When Lake Forest Park resident Craig Sternagel returned home from a 10-day visit to a village in Sudan, his traveling bag was very empty.
“I gave everything I had and I basically came back with an empty bag,” Sternagel said from his home on Jan. 8. A slideshow of the faces of the people, a lifestyle and a landscape very unlike the one he returned home to played out on his television screen.
The idea to travel to the village of Wangulei in Sudan was the next logical step for Sternagel, who together with his brother and friend Sharon Beals biked from Yorktown, Va. to Edmonds, Wash. in May 2007 to spread awareness and raise money for one Lost Boy named Thuch Malual-Deng, who was 2 years old when he and his 7-year-old brother walked 1,000 miles to a refugee camp in Ethiopia.
This time, Sternagel cashed in his frequent flyer miles and decided he would see firsthand where Lost Boys like Malual-Deng and so many others fled throughout nearly 30 years of genocide and war conditions.
Upon meeting his son and his son’s girlfriend in Nairobi, Kenya on Dec. 15, the trio traveled for two days along the only main, dirt road to the village.
“After running away for so many years, people are starting to come back now,” Sternagel said. “They’re just shocked by what they’re finding. Agriculture’s not working, there’s no irrigation, they don’t produce anything, it’s hotter than Hades there, the rainy season is so bad the area is largely underwater for four months. It’s unbelievable conditions.”
As an American, Sternagel and his travel companions were asked repeatedly to make speeches at gatherings, including one in a packed church on Christmas morning. As a founder of Bike4Sudan, Sternagel said he wanted to let people know he sought to help where he could.
“I basically said ‘we raised some awareness in the United States with the Lost Boys Association and would like to help where we can and that we admire their perserverance,’” he said.
Upon speaking with village elders, Sternagel learned many expected their relatives in the United States to send money or supplies. He tried to explain that life in America for Lost Boys isn’t easy, either.
“They’re all expecting Thuch or their Lost Boy relative to send them lots of money, so I also tried to give them awareness that Thuch is struggling in a similar situation and is under great pressure,” Sternagel said. “The first thing they asked us was ‘What did Thuch bring us?’ They’d say, ‘Doesn’t Thuch know I need shoes, a vehicle?’”
Before leaving on Dec. 29, Sternagel left behind used eye glasses, shoes, two water purification systems, solar ovens, duct tape, a box of toothbrushes, 60 solar flashlights and 15 bicycles for teachers who walked hours to and from single room schools.
While visiting the Pongborong Primary School built in March 2008, Sternagel was struck by the new building without any desks or supplies.
“Education is what they all want,” Sternagel said. “Even if we help build a school, then the challenge becomes how do we get these people supplies?”
Malual-Deng’s story of survival inspired Sternagel’s son, Colin, when they both attended Shorecrest High School. When he learned his father was planning a trip to visit Malual-Deng’s village, he was “definitely interested but a little scared, too.”
“Helping the people was the main reason I wanted to go,” Colin, 22, said. “Seeing how they live and they continue to live; they’re a very positive people.”
Back at home again and attending classes at Western University, Colin said the experience has caused him to reevaluate his own values.
“I’m a bit of a world traveler, so I knew a lot of what I was going to see,” he said. “But you reassess your values back home so you change. They are surviving off of minimal things and being happy.”
There is room for improvement but change is often constricted by tradition. Arranged marriages, the use of cows as currency and a lack of roads are several big differences and challenging aspects of life in Sudan, according to Sternagel.
“There are some cultural barriers that may get in the way of getting them any help any time soon,” Sternagel said. “But I’m trying to appeal to my village in Lake Forest Park to help Thuch’s village. If we adopt their village and make some improvement with just a little concentration, then we as a community can say we made an impression and we helped these people.”
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