The Lost Boys

I've seen the Lost Boys of Sudan documentary three times now and still can't get over it. If you live near Boston or Indianapolis or Seattle or one of the other places the film is showing, you owe it to yourself to see it.

John Shenk and Megan Mylanthe filmmakers traveled with two Sudanese young men--Santino Majok Chuor and Peter Nyarol--from the sprawling Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya through their first year in the United States.

There's two moments that stand out for me. One comes at the beginning, as Santino says goodbye to his friends at Kakuma, aware that he will probably never see them again.

Here's what he said:


When I think of being alone in America, I don't even feel like eating. Even if I eat good food and am alone--the lonely will even reduce my size.

Then this segment--which requires some set up. In the mid-nineties, many of the Lost Boys went on a forced march from Ethiopia to Kenya. At one point, they were driven into the Gilo River, where many were shot, drowned or eaten by crocodiles.

That story seeps into one of the most innocent moments of the film. Chuor attends a Lost Boys retreat at a summer camp toward the end of his first year in the United States. While swimming in the pool, some of the young men talk calmly about the Gilo River.


“I crossed the big river — you know Gilo — I crossed that, man,” one of them said. “Many thousands of people died, I remember,” he added a moment later, before joining the rest of his friends in a race across the pool.


In case you are interested, here's a piece I did on the film

Christianity Today's Weblog reported some
encouraging positive developments for Sudan. The US is about to change policy and address the humanitarian crisis in Sudan.

While the Bush administration has taken some well deserved hits for the war in Iraq, they have behind the scenes pushed for peace in Sudan. There would not have been a peace deal between the Sudanese goverment and South Sudan rebels without US involvement. Perhaps US pressure can bring peace to Darfur as well.