God Grew Tired of Us Review by Alex Bell
Many aspects of John Bul Dau's memoir God Grew Tired of Us stood out to me as extremely poignant and meaningful. In an age where many people have an oversimplified view of Africa, full of stereotypes, it is important to read a book with so much detail, historical background, and driving narrative to give depth and insight into the diversity of cultures and experiences in African countries. John Bul Dau is a Dinka from Duk Payuel in southern Sudan whose village was attacked in 1987 as part of the violence between north and south Sudanese forces. He was thirteen years old. From 1987 to 1992, he traveled with roughly 20,000 other "Lost Boys" - children whose families have been lost or killed - across Sudan and into Kenya. The book chronicles the peaceful times in his village before the age of 13, the attack by the "djellabas" (Muslim soldiers from the north), his dangerous escape and arduous journey across Sudan, and his time in the Kenyan refugee camp before coming to America.
This book is a coming-of-age story in many extraordinary ways. It shows John mature into a leader and caretaker of the boys around him on the trip and in the camp, a diligent student who overcomes amazing odds to get an education, and a person of faith who explores his spiritual and religious beliefs throughout the book. He is put in charge of 1,200 boys at 13 years old and had many duties. He writes, "the magnitude and immediacy of death drove some of the boys insane. They refused to touch the dead bodies. They smeared their heads with excrement and then ran up to me to try to force me to smell them. I remember one boy crying out the name of his cow from his village. I tried to model good behavior for such boys, but it was hard. I took my turn at burial detail, and I led the gravediggers in singing hymns as we placed the bodies in the ground" (79-80). In addition to this, he tells of beginning first grade at 18 years old, passing the Kenyan Certificate of Primary Education exam, and then getting his high school diploma in 2000 at the age of 27. He then passed a highly competitive process to be approved for relocation in the U.S., and moved out of the refugee camp and into an apartment in Syracuse, NY. He worked minimum-wage jobs and attended Syracuse University, married, found his family (who had all survived that attack on their village in 1983), and set up the Sudanese Lost Boys Foundation of New York, the Sudanese Association of Central New York, and the nongovernmental organization American Care for Sudan Foundation. With the Foundation, he began fundraising for and developing a project to build a health clinic in his hometown of Duk County, among other things.
The book is great in that it shows his experiences growing up within the Dinka culture, his experiences surviving the violence in Sudan during the 1980s-2000s, his experiences as a refugee, and his experiences as an immigrant in America. Furthermore, all of these experiences are multi-layered. Of his time as a Lost Boy in Sudan and refugee in Kenya he writes both, "In our refugee camps...the necessity of burying so many children telescoped the ceremonies of mourning into a few moments of silent grief...I felt as if I had grown up too fast. Death had become all too familiar" (106), but also, "It's strange to say it about such a violent time, but I was happy. I had a daily routine of cooking, games, and building huts and trenches to keep my mind occupied. Corn and beans made a good dinner, and the UN planes also supplied us with fish-hooks...I discovered the constants and variables in the algebra of survival" (108-109). This book will really highlight the complexity of life to students, and expand their understanding of lifestyles and experiences very different from their own.
One aspect that students would perhaps find particularly eye-opening is his view of America when he arrives, and his encounters both with support and racism. He shows enormous resiliency, forgiveness, and insight when he writes, "without even pausing to think, I can tell you America's greatest strength is its enormous spirit, manifest in its generosity...[and] America's greatest weakness, I believe, lies in how it has drifted far from the love of family, at least as the Dinka understands that love" (277-279). His cultural heritage and sense of responsibility for other Lost Boys and the people of Duk County while creating a life for himself in America will teach students about dual identities, and hopefully inspire them to find purpose and meaning within larger groups and explore and connect with their different identities. The difficult aspect of this book for students would be its inclusion of graphic violence, starvation, and implied rape. The complexity, length, and mature topics within the book make it something I would teach students in 10th grade and above.
This book is a coming-of-age story in many extraordinary ways. It shows John mature into a leader and caretaker of the boys around him on the trip and in the camp, a diligent student who overcomes amazing odds to get an education, and a person of faith who explores his spiritual and religious beliefs throughout the book. He is put in charge of 1,200 boys at 13 years old and had many duties. He writes, "the magnitude and immediacy of death drove some of the boys insane. They refused to touch the dead bodies. They smeared their heads with excrement and then ran up to me to try to force me to smell them. I remember one boy crying out the name of his cow from his village. I tried to model good behavior for such boys, but it was hard. I took my turn at burial detail, and I led the gravediggers in singing hymns as we placed the bodies in the ground" (79-80). In addition to this, he tells of beginning first grade at 18 years old, passing the Kenyan Certificate of Primary Education exam, and then getting his high school diploma in 2000 at the age of 27. He then passed a highly competitive process to be approved for relocation in the U.S., and moved out of the refugee camp and into an apartment in Syracuse, NY. He worked minimum-wage jobs and attended Syracuse University, married, found his family (who had all survived that attack on their village in 1983), and set up the Sudanese Lost Boys Foundation of New York, the Sudanese Association of Central New York, and the nongovernmental organization American Care for Sudan Foundation. With the Foundation, he began fundraising for and developing a project to build a health clinic in his hometown of Duk County, among other things.
The book is great in that it shows his experiences growing up within the Dinka culture, his experiences surviving the violence in Sudan during the 1980s-2000s, his experiences as a refugee, and his experiences as an immigrant in America. Furthermore, all of these experiences are multi-layered. Of his time as a Lost Boy in Sudan and refugee in Kenya he writes both, "In our refugee camps...the necessity of burying so many children telescoped the ceremonies of mourning into a few moments of silent grief...I felt as if I had grown up too fast. Death had become all too familiar" (106), but also, "It's strange to say it about such a violent time, but I was happy. I had a daily routine of cooking, games, and building huts and trenches to keep my mind occupied. Corn and beans made a good dinner, and the UN planes also supplied us with fish-hooks...I discovered the constants and variables in the algebra of survival" (108-109). This book will really highlight the complexity of life to students, and expand their understanding of lifestyles and experiences very different from their own.
One aspect that students would perhaps find particularly eye-opening is his view of America when he arrives, and his encounters both with support and racism. He shows enormous resiliency, forgiveness, and insight when he writes, "without even pausing to think, I can tell you America's greatest strength is its enormous spirit, manifest in its generosity...[and] America's greatest weakness, I believe, lies in how it has drifted far from the love of family, at least as the Dinka understands that love" (277-279). His cultural heritage and sense of responsibility for other Lost Boys and the people of Duk County while creating a life for himself in America will teach students about dual identities, and hopefully inspire them to find purpose and meaning within larger groups and explore and connect with their different identities. The difficult aspect of this book for students would be its inclusion of graphic violence, starvation, and implied rape. The complexity, length, and mature topics within the book make it something I would teach students in 10th grade and above.