Genevieve Simms

During a trip to Kenya’s backcountry in the spring of 2006, I fell in love with the people of Africa. Upon my return, my curiosity and readings about the continent’s history and culture led to a distressing realization: despite huge financial loans from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Paris Club, Africa is poorer today than it was 25 years ago.

So what went wrong? This five-part series will address some broader geopolitical, cultural and economic reasons for Africa’s decline. It will also explore Calgary’s ties to Africa, from bed-nets in Uganda to clean water in Zambia, as well as the lives of African immigrants and refugees living in Calgary.

Despite the hardship that African refugees have had to endure, many exude hope and courage. Stephen Deng (pictured on the cover), a 28-year-old refugee from southern Sudan, has experienced a most horrendous journey. Escaping death, he survived in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya from the age of seven until he was 24. Standing six feet four inches tall and bearing six raised scars across his forehead — markings of the Nuer tribe — Deng is determined to live fully and help other refugees cope with their trauma and transition to Calgary.

TEXT BREAKER: Africa Today

Africa is the second largest and second most populated continent with nearly one billion people. It is a mosaic of colourful and remarkably diverse cultures with an estimated 2,000 languages spoken across its 53 countries.

Despite its richness in natural resources such as oil, gold, diamonds and rubber, and although it is a major exporter of coffee, tea, flowers, agro-based goods and textiles, Africa is the world’s poorest continent. It is home to 25 of the world’s most underdeveloped countries, according the United Nations’ Human Development 2003 Report.

At the turn of the century, the UN established the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) with the intent to eradicate poverty and hunger worldwide, as well as achieve universal education, reduce child and maternal mortality and combat diseases such as AIDS and malaria by 2015.

African countries are far from reaching any of these goals and sub-Saharan countries will not meet any of the MDGs by 2015. In September 2007, the UN launched the MDG Africa Steering Group to help accelerate efforts in Africa by encouraging the world’s richest countries to actually come through on their financial pledges.

But the UN will not reach its MDGs without addressing the devastating effects of ongoing civil wars in countries such as Sudan, Uganda, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where villages are continually looted and burned and inhabitants brutally murdered and displaced into makeshift refugee camps.

Millions of Africans die every year from war, starvation, dehydration, malaria, AIDS and the list goes on. However, millions also manage to escape the horror that surrounds them by fleeing to other countries, including Canada.

African communities are the fastest growing populations in Canada. In 2001, Canada was home to 300,000 individuals of African origin, with 23,000 living in Alberta (Statistics Canada 2007). Alberta’s oil boom, however, has caused a dramatic increase in Calgary’s African population. Official statistics aren’t available, but the Sudanese community claims that it has doubled in the last five years, from 6,000 in 2002 to 12,000 in 2007. Likewise, the small Nigerian community of 400 in 1996 has grown to well over 10,000 today.

The circumstances, however, that have brought Nigerians and Sudanese to Calgary are very different. Most families from Nigeria came here as immigrants in search of professional career opportunities, many with the oil and gas industry. In contrast, most families from Sudan are here as refugees with few employment opportunities and live in isolation and poverty.

TEXTBREAKER: A journey from Nigeria to Calgary

“When I came to Canada in 1989 to do my masters in civil engineering at the University of Alberta, my plan was to go back home afterwards,” says Dr. Femi Ade. “But by the time I finished my degree there were rising problems in Nigeria.”

In 1985, General Ibrahim Babangida took over as president of Nigeria. He privatized public services and deregulated the agricultural sector, as recommended by the World Bank and the IMF, but these changes eventually led to a decline in public wages, and in turn, to civil unrest. In 1993, General Sani Abacha, who became Nigeria’s most violent and corrupt leader, overthrew Babangida’s government. Abacha ruled until his death in 1998.

A strong scholar, Ade easily obtained a Canadian Commonwealth Scholarship to continue his studies at the University of Alberta. He completed a PhD in 1996 and moved to Calgary later that year for a position with Golder Associates, a corporation specializing in ground engineering and environmental services. That year, his wife Lara also gave birth to their first child.

Both Femi and Lara sometimes toy with the idea of moving back to Nigeria, but with two children well established in local schools and extracurricular activities, the Ade family has set strong roots in Calgary.

Early this fall, the Ades went on their first hike in Kananaskis Country, an activity organized by their church group. “If we told a Nigerian that we walked for 24 kilometres in the bush, they would think that we were nuts,” says Lara. “We just don’t do that.”

They also attend Nigerian traditional parties. “The kids are always excited when we have our parties with dances,” says Lara. “They get to dress up in traditional clothes.” The Ade family brought one of their daughter’s white friends to their last Nigerian party. “This young girl had so much fun,” says Lara. “She said it was the best day of her life.”

Asked about racism in Calgary, Femi says that many instances that may appear as racism are actually misunderstandings based on cultural differences. “Take ‘time’ for instance. In African cultures, being an hour late for a meeting is normal, it’s completely unheard of in western cultures,” he says.

Femi and Lara have been back to Nigeria on a few occasions over the last 10 years. “The first thing that surprised me on my last visit was the taste of food,” says Femi. “Bananas and oranges were so good. I couldn’t believe that food could taste so good,” he says. He also misses the close relationships between family and neighbours in his community back home. “Neighbours are like family,” he says. “They want the best for you.”

Lara believes that life in Nigeria would be easier in some respects. “If I lived in Nigeria I would have a driver and a maid,” she says. “Here, I struggle with a full-time job, housework and making sure that my kids get the best out of me.” Although life in Calgary is hectic, it still presents a safer alternative to living in Nigeria.

In the spring of 2007, Nigerians “elected” a new government, in an election that international media has deemed flawed, disorganized and biased. Regardless, the new president, Umaru Yar'Adua, has pledged to end corruption and improve the quality of life for all Nigerians.

TEXTBREAKER: A journey from Sudan to Calgary

“I last saw my parents when I was 12 years old,” says Stephen Deng, who fled into the bush as his village was targeted in an air raid in 1990. He is one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, a group of 20,000 boys who walked six months across Sudan’s southern deserts and mountain ranges in 1990-91 until reaching safety in a UN refugee camp across the border in Kenya.

Sudan has two distinct cultures, with Arabs living in the northern part of the country and black Africans living in the south. The country’s ongoing 30-year genocidal civil war in southern Sudan has killed two million people from the south and displaced four million of its people into makeshift camps mostly within Sudan. Villages have been raided and burned down, men and boys brutally murdered, women and girls raped and tortured, according to Amnesty International.

Sudan’s multi-dimensional war is a battle between religious faiths and geopolitics — the Islamic north wants power over Sudan’s Christian and animist south, where resources such as water, fertile land, gold and oil are abundant.

“We are dying because of that oil. They are killing our children for it,” says Deng, who came to Calgary as a refugee in 2003, after living seven years in a Kenyan refugee camp where he learned English and obtained a high school diploma. He is unable to discuss his six-month travail across southern Sudan. “I have blocked everything out,” he says. “All I thought about during that journey was to stay alive so that I could join the army and fight for my country or go to school and help rebuild my village.”

Based on other accounts, children walked mostly at night to stave off the heat. M any died of starvation, dehydration and disease and, at times, were attacked and eaten by wild animals. Stronger children buried the dead in roadside graves. Surviving simply by eating leaves from trees and drinking muddy water and urine, those who made it to refugee camps, arrived barely alive and emotionally demolished.

Deng is currently in his second year studying social work at Mount Royal College. What keeps him going is his dream of returning home to his remote village in Longechuk county and putting his skills to work. “I have a vision of connecting myself with humanitarian organizations to help build a community centre for orphans, widowed women and disabled individuals, all a result from the war,” says Deng.

While studying full-time, Deng is working for both the Sudanese Family Integration Centre and the Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association, helping Sudanese youth and families struggling with their transition to Calgary. “Because of economic barriers, racism and the inability to speak English, combined with the separation from family and their community, many Sudanese families become extremely isolated. These factors are leading to family violence and youth crime,” explains Deng.

Because over 140 languages are spoken in Sudan, there are often communication barriers within the Sudanese community itself, which exacerbates feelings of isolation and loneliness. Deng speaks three Sudanese languages and two other African languages. The Sudanese also lack the financial resources to build a Sudanese community hall, where families could regularly unite and engage in social activities — an important component in most African cultures.

“We need the people of Calgary to help us in any way they can while we find our way in this new culture,” says Deng. “We are not here by choice. We are here because our homes have been destroyed and our lives turned upside down.”

Calgary’s Sudanese families may well be living in a safe environment, but their emotional trauma and the ongoing war back home is still part of their daily lives. Most pray and hope for the end of the civil war, and dream of rebuilding their villages and of reuniting with surviving family members scattered throughout the world.