preview

Mark Bixler's The Lost Boys of Sudan: An American Story of The Refugee Experience

Decent Essays

Since 1983, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and the Sudanese government have been at war within the southern region of Sudan. This brutal conflict has ravaged the country claiming hundreds of lives and exiling a vast number of the southern Sudanese people. Most of these outcasts were young men aging between five and twelve who were tending cattle to return home to see their village being attacked and their villagers being killed. These boys fled not knowing what they would encounter on the journey to escape the violence in their own country. Hungry, frightened, and weak from their long and hellish journey, the boys finally reached refugee camps outside of Sudan. Even though many young men were killed on their multiple …show more content…

The Lost Boys dream for a better life and recognized it could only be achieved from what they were learning from the helpers within the camps. While in the refugee camps practicing math and writing essays in the dirt was how an education was given. Materials for proper education were not abundant in the camps but time was plentiful. Time is all the young men had and almost every second was used to enhance their abilities. Education is a process by which Jacob was encouraged and allowed to mature to his potential; knowledge also serves as a purpose of preparing what is necessary to be a significant member of society. Through teaching and learning, the individual acquires and develops knowledge and skills; which Jacob sought and strived to obtain. Bixler illuminates how their desire for an education would enable the Lost Boys to expose the atrocities each Lost Boy wanted to avoid yet expose. Jacob and his fellow Lost Boys wanted to tell the rest of the world about their brutal day-to-day conflicts in Sudan; however, lacking education limited a great deal of communication. The expectations for education created difficulties for Jacob. Arriving in the United States was different for the boys from Sudan. Because Southern Sudan remains an isolated region, sustained very little contact with the outside world, little was known and understood of the modern world. Everything was amusing, as a result of lacking knowledge of the modern

Get Access