John Bul Dau, featured in the documentary "God Grew Tired of Us" about the "lost boys" of Sudan, speaks at Weill Cornell.
In the 1987, John Bul Dau was forced to flee his Dinka tribe in Sudan as northern, government-backed Sudanese soldiers swept southward, systematically attacking villages and slaughtering or enslaving entire families. It was the outbreak of the Second Sudanese Civil War, and Dau found himself among roughly 20,000 orphaned boys roaming the tribal countryside evading thirst, starvation, wild animals and disease-in addition to marauding soldiers. He would spend the next two decades fleeing and rebuilding his life, on a path across three continents, as one of thousands of "Lost Boys" who were eventually relocated to the U.S.
Dau was at Weill Cornell on Jan. 3 along with director Christopher Dillon Quinn speaking about their film, "God Grew Tired of Us," which follows Dau and two other "Lost Boys" on their remarkable journey from refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya to suburban life in Syracuse, N.Y., and Pittsburgh, Penn. The film, which won both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, was screened in Uris Auditorium as part of the Medical College's Humanities and Medicine program.
Christopher Dillon Quinn, director of "God Grew Tired of Us."
Dau's leadership is central to both the film and the greater family of "Lost Boys" currently living in the U.S. As tens of thousands of boys coalesced in southern Sudan and began trekking first to Ethiopia and then to Kenya, Dau was elected to lead 1,200 boys-most no more than 5 or 6 years old-though he himself was only 13 at the time. Since relocating to the U.S., Dau has written a memoir and founded the American Care for Sudan Foundation. He is currently director of the Sudan Project at Direct Change, which raises funds for partners that are already working in southern Sudan.
The film and Dau were brought to Weill Cornell by first-year medical student Dan Friedman, who met Dau while working over his summer vacations as a mental health counselor in the psychiatric emergency program at St. Joseph's Hospital in Syracuse. Over lunches and at night, Friedman and Dau (who was a security guard) would talk about meeting girls, life in Sudan and, eventually, Dau's dream of starting a clinic in Duk, his home county in southern Sudan.
Mr. Dau with students, including Dan Friedman (second from left) after the screening of the film.
"After arriving [in the United States], we got huge help-we didn't know how to cook, grocery shop, or go to work, and people helped us," said Dau. "I thought, 'do I want to be just receiving, not giving?' I knew it would be good to give." Dau has since raised more than $180,000 for the Duk Lost Boys Clinic and recruited 11 American volunteers as staff. He hopes to open the clinic in July.
Like many who have met Dau, Friedman found his life changed. He has since started Cornell Health Advocates for Southern Sudan with other students and Weill Cornell faculty-a program he hopes will eventually provide support for Dau's Duk Lost Boys Clinic-and has begun entertaining the idea of a career in international medicine. "It just kind of happened that I met this very special person," Friedman said. "He's very modest, but he blows me away. I wanted to get involved."
During a question-and-answer session following the film screening, Dau's charge to students and faculty on hand was characteristically modest: "Spread the word. Be a citizen of the world."
Photos by Amelia Panico.