Running for My Life Page 10

  Around my second week in the Rogers’ home, Dad told me, “I have a surprise for you today. How would you like to go hang out with your friend Simon and some of the other guys from Sudan?”

  “Yes,” I said, and this time I meant it. A short time later I found myself in downtown Syracuse, surrounded by old friends. Even though none of these boys had been in my tent, we all knew one another in Kakuma. Seven thousand miles later I felt very close to these boys. These guys were all in their twenties, all except one. That made them too old to be placed with a family, which is why they lived on their own. We spent the afternoon laughing, playing games, and best of all, talking in Swahili. I had not realized how much my ears ached to hear my own language. We talked about old times, and they shared rumors they’d heard about which boys would get to come to America next. It was a great afternoon. I hated to tell them goodbye when Dad came and picked me up.

  “Did you have a good time?” Dad asked on the drive home.

  “Yes. Very good. Thank you,” I said.

  “My pleasure,” he said. “I’ll try to set something up for next week, if you would like.”

  “Yes; very much.”

  I did not say much more on the ride home. My poor English made long conversations difficult. That gave me time to think. It felt so good to reconnect with friends from Kakuma. All of us were so blessed to be here.

  Then it hit me.

  I thought about my life with the Rogers and compared it to my friends in downtown Syracuse. All of us had been robbed of our childhoods. Most of the boys in Kakuma had to flee their homes or were taken from them prior to their tenth birthdays. I was only six when I was taken. Yet here I was ten years later with an opportunity no other lost boy had, at least no other lost boy that I knew. All of us were lost boys, but thanks to Rob and Barbara Rogers, I got to be a boy in the truest sense of the word once again. My stolen childhood had been returned to me. I did not know how long this could last, but I knew God had given me a priceless gift.

  I broke out in a big grin while fighting back tears.

  Dad noticed. “Everything all right over there?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Everything is wonderful.”

  THIRTEEN

  Two Dreams, One Goal

  Two people changed the direction of my life forever, and both did it within the first week of my coming to America. The first one changed my life on my second full day here. The man who tried to run alongside me on my fourteen-mile run showed up the next day with a package under his arm. I didn’t know who he was, but Mom and Dad did. “Joseph, my name is Jim Paccia,” he said, “Coach Jim Paccia.”

  He had my attention. In Africa, “Coach” is a title of great honor.

  “I am very happy to meet you,” I said.

  “I coach the cross-country team at Tully High School.”

  I looked at him with a blank expression. He might as well have told me he coached curling or ice dancing. I had no idea what a cross-country team was.

  “That’s a running team,” Dad added. “The cross-country team runs five-kilometer footraces against teams from other schools.”

  “I am a soccer player,” I said. Even after watching Michael Johnson in the 2000 Olympics, soccer was the only real sport I knew anything about.

  “Joseph,” Coach Paccia said, “after what I saw yesterday, you need to be on the cross-country team. You have a real gift. It would be a shame to waste it.”

  “I’m a good soccer player,” I said.

  “I don’t doubt that,” Coach said. “I think you’re probably one of those guys who will excel at any sport they try. But very few people can run like you do. I would love to have you on my team.”

  I hated to disappoint anyone. “Perhaps one race for you,” I said.

  “I had something more in mind,” Coach said. He reached into his bag. “Joseph, I had this made for you. It’s yours if you come out for the cross-country team.” Coach Paccia held up a Tully High School team jersey and jacket. The white letters popped off of the all-black background. I was very impressed. Then he turned the jacket around, and my jaw dropped. There, across the back, were the letters L-O-M-O-N-G! For a boy who grew up wearing hand-me-down clothes courtesy of Goodwill, this was the most beautiful piece of clothing I could imagine. A huge grin broke out across my face, but my soccer dreams refused to go down without a fight.

  “I can wear this for one race?” I said.

  Coach shook his head. “No, not for one race. You only get the jacket if you commit to run the entire season.”

  This was a hard decision. For ten years soccer had been more than a game to me. Back in the camp, it was a way of life. Running had never been more than a means to an end. If the older boys in Kakuma had never made the rule that we had to run thirty kilometers before we could step foot on the soccer field, I might never have run farther than from one end of the soccer field to the other. In fact, I never even thought of running as a sport, except, of course, for that Michael Johnson guy running for the USA on television.

  “Two races?” I said.

  Coach Paccia was firm. “No, the entire season. I tell you what I will do. You run this season, you get this jacket. If you run again next season, I’ll give you another, and another for the season after that.”

  I looked at that jacket dangling in front of me. How could I turn my back on something so beautiful? In my mind I saw myself hanging three of them in my closet at the end of high school. “Okay,” I said. “I will run cross-country.”

  Less than two months later I ran my first race. Mom and Dad were right there, cheering for me. I was surprised. The sight of them convinced me that I had to win this race, not for myself, but for them. After all, I did not belong here. But now, with this race, I could show them I belonged. In my eyes, this was my chance to show my value and prove that I might be worthy to be a part of a family. This race was my chance to validate my place in America.

  However, I had one little problem. Although my English had improved somewhat, I did not fully grasp all the nuances of high school cross-country. In this particular race, a golf cart led the runners around the course. Everyone seemed to understand this little detail except me. I thought I was supposed to beat the golf cart to the finish line.

  The moment the gun sounded, I took off after that cart like my life depended on it. Within a few hundred meters I zipped right by it. Once I passed it I did not think it could catch me. I was right. However, the golf cart driver cheated. He took a shortcut and pulled around back in front of me. That just made me run even harder. I passed the cart a second time. He cheated again and got in front of me. Over the course of the first four kilometers of the race, I passed the golf cart several times. I passed him so often that I ran completely out of gas by the end of the race. My huge lead over the cart and the field disappeared. Two guys passed me before I stumbled over the finish line.

  Coach Paccia ran over to me. I was fuming. I should have won the race with ease, and I would have if the golf cart had not taken so many shortcuts. Coach grabbed me and said, “Lopez, you ran a great race, but you don’t have to run against the cart. You only race the other runners.”

  Great, I thought. Now you tell me.

  “I tell you what. In the next race I want you to run alongside the race leaders. Stay right at the front. Then, if you feel up to it, you can run as hard as you want the last mile.”

  I shook my head to show that I understood. I could hardly breathe, much less talk. Racing a golf cart takes a lot out of you.

  A week later we had our second meet. I did exactly what my coach told me to do. When the gun sounded, I took off, but I did not break from the lead pack. Instead I paced myself with the leaders. I enjoyed jogging along with them so much that I tried talking to them throughout the entire race. “Hey, guys, my name is Lopez … How long have you been running? … Do you play soccer?” I talked and talked and talked even though my English vocabulary was limited. That’s just me; I am a talker. However, the other runners did not answer,
at least not after the first kilometer or so. The more I tried talking to them, the more they looked at me like I was nuts.

  I ran along, talking away until I saw my mom and dad standing at the one-mile marker. Coach told me that he would place them there so that I would know when to start running hard. Mom yelled something like, “Yay, Joseph, you can do it!” She made me laugh. Mom and Dad came to every cross-country meet. They were the only parents who did.

  “Hey, guys,” I said to the other boys at the front of the pack, “there’s my mom and dad. I gotta go. See you at the finish line.” With that, I stopped jogging and took off running. I won the meet, beating around four hundred runners from across upstate New York. I received a gold medal that I wore all the way home. Mom and Dad made a huge deal over it, and I let them. This was a very special moment for me.

  Our next-door neighbors were outside when we pulled up to the house. Tom and Fran were around eighty years old. They always made me feel very welcome in the neighborhood. “What do you have there?” Tom called out to me.

  “A gold medal,” Dad answered, his voice brimming with pride.

  “Come on over here and let me have a look,” Tom said. I was more than happy to show it off. Dad and I walked over to their yard. Tom took a close look at the medal. “Wow, that’s something,” Tom said.

  “He beat a field of four hundred,” Dad said.

  “Four hundred!” Tom said.

  “Yep,” Dad said.

  “You know, I bet you can run in the Olympics someday for the USA,” Fran said.

  Fran’s words took me right back to watching Michael Johnson on the black-and-white television. “Yes,” I said. “That is my goal. One day I will run in the Olympics.” Until this moment, the Olympics had always been a far-off dream. Fran nailed it down for me. Running for the USA was no longer a dream. It was my goal, and I would give all I had to reach it.

  My mother had another goal for me, and she made sure I gave my all to reach it as well. Within days of my arrival, she told me, “You may be behind now with your education, but we will make sure you catch up. You will graduate from high school on time, and you will go on and get a college education.” She did not ask my opinion in the matter. Whether I liked the idea or not, I would finish high school and I would go on to graduate from college. No discussion. No debate. This was just the way it was going to be. It wasn’t that she was trying to force something upon me. She knew the value of an education. More than that, she saw within me the ability to reach this dream. She believed all I needed was the opportunity; then I could do the rest. And she moved heaven and earth to make sure I got the opportunity to learn.

  At the time, Mom’s goal seemed impossible. For starters, I spoke almost no English, and I could read even less. To graduate on time I had to start off in the tenth grade. “He’s sixteen,” Mom told the school administrator when she enrolled me. “He belongs in the tenth grade.” Age-wise, she had a point. However, academically, they should have placed me in kindergarten. I struggled to read, “See Jane. See Jane run. Run, Jane, run.” I did not know a consonant from a vowel, and the sounds these strange letters made did not match my Swahili patterns of speech. My math skills were not much better. As for science and history, I did not have a clue.

  Mom did not see why such minor details should stand in my way. She made hard and fast academic goals for me, and she would accept nothing less than everything I could give. From day one she worked with me on my English. Every morning she wrote a note for me on the dry-erase board on the refrigerator. I had to figure out what it said. She also placed sticky notes with English names written on everything in the house.

  At the same time, she pushed the school administrators and counselors just as hard. Tully High School did not have an ESL program when I arrived in the United States in July 2001. They did by the time I started school that fall, thanks to Mom. She pushed and pushed until the school gave in and started the program. Once classes started, she pushed the school even harder. Whenever a problem arose, she insisted the staff meet with her and settle the issue. After a while the counselors grew afraid of her. I never had anyone work so hard for me.

  Once school began, I found it hard to keep up. Mom hired a tutor to help me. Even with the help, there were days my brain ached from it all. At first I did my assignments in Swahili, then translated my work into English. One night I stayed up until two in the morning, pecking away at the computer downstairs, trying to complete a class assignment. Mom never let me get down on myself. “You are very smart, Joseph,” she told me over and over. “You can do this. Once your English improves, nothing will be able to stop you.”

  I believed her. And I kept trying. Thankfully, every school day ended with cross-country practice. Once again, running became my release, my therapy. I did not have to know the difference between a noun and a verb to run as fast as I could. Before long, running became more than therapy. The team became my closest friends.

  One of the hardest tasks I faced each day was working the combination on my school locker. Spinning the knob right, then left, then right again made absolutely no sense to me. I could not figure it out. By the time I did manage to open my locker, if I opened it at all, I wasted so much time that I walked in late for my next class. I hated being late. Even though time did not matter in Africa, when it came to schoolwork, you never came into class after the teacher. Coming in late showed a complete lack of respect for the teacher’s authority.

  Tom Carraci, the captain of the cross-country team, saw me struggling and came up with an idea. “Lopez, as soon as class ends, I will meet you at your locker,” he said. “I’ll open it, and you can grab your books and go.” I was never late for class again. Tom and I became best friends, and we still are to this day. Those first few weeks of school, I felt very alone in a foreign place. Tom stepped up and helped me navigate through school life. He taught me the meaning of friendship in America.

  My first semester didn’t go so well. I failed a few of my classes. Adjusting to the classroom and the constant barrage of English presented enough challenges, and the school environment made life even harder. I had never seen such displays of public affection like I saw in the halls of Tully High School every day. In Africa, boys and girls do not hold hands and kiss. And the teachers struck me as odd, but in a good way. I’d never had a teacher who did not beat me when I made a mistake. Although I preferred not getting swats for messing up a math quiz, it took some getting used to. I guess all the changes were too much. I ended up failing a couple of classes.

  Mom didn’t care. She marched up to the school and announced that I would be given the opportunity to take my failed classes the following summer. No one argued the point with her. The following summer, I passed every class I had failed before.

  Long before passing my classes in the summer, one teacher turned school around for me. My history teacher, Miss Riley, opened my eyes to a larger world I never knew existed and made me love school in the process. She found a way to connect with me and to connect my interests with learning.

  During the unit on World War II, everyone had to write an essay on some topic connected to the war. I had no idea what to choose. Up until a few weeks earlier, I had never heard of World War II, or World War I for that matter. Miss Riley noticed I was struggling.

  “What are you most interested in, Lopez?” she asked.

  The answer was easy. “Running,” I said. “I am going to run in the Olympics.”

  Miss Riley nodded like she knew something I did not. She pulled a book off a shelf and handed it to me. “Have you ever heard of Jesse Owens?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  “I think you will like learning about him. Why don’t you read this and write your essay about him?”

  I looked at the book cover. Jesse Owens was black, like me, and he was a runner! “Okay,” I said.

  Let me tell you, that book and that class opened up my eyes to see my Olympic goal as far bigger than sports. Jesse Owens competed in the 1936 Ol
ympics, which were held in Nazi Germany. Hitler planned on using the Olympics as a way of showing the superiority of the Aryan race, but Jesse Owens singlehandedly shoved that in his face. Not only was Owens an American, he was black as well, which made Hitler madder still. Jesse Owens refused to back down and, in the process, made a statement to the world.

  Jesse Owens inspired me. I made up my mind that I wanted to be like him. Yes, I was going to compete in the Olympics, but I would do more than compete. I would use success as a runner to make a difference in the lives of others. To do that, I needed an education. I made up my mind. I could reach this goal as well. Just like my Olympic dream, all I needed was to work hard and refuse to let failures get me down. If I did that, the rest would take care of itself.

  FOURTEEN

  9-11

  The bus dropped me off at school. I still felt a little out of place here. It was only my third week of school. Trying to communicate with my teachers and fellow students left me frustrated. I felt most comfortable around the guys on the cross-country team. Running is a language all its own, and I spoke it pretty well. Mom and Dad and I understood each other a little better, although no one understood me as well as Rascal, the family dog. He and I were on the same wavelength from the start.

  I weaved my way down the halls, past the overly affectionate couples near the front door, and through the group of freshman boys huddled together near the gym. Freshmen stood out because they were so much smaller than everyone else.

  The first bell rang. I went to my first class. The teacher lectured. I tried to tune my brain into English. I still thought and dreamed and daydreamed in Swahili. Switching to English was like tuning in a radio station that is just out of range. Forty-five minutes later the bell rang. First period ended.