From March 2008 Denver Voice

"Leader in a New Village"

By Leah Bassoff

Micklina Iboi Pia Peter talks into her cell phone and

balances a plate of warm samosas on her head while she
walks toward a group of more than 50 people gathered
together in Chautauqua Park in Boulder. As she enters the
sheltered area where the party is being held, volunteers,
who had been arranging plates of watermelon, rice and
mangoes, drop what they are doing and swarm around
Peter. They are curious to know how she had time to cook
anything, much less 100 samosas—each one assembled
by hand, filled with vegetables and fried. They are well
aware that the night before, Peter had been studying for
school, finishing up last minute details for the Sudanese
celebration she was organizing, and making multiple trips
to the airport to pick up her sister and other visitors from
Sudan. Peter responds to their inquiry with a full-bodied
laugh.
The first group of Southern Sudanese to arrive in
the Boulder/Denver area, in 2000, was a group of Lost
Boys, boys left orphaned or displaced during the civil
war between Northern and Southern Sudan. Peter was
the first female Southern Sudanese refugee to settle in
Boulder, in 2004, living proof that some of the girls also
survived the war. Despite the oppressive circumstances
Peter endured—a victim of war; a woman in the maledominated
Sudanese culture; a refugee—she has become a
community leader in Boulder and has helped other women
refugees from Sudan transition to a new life in the United
States. Community for Sudanese and American Women
and Men (CSAW), an organization she founded and cochairs,
supports the 15 girls who have come to Boulder
since Peter’s arrival. In May, Peter, 29, will graduate from
the University of Colorado at Boulder.
“My first impression of Micklina was that she was so
vibrant, so focused and so enthusiastic. In light of all she
had been through, it was amazing….She was the first girl
we met [from Southern Sudan]. Her being in Boulder has
made an enormous difference for the Boulder community
and Sudanese community,” says Alice Levine, a volunteer
for CSAW.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees defines
a refugee as “a person who has fled his/her country of
nationality and who is unable or unwilling to return to that
country because of a well-founded fear of persecution.”
The Catholic Diocese of Arlington Office of Migration and
Refugee Services estimates that less than half a percent
of those who apply for refugee status are actually given
approval while the U.N. Refugee Agency estimates that
out of 505,000 refugee applications filed in 2006, roughly
two-thirds of these asylum-seekers were rejected. Peter is
acutely aware she is a fortunate one.
Peter’s house in Boulder is filled with objects such
as carved wooden statues and cloths she embroidered.
The smell of sweet incense drifts through the rooms—a
reminder of the land she left.
“My childhood was really the best for me,” says
Peter. “Sometimes my mom would go very early in the
morning, buy some liver, and then she would come and
make really fast breakfast before we would go to school.
We go to school and come back home, eat and play all the
time.” Peter claps her hands as she describes the magical
mango tree of her childhood, a tree she used to play in.
“This mango tree was very special…the mangoes were big
and round like this.”
That was before the civil war. The war was North
vs. South—a war over oil, resources, land and religion—
Muslims vs. Christians or those who followed indigenous
religions. Within the larger umbrella of the war, there
Leader in a
New Village
The first Lost Girl from Sudan
to settle in Boulder graduates
from CU in May
by Leah Bassoff
photos by Natalie Covert
March 2008 denver VOICE 9
was also ethnic conflict. The civil war came to a head in
1984 when the Sudanese government and the Sudanese
People’s Liberation Army started bombing villages at the
same time.
“People were running everywhere, kids crying,
houses burned. It’s just like confusion. You don’t know
where to run,” says Peter. The light drains from her eyes
as she recalls the bombing of her village, Kapoeta. In the
commotion, Peter and her parents were separated. To this
day, she doesn’t know what became of her father—the
chief of their village.
Peter ended up in a refugee camp in Kakuma,
Kenya—a mini-hell. Within the camp, thousands of
displaced persons resided in makeshift tents and tried
to survive. Camp residents waited in endless lines to get
paltry food rations. Peter describes a pregnant woman
who, acting out of desperation, stepped ahead of others in
the line. As a result she was beaten, possibly to death, by
security. Death was a part of daily life within the camp—
death from violence; death from malnutrition; death from
disease.
Like many refugees, Peter finds herself racked with
survivor’s guilt. “You have the stress of school, work, bills,
and the other stress is when people call from Africa. I feel
so guilty when someone is in need, and I cannot give,”
she says. At any hour of the day—morning or night—
someone may call from the refugee camp in Kakuma or
from Southern Sudan asking for money or aid.
Psychiatrist Jed Shapiro says survivor’s guilt is not
uncommon among refugees. According to Dr. Shapiro,
survivor’s guilt was first written about in connection with
Holocaust survivors, but the term can be applied to anyone
who has experienced good fortune and whose good fortune
stands in stark contrast to someone else’s suffering. “It is
hard for people who leave the scene, as is the case with
refugees who leave their country. They might ask, ‘Should
I just take care of myself or should I take care of my fellow
man? Should I go back?’” says Shapiro. “The more you
feel that someone else sacrificed for you, the more you feel
a sense of burden.”
Peter’s survival is due, in no small part, to a Dominican
nun, Sister Luise Radlmeier. Sister Radlmeier lives in Juja,
Nairobi, and is well-known for helping thousands of
refugees, including Peter. In order to be accepted into her
compound, Peter had to fill out an application and had
to make it clear that she was serious about obtaining an
education. Sister Radlmeier’s compound includes several
orphanages and houses where the young men and young
women live. It was here where Peter learned to cook for
large groups of people using limited resources and clever
tricks. When she cooked for orphan children, she cut the
food up into small pieces to make them feel as though
they had more to eat. Although the compound is a joyous
place, it is also a place of limbo. The residents seemed
to be asking, ‘What next?’ In exchange for Peter’s care,
Sister Radlmeier taught her English, helped her fill out
her refugee application and prepared her for a future in
America.
When Peter arrived in Denver she found the airport
so confusing and overwhelming that she sat down on a
bench and prayed for guidance. She eventually found
her way out of the airport and, since then, has gracefully
overcome many difficult challenges and obstacles that are
common for refugees.
“[In Southern Sudan] most of the girls are so shy. They
can’t look you in the eye,” says Elizabeth Wondu, whose
husband is the Sudanese ambassador to Japan and who
often speaks publicly on the plight of Southern Sudanese
women. Wondu adds that in Southern Sudan, where
the literacy rate is only 12.5 percent, women are often
discouraged from getting an education or speaking out.
Not Peter. Soon after she arrived in the U.S., she enrolled
as a student at CU.
“She is in a class of 500 students with maybe three
other African-Americans. She sits right in the middle,”
says Lindsay Eppich, a classmate and friend of Peter. “I
know that she has a thousand other things on her plate,
but she is there for school. She inspires me every day. I
have never known anyone like her.”
Peter enjoys feminist women’s studies classes, gives
public speeches, heads several grassroots organizations,
and has most recently organized the first Women and Youth
Conference through the Equatorial Sudanese Women’s
Association—a conference she hopes to hold annually and
expand to include women from all over Southern Sudan.
When she is not in class or studying, she spends her
time helping the other Southern Sudanese women who
have settled in the Boulder/Denver area. Rebecca Chaan,
one of the newest young women to arrive from Sudan,
says in Africa and in the U.S., Peter has always been kind
and helpful. Peter checks in on all the girls and pays them
visits whenever she has free time. “She’s so friendly. She’s
really encouraging if you have personal problems,” says
Rebecca. In keeping with her culture, Peter acts on the
notion that if you have a piece of bread you break it in two
to share with another.
“Ms. Peter was awarded an undergraduate research
opportunity grant to work with me on research related to
female refugees. She provided much insight on women’s
refugee issues. Her agile mind and forceful personality are
a formidable combination,” says Dr. Laura Deluca, adjunct
assistant professor of anthropology.
Peter’s activism is her way of not forgetting those she
left behind, those who still continue to languish in the
refugee camps or are displaced from their villages.
While attending a conference in Iowa, Peter met an old
neighbor from her village in Kapoeta. She informed Peter
that her mother, whom she had presumed to be dead, was
actually alive in Egypt. Peter said her whole body went
cold. The neighbor gave her a phone number, where her
mother waited on the other end. When they spoke on the
phone for the first time, tears of joy streamed down their
faces. Today, mother and daughter sit together in Peter’s
living room in Boulder. They have the same full-bodied
laugh. “Every day she prays,” Peter explains. “She has
never missed a day. In Africa, my mother cared for me.
Now I will take care of her.”
Peter greets all the guests at the party at Chautauqua
Park—the American volunteers, the Southern Sudanese
guests, the children. She makes sure her mother, whom
everyone calls Mama Rose, has a place to sit in the shade.
One of the volunteers has set up an art table for the kids,
and the Southern Sudanese women are passing babies
around, clicking their tongues at them and snapping their
fingers to make them smile.
Peter dreams that she, or women like her, will one
day be able to end the violence in Sudan. Graduating from
the university is a step toward this goal. For now, she will
continue to try to bring other young girls from Sudan to
the U.S. so that they, too, can become leaders. •
To learn more about CSAW, visit www.csawcolorado.