Augustino Dut Kuol,Sudan in Salt Lake City, Utah
Photograph by John Schaefer

We were taken to the military by the government when we were 11 years old, at 14 you would go and fight.
If you were shot we would just leave you and ask you to please shoot as many of the enemy as you could while we run away.
Bullets were dropping like raindrops, then they try to cross the river and escape the shooting, whole families, and they drowned. People died in many ways.
I spent nine years in a refugee camp. Every day you were hungry and thirsty.
There was a school, but we couldn’t learn because we were hungry.
Coming to United States was not easy, you had to pass an interview, and if you didn’t remember what to say you couldn’t leave.
Some told us that America is like heaven, so you didn’t want to fail the interview.
So now I must make some money to pay my rent and food, then I save some to send back to them in Africa.
If I could go to my Mom now she could not understand me because I no longer speak my mother tongue.
Now I plan a schedule for myself. When I was in Africa I did not plan even three hours ahead because you know you could die anytime.
My dream is to go to school and learn so that I can go back and help my people in Sudan.
Now I must be a good ambassador for my country and also tell America about our problems.