Friday, October 10, 2008
Burundian Refugees in USA: Flee poverty to find poverty (Entre Nous et à Voix Basse)
`Between two vicious situations, choose the least`: some Burundians who resettled in USA can identify with this French saying. They are now part of the American society. In the American society, people belong to social classes. Most of the time, Burundian settlers belong to the poor (american definition of poverty). For those working for as less as $ 5 an hour, one understands that there is no way to humanely survive in USA: It is like being doomed to poverty. But at least they are safe, they can sleep without the fear of someone wanting to share the land they don't have. I suggest reading the article below. Find the link at the bottom of the page to ready the entire article.
Vugaduhabwe.
--------------------------------
Toilet water cascaded into the kitchen an hour before midnight and 14-year-old Theo Ndayishimiye pleaded with 911. Increasingly frustrated, the dispatcher asked whether he had called a plumber.
"No, we don't know how to speak English," the teen answered during the April call, trying to explain with words he had learned only months before. "We're from Africa."
Minutes later, Salt Lake City Fire Capt. Dennis Sharp and his crew pulled up to the tiny Salt Lake City home rented by the family of eight from Burundi.
Mold was growing in the kitchen cupboards, the bathroom and the bedrooms, health records show. Several windows were broken. The bathroom floor was destroyed.
(...)
Poverty 'overwhelming'
The piercing beep had been coming from the kitchen for a few days this August, but Cecelia Bankakaje and her family didn't know what it meant. When a family friend pulled out the smoke detector's dying batteries, the children clustered around, intent on the riddle's answer.
Cockroaches scattered out of the open cupboard doors. The Burundi refugees Cecelia Bankakaje, left, and her daughter Jeanette Matumani, 14, were among 11 family members living together this summer. When they arrived last January, they didn't receive enough coats. They say their landlord has never repaired a massive hole in one of the bedroom's walls. (Leah Hogsten/The Salt Lake Tribune)refrigerator held a half pot of potatoes, some eggs and little
Read more of this article here
Source: The Lake Salt Tribune
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
America irakwiye kuza iramenya abantu boguha reinstallation...aba baribakwiye kuja muri Suede, Life in USA is a competition...
have your say...
I totally agree with you. In USA, life is really really hard....But we should always remember that Americans, throught their histories have tried to find people who will do dirty jobs that they don`t want to do (like those paying $5 an hour). Since the latino movement is contraversial and illegal, then bringing people in the name of protection is justifiable...
Our people were not told the truth. People had false hopes of having free houses, free healthcare...I wonder how old age people cope...
Post a Comment