Sudan Lost Boys

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/06/photogalleries/darfur/

Refers to the anxiety and feelings (of surprise, disorientation, uncertainty, confusion, etc.) felt when people have to operate within a different and unknown culture such as one may encounter in a foreign country.

#1 Discuss the difficulties “Lost Boy,” Peter/Santino experienced while assimilating into the American culture?

The Lost Boys of Sudan went to America and they where still lost. They where told was going to be better, that’s why Peter left Sudan. When he got to America he found it was hard for him to live. Peter was found a job in the factory but problems there with the work pace, he wanted to make the bar code perfect but it moved to fast, getting to work and home was also a problem it could take hours to get home. In the refugee camp he was told that he would be able to go to school and college, but ended up working in a factory. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3602724.stm

For peter making friends other than the other lost Boys was hard. People where suspicious of him and thought that he wanted to rob them, because he was darker than the African Americans. The people of the America didn’t understand what they had been through and treated them as kids, but they had lost there families, walked 1000 miles, watched people die, and left everything they knew behind them in Sudan.http://www.lostboysfilm.com/articles/laTimes.html


#2 Discuss how they dealt with their culture shock ~ what did they do to adjust to the cultural divisions?

Peter changed how he behaved and acted to be like an American. When Peter went to High School in Kansas he realized he had to change if he wanted to fit in. He sat back and watched how people behave in the canteen, and the classroom, like how they talked and interacted. He tried to use the same language and behave like the Americans did. Before Peter thought that holding hands with a boy was ok in Sudan but in America people called the gay. Peter also changed the way he dressed to the African American way. In class he tried not to draw attention to himself, and stayed quiet and did his work, even when he went to the Christian gathering he stayed quiet.