NEXT STOP, AMERICA:

Africa's Lost Tribe Discovers American Way (RACHEL L. SWARNS, March 10, 2003, NY Times)

The engines rumbled and the red sand swirled as the cargo plane roared onto the dirt airstrip. One by one, the dazed and impoverished refugees climbed from the belly of the plane into this desolate wind-swept camp.

They are members of Africa's lost tribe, the Somali Bantu, who were stolen from the shores of Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania and carried on Arab slave ships to Somalia two centuries ago. They were enslaved and persecuted until Somalia's civil war scattered them to refugee camps in the 1990's.

Yet on this recent day, the Bantu people were rejoicing as they stepped from the plane into the blinding sun. They were the last members of the tribe to be transferred from a violent camp near the Somali border to this dusty place just south of Sudan. They knew their first trip in a flying machine was a harbinger of miracles to come.

Over the next two years, nearly all of the Somali Bantu refugees in Kenya--about 12,000 people--are to be flown to the United States. This is one of the largest refugee groups to receive blanket permission for resettlement since the mid-1990's, State Department officials say. [...]

Back in the classroom, the students spent the next few hours learning about the refrigerator, ice cubes and strawberry jam. They watched eagerly as Mr. Adan washed dishes in a sink and admired the bathtub and shower. One woman demurred, however, when he invited her to step into the tub.

"It is so clean," she said shyly. "Can I really step in it?"

Some students grumbled that the American appliances seemed more complicated than their ordinary ways of living. Why worry about cleaning a toilet, some refugees said aloud, when the bushes never need to be cleaned?

But Mr. Saidali said he was thrilled to learn about modern toilets after years of relying on smelly pit latrines.

"This latrine is inside the house," marveled Mr. Saidali, a lean man in tattered sneakers. "It's better than what we are now using. It has a seat for sitting and the water goes down.

"Even this sink--it's my first time," he said. "This sink is for washing. It cleans things very nicely."

Even with the lessons, some Bantu are worried about how they will cope in America. They know that blacks and Muslims are minorities there. Will Americans be welcoming? Will they learn English quickly enough? Will they find jobs and housing and friends? Some officials here worry, too.

"These people are from rural areas," Mr. Adan said. "They don't know much about modern life."

But the refugees who arrived on the plane here said they were eager for the challenge.

Uncertain of what might be needed in the United States, they carried most of their precious possessions--broken brooms, chipped mugs, metal plates--as they boarded a rattling bus that roared deep into the camp as the sun sank beyond the horizon.

The refugees knew they would be sleeping on the ground again and going hungry as they have often done. But they also knew that this was only the first phase of an incredible journey.

First stop, Kakuma. Next stop, America.

We wish them well and welcome. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 10, 2003 8:25 AM