you fast," he sings out to a slender, muscled boy who sails past him.

Running is his passion, but school is his first priority. Daniel is taking biology, math, horticulture and English as a second language classes.

With little to do in the camp, the children sought the privilege of attending school. Daniel sometimes sold his meager rations to afford the school’s fees, where he completed nine grades in eight years and learned English.

Daniel said he must study hard to become an engineer and make a good wage so he can send money back home.

He misses his friends and the only family he knows, his 20-year-old brother, Mabior, who chose to remain in the refugee camp even though he too was invited to come to the United States.

"We were supposed to come together," Daniel said. "But he said, ‘What if our parents come back?’ "

America is green. America has food. No one stands in line for a quart of water or to grind a cup of corn. America does not have nightmares — its dead laid out like a row of matchsticks.

"At school people ask me if I saw a dead body in the war," Daniel said. "I saw thousands of them."

Now when he looks out his window, he sees the Hardings’ red mare grazing on the hillside and swallows nesting in the barn.

After four months, Daniel has begun to feel at ease. But it’s a sense of ease leavened with sadness.

Daniel no longer worries about food or water, or that chickenpox will sweep through the camp, claiming this friend or that cousin.

He has found time to reflect.

"Sometimes I can think about my mother and my father."

You can call Herald Writer Janice Podsada at 425-339-3029 or send e-mail to podsada@heraldnet.com.