A Somali Bantu clan readjusts in America

By Angie Wagner
The Associated Press

PHOENIX — In his new apartment, with peach curtains and patterned rugs, Hassan Lamungu shouts in the direction of the tiny cellular telephone that has been handed him, then leans toward it to hear the response over the chatter of children.

The scene is far removed from his life only a few weeks ago as a refugee in Kenya. Cellphones? Kitchens? There, toilets were holes in the ground, the walls were mud, food was rationed.

Lamungu, 42, and his family are Somali Bantu. Descendants of slaves taken to Somalia from Tanzania and northern Mozambique, they have been persecuted all their lives, existing at the lowest level of African society. Somali Bantu live in limbo, never fitting in, never daring to hope for more.

"Loma'oye," Lamungu said in a hushed voice.

It is a word the Bantu have heard all their lives, and it describes what the rest of Somalia thinks of them: "Nobody cries for them; leave them alone."

Now, Lamungu and his family have been transplanted under a 1999 government agreement. They are among 12,000 Somali Bantu who will be resettled in the United States over the next two years. They must learn of toothpaste, stoves, grocery stores — all things wonderful, all things foreign.

A family history

In their new kitchen, his wife beams as she wipes down the kitchen stove with a sponge and holds their youngest child on her hip; his mother rests on the couch as his five other children puzzle over a television remote control. Sitting beneath another wonder — a ceiling fan — the father begins his story.

"We were born in Somalia. We were minority. Our primary focus was just farming," Lamungu said through a translator, his dark eyes empty.

They farmed corn, sesame seeds, potatoes, watermelon, nuts and tomatoes in Manamofa, a village 310 miles from Mogadishu, Somalia's capital. The government took half their crops; the rest they ate or sold.

When civil war broke out in 1991, militiamen came to the village and took their food and belongings at gunpoint, Lamungu said. Rival Somali factions had overthrown the government of President Mohamed Siad Barre, then turned on each other.

He knew not to resist. If he did, he would be killed.

Somali Bantu who lived in cities were a bit better off. They were part of society; some went to universities, said Erol Kekic, associate director of Church World Services Immigration and Refugee Programs, one of 10 national groups helping resettle the refugees.

But for Lamungu and the thousands of others who will be coming to the United States, life was much different. They were denied education and given menial work, such as digging latrines. Children lacked motivation because they had no future, Kekic said.

Fleeing by night

With little food and no security, Lamungu said, the Bantu knew they could not stay in their village mud huts; some people had already died in their homes.

They left at night, so as not to be seen, and walked seven days to another village, where Lamungu began working for a militia on a large sugar farm.

As he left work on his first day, members of a rival militia robbed him.

"If you say a word, you're gone. You're killed. A lot of people got killed," he said. He knew they couldn't stay. The next day, the family — Lamungu, his wife, mother and five children at the time — fled again, hoping to get to Kenya. It would be safer there, Lamungu had been told. Other Bantu accompanied them, but many were unprepared and died of starvation.

They spent a month in Kayunga, on the border of Kenya and Somalia. Lamungu found work farming and his children collected wood for money. Eventually, in 1991, United Nations workers relocated them to Marafa refugee camp in Kenya.

Lamungu's family spent four years at the camp. Lamungu cleaned toilets. But when they were told they would be moved to another camp in northeastern Kenya — Dadaab — Lamungu refused. He knew many non-Bantu Somalis lived there and feared for his family's safety. Lamungu had heard stories of Bantu women and girls being raped as they gathered firewood at Dadaab.

Lamungu decided he would move his family himself to another village. They packed up again, and luckily found a local Arab businessman to provide them shelter. His children worked as housekeepers.

Two years passed before police found them and ordered them to Dadaab. But once they were sure the police had gone, they hid outside the camp and began to sell their few belongings. With the money, the family and other Bantu rented trucks to take them to the U.N. office in Nairobi, Kenya. There, the Bantu begged to be taken to the Kakuma refugee camp in northwestern Kenya.

In August 1997, they arrived at the isolated camp surrounded by desert. Lamungu's children saw white people for the first time. Lamungu worked ferrying people from place to place perched on the back of a bicycle. His family was provided a one-room mud hut and rations of food. There was no running water, no stove, no toilet. His children received some schooling, but no hope for change.

"One day we are told we all will be given settlement in the United States," he said. "I didn't know much about the United States."

The rumor spread through the camp. As much as the Bantu didn't believe it, neither did other Somalis.

"These people were always the butt of all the jokes," Kekic said.

Other Somalis asked them: "Why would you be the ones who would go to the United States?"

But the United States had been studying the Bantu and knew they couldn't return home and couldn't stay forever in a refugee camp. Resettlement seemed to be the only option, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees told the State Department.

A promise kept

In America, a good life awaits you, Lamungu was told. There is peace and opportunity.

And it was true.

They were going, even though the process seemed to take forever — endless medical checkups, orientation, vaccinations and paperwork and waiting for a flight. Lamungu's three older children decided to stay behind with their spouses.

Finally, Lamungu, his wife, mother and their remaining children, now numbering six, boarded a Delta Airlines plane May 20 in Nairobi.

The children immediately got sick — dizzy and vomiting from the motion.

Starting over

A world away, Lamungu and his 14-year-old daughter, Arbai Hassan Muse, grab a grocery cart and prepare to tackle the aisles of a Food City.

The trip is as bewildering as it is exciting.

Arbai pauses at the overwhelming display of desserts — the Little Debbie Snack Center. She decides to look for soda pop, something she never tasted before coming to the United States.

"I like Coke," she said in her unsteady English, staring at the red-and-white box.

Her father, squinting at the foreign words, picks up a 12-pack of orange soda and loads it into the cart. Mango juice is what they really want, but they can find it only in small cans instead of a large jug.

Using the debit machine to redeem his food stamps is another challenge. The buttons are confusing, and he has to have help. The clerk reaches over and pushes the buttons for him as Lamungu nods and tries to follow her fingers.

Pitching in

The State Department provides money to 10 national agencies that help resettle the refugees. In Phoenix, Lutheran Social Ministry of the Southwest, an affiliate of Church World Services, helps with Social Security cards and vaccinations and teaches the family to budget their money — about $3,600 for the first three months. After that, they are expected to bring in their own income.

Soon, caseworkers will work with Lamungu on job-interview skills: what questions to ask, the importance of eye contact and shaking an interviewer's hand. The agency will try to get Lamungu an entry-level job at a bagel shop wiping down tables or as a hotel housekeeper. Lamungu's wife isn't sure if she will work.

Clothing and the apartment's furnishings — couches, pots, lamps, television — have been donated by a local mosque and church and the Somali Association of Arizona. Within five years, the family must pay back more than $5,300 to the International Organization for Migration for their airfare to Phoenix.

In their three-bedroom apartment on the city's west side, the family is learning the most rudimentary, basic facts of life in America. How to use mouthwash. Toothpaste. Deodorant. They have been taught, but frequently get the items confused: A stick of deodorant is placed next to cereal boxes in the kitchen; mouthwash is hard to distinguish from dish soap.

One day, they thought they were locked in their apartment because they forgot how to unlock the door. A car trip entails passing out bags to the children because they get sick from the new motion. The family had to be told to take their own garbage out; they saw their neighbor's trash bag and decided to add their trash to it.

It is the simple conveniences that intrigue them the most — a kitchen stove, a mop, a toilet they thought was too clean to use. Lamungu mentions the shower, where water comes out "like rain over your head." Before, bathing entailed pouring a container of water over their heads. There were no towels.

"You take a shower, you have to use a towel," he explains.

Lamungu's wife, Nurto Talaso, straightens up her kitchen, marveling at how a sponge and mop easily clean up the mess from the morning meal. "I've never experienced this kind of life," she said.

But adjusting will take time. This day, they have forgotten to put the milk in the refrigerator and, despite Arizona's summer heat, they haven't turned on the air conditioning or fans. In Somalia, this was not an issue; there was no refrigerator, no air conditioning, no fan.

Lamungu wakes early every morning and looks around to make sure nothing has been stolen. At night, his children cling to their beds, thinking they are still on an airplane. The slightest noises wake them, and they rush in to ask their father about the sound.

Halima Hassan Muse, 16, wants to know if there are robberies in America.

There was concern over how the Somali community in Phoenix would accept the Bantu, but caseworkers and Mohamed Isse, president of the Somali Association of Arizona, said that hasn't been a problem.

Winning acceptance

Before the Bantu came, the Somali group distributed fliers throughout the community of about 3,000, telling them to help the Bantu by visiting them and donating food and clothing. Now, someone from the community visits the family every other day.

"Whether they are Somali Bantu or other Somalis, we tell them we don't differentiate," Isse said. "Because here, we only have one community. If Somalis are united, you can do all things."

Church World Services purposely did not send Bantu families to cities with large Somali populations, for fear that prejudice would jeopardize the resettlement. Minneapolis and Columbus, Ohio, for instance, were ruled out, though another resettlement group did choose Columbus.

"I think there would be some resentment," Kekic said. "They see this group, a group of a lower grade, and all of a sudden, they've gotten this special treatment. There's always this little possibility of something going wrong. You just want to be careful."

Kekic and the volunteers helping the family have no doubt they will embrace American society.

Already, Lamungu, his wife and mother are taking English classes, and the children will begin school in the fall. Halima wants to be a teacher or a doctor, and said eventually she will return to the refugee camp to "see how it is."

Here, she said, "I have a chance."

"Refugees are survivors," Kekic said. "They will make it here. They've seen the other side of things. They know what needs to happen in order for them to succeed."

Despite years of oppression and wandering through a country whose people didn't accept them, Lamungu said he is proud to be Bantu, meant to be Bantu. He never wants to return to Somalia.

"I want to be who I am," he said.

To be Bantu, without consequences.

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