Transitioning to Dadaab Refugee Camp in Somalia for the Next Few Weeks in the Refugees in Literature Course and Reflecting Mightily on 1992

In the Fall of 1992, I was a junior at Binghamton University majoring in English and fresh away from a semester in London, studying with Carol Boyce Davies, taking courses on Shakespeare and British theater, and finding out more about the world as a 19 year-old. It was there I learned of the African diaspora, studies literature of Black authors living in exile in Great Britain, and returning to Broome County to take more African American literature course while trying to figure out global diversity and what I'd one day with my life. 

1992. I think about that year a lot, as studying abroad moved me in the direction I've been on ever since, choosing to teach in urban schools which naturally led me to my work with relocated refugee youth from Africa arriving into an upstate NY city. While I was doing the pampered life of reading, writing, and learning in college, Dadaab refugee camp was seeing masses of people arriving to live in tents for the next 30 years of their life (if not longer). These were the years so many of the young men I worked with in Syracuse were born and as global politics was part of my study, they were born into the despair. It's all stories, but looking closely at the camps, the reality that there are more refugees today than at any time since WWII, and that I had 4 Apple TVs to help share data, thinking, and understanding at a rather privileged, primarily White institution offered much pause.

Meanwhile, the tooth with its sharp edges is ripping apart my tongue in cheek. It comes out on Friday and I am looking forward to that moment. I simply think, "How do individuals deal with medical issues in refugee camps, knowing they don't, and grow saddened for the world." It's hard not to think about Western privileges and the set back of a wisdom tooth needing to come out. 

There's so much to be done. So little being done. A tremendous amount to appreciate, but much questioning about why some are born into lucky situations and others not. It's a lot, especially trying to understand how human beings can be so cruel to one another and excessively ignorant. Here I am with all my degrees feeling dumb to it all. There has to be a better way and a more purposeful way to help. 

I told Julie, who I am teaching with, this course can be a lot. We have to match the realities with the world with local possibilities of what can be done to help. Of course, these are college kids without much control, but open minds like I once had as a 19 year old. I can only hope that the conversations I lead have an effect in the ways that my professors once had. I try to remain optimistic that their generation can do so, so much better.