Lost Boy of Sudan tells his life story

When the Northern Islamic Sudanese Government attacked his Christian village one night, young John Magai Ayuen Bol ran into the jungle with his family to seek survival.

Ever since that night in 1987, Bol, who was about 4 years old at the time, could not remain in his home country for long.

“The longest I have lived in a place in Sudan was a year,” said Bol, one of the thousands of Lost Boys of Sudan. “In Sudan, it’s not safe. People settle in new places, but they are not going to be safe for long.

“It’s impossible” to live in the African country for two years or more, Bol said.

Having survived the Second Sudanese Civil War, Bol said, the conflict has acted as a learning experience for many of his fellow citizens.

“The war opened up their (Southern Sudanese people) mind,” Bol said. “Now they’re trying to . be educated so the government of Sudan doesn’t take advantage of them. Now they can trust the government to a certain degree, but not as much as they used to, because they were targeted in the war.”

Bol said in a way the war has enriched his personality.

“If the war had not happened, I would have still been living in that village,” he said. “It has also taken me places and opened my mind for appreciation of different cultures.”

At the same time, Bol said, he understands that a lot of people died or lost family members during the war and that the conflict “has brought a lot of worse things” to generations of Sudanese.

“If the war had not happened, I would have still been living in that village. (The war) has also taken me places and opened my mind for appreciation of different cultures.”
– Magai Bol

After he first escaped government attacks in 1987 and walked for more than two weeks with hardly anything to eat, Bol spent five years in a refugee camp in Ethiopia. Pressured by the Ethiopian Civil War of 1992, Bol moved back to his home country, which still didn’t offer him and his family a safe place to settle. Bol then traveled to Kenya, where he lived in a refugee camp for nine years, attending school for the first time.

In September 2001 Bol was accepted into the refugee program designed by the American government to aid survivors of the Sudanese war.

Coming to the United States while he was still under 18, Bol lived with a foster family for three years. He said living with a family in the beginning helped him quickly adapt to the new culture.

“We lived in a third-world country (and came) to a first-world country,” Bol said. “So it was a big transition. I got to learn a lot from living with that family. It wasn’t the best one, but I try to remember the best of it.”

Bol started school in January 2002. He said he was well accepted both in the community and at school.

“American kids like to see people from different places . (and) were kind of amazed like, ‘Where are you from? What part of Africa are you from?’ They (most of the children in the school) thought Africa was a country.”

Bol said he was never offended or upset about people being curious and asking him questions about his home place.

“What they see on TV is what they know,” he said. “So I was not offended because it’s a reality. Some of the things they see on Discovery Channel, they are true. There are some parts (of Sudan) where people live in the jungle, but not everybody.”

Being the fourth child in his family, Bol keeps in touch with his elder brother, Matiop, who lives in Virginia, and sister, Aluel, in Pennsylvania. At the same time, Bol said, he hasn’t seen or talked to his eldest sister, Nuer, for more than 15 years. She is married and has a child, Gai, named after Magai. He also has a cousin, with whom he is very close, living in Tennessee.

“He was one of the people that was always there for me when we were moving from Sudan to Ethiopia and to Kenya,” he said.

Bol’s mom, Nyankor, also lives in Sudan but would sometimes go to Kenya to call Magai and his relatives. The travel, Bol said, takes a couple of days of bus rides, which are not always safe.

Today Bol finds himself double majoring in international relations and French and leading the VCU chapter of the African Student Union as its president. He describes himself as open-minded, focused and motivated. Earlier this month Bol received an award from the School of World Studies for his participation in the celebration of Black History Month.

“It was a big accomplishment,” Bol said of the award. “I was excited. I felt that in what I was doing, I was achieving something. It assured me that I was on the right track and my goal with coming to America was in progress.”

Beverly Walker, assistant director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, said Bol is active in and out of the classroom.

“He is excellent in school,” Walker said. “As far as his academics, as far as him doing (activities) with the African Student Union, he is great.”

Bol lives in an off-campus apartment with two roommates, Mawut Duot and Elijah Anyieth, both Sudanese. Duot said Bol is a good friend and caring roommate.

“He’s like a brother to me,” Duot said. “We’re living like a family. We always care about one another. If I’m late, he’ll call me, try to find out where I am.”

In his spare time, Bol likes playing soccer and reading philosophy.

“He tries to pick up some kind of enlightenment, and develop his morals by reading philosophy,” Duot said. “He tries to come up with philosophical answers and give reasons for things.”

Bol fluently speaks Dinka, his mother tongue, English and French, and can understand Suahili, spoken in east Africa, and Arabic. He often discusses politics and the Sudanese war with his roommates and friends.

Bol is now planning to study abroad for a year and finish his French major at Franche-Comt