Wings of a Bird

After Darfur, Starting Anew in the Midwest - N.Y. Times
Looking at old pictures taken in the desert sand in the Darfur region of Sudan, Fawzia Suliman pointed to one after the other: mother-in-law, sister, sister-in-law, cousin, and so on.“Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead,” she said. “All dead.”The last place that Ms. Suliman called home was a grass-topped hut that janjaweed militia members burned to the ground. She offers the scars on her feet as testament to how fast she ran to escape them in the summer of 2005, at the beginning of an unlikely journey that led to an apartment here [in Indiana].
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“I came fresh from the problem area to America and I did not know I would have so many friends here,” Ms. Suliman said in the English she still struggles to master. “So many people from Darfur come to help me, to say welcome here. I still cannot believe, every day, my God.”
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Her time in Fort Wayne has been peppered with many firsts: first time wearing pants, driving a car, using a fork, saving money in a bank account, not having to walk two hours for fresh water, being able to eat to the point of feeling full.
“One thing I still have a problem with is the nice food in America,” she said. “I keep the pictures of my family on my refrigerator to remember when we could not eat. It makes me sick. I do not like to remember.”
There is a picture of her husband on the refrigerator, too. They were separated during their chaotic nighttime flight from the approaching militia in the summer of 2005.
She prays that he is alive, that one day he will meet their 1-year-old son, Zakaria.
“I am working to find him,” she said, “so I can bring him here and show him how nice the life is.”