Crises know no bounds

Tuesday, Sept. 21, was supposed to be a normal day for Benson Lang’at. He would get up, enjoy a cup to Kenyan tea accompanied by buttered toast and go about his daily routine of a morning run and a study session.

However, that Saturday morning was drastically altered the moment he awoke to a text from a friend informing him Nairobi’s Westgate shopping center had been attacked by Islamist fighters from Somalia’s al-Shabaab.

Originally from Eldoret, Kenya, Lang’at is one out of more than 200 international students studying at the University of South Dakota who is on his way to earning an undergraduate degree in social work and will graduate in May.

“Being in America is an opportunity for me to see the world for how it is,” Lang’at said.

And while he said his decision to study in the U.S. has been one of the best choices of his life, Lang’at said it comes at a cost, both physically and emotionally.

“There are times you want to sit at the table with your family and eat dinner,” said Lang’at, who has not seen his family in person for roughly four years. “Even though I miss my family, I know I’m here for a reason, and (my family) knows that.”

Lang’at’s stress of attaining an education nearly 24 hours away from his immediate family was intensified after the news of the Nairobi’s Westgate attack began to spread around the world.

Having family and friends living in the country’s capital, Lang’at said the one thing he most prominently remembers about the first few days of the attack is calling his family about every six hours to ensure their safety.

“It’s hard to see what’s going on right now and to forgive those people, because they’re just killing innocent people,” he said.

Among the more than 200 people who were killed, injured or reported missing as a result of the attack, Lang’at said only one of his friends who was at the site at the time of the attack sustained injuries.

According to Lang’at, the Westgate attack evoked memories from his past when he and his cousin witnessed one of the 1998 Al Qaeda attacks on the Nairobi U.S. Embassy, which resulted in the death of hundreds of people.

“I saw it with my neck and eyes, the building and everything,” Lang’at said. “And ever since then I’ve tried forgiving those people; I saw blood all over and it’s just been haunting me.”

Support in times of crisis abroad

Providing services to help the international student population deal with any emergencies they may experience with life in America or back in their home country, the Center for International Programs and Events was created in July 2013 to enhance USD’s campus-wide support system for international students.

Program Director Ling Zhang said a main reason for creating the center was to mirror the atmosphere domestic students usually encounter while in college for students new to the country.

“USD is a very tight community and we want our international community to also be very tight,” she said.

Overseen by Provost Chuck Staben, the programs Ling and the center organize are wide-ranging, varying from board game nights to information sessions on various topics.

For example, a pre-football info session was held before the Oct. 5 homecoming football game to explain the basic concepts of the sport. According to Ling, more than 30 international students participated in the event.

“We recognized international students’ need for a special service to enhance their experience,” Zhang said. “We want to be their home away from home.”

The start of something new

Mid-January 2011 marked the start of another semester at USD for Musheera Anis, who was gearing up for her third semester to attain her Ph.D. in educational psychology.

Life was going well for her and her family after she and her two daughters made the transition from Malsura, Egypt to Vermillion in the hopes that she would fulfill her goal of furthering her education. Then, on Jan. 25, reports that a revolution had erupted throughout Egypt began to flood social media and news sites.

With widespread reports of riots breaking out against the regime of then Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak across the nation, Anis said the start of the revolution was very intense, as the majority of her family resided in either Malsura or Cairo, and she did not know how they would be affected by the unfolding events.

“I remember I spent the first 18 days of the revolution on the couch with the TV turned on 24/7,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat and if I did sleep for a few hours, I would wake up to call my husband and get the rundown of what was happening.”

Throughout the next two years, Anis worked through her studies amidst the revolution occurring in her home country and neared the completion of her degree, either graduating in December or in the spring.

“I don’t regret this decision,” she said. “It’s such a privilege to be here, and I’m not sure Americans are aware of how fortunate they are to be here.”

In her five years of living in the U.S., Anis has been raising her three daughters as a single mother, while her husband, Hatim, remains in Egypt working as an anesthesiologist, a physician and a professor at Malsura University.

According to Anis, the decision she and her husband made to raise their children in the U.S. is in part because of the cultural opportunities and to provide them with a better education than they might receive in Egypt.

“(My daughters) would love to go back to Egypt, but they would want to be home schooled, because it’s a very different educational system there,” Ani said. “They want to go back because they miss their family, but they love it here.”

Returning to Egypt each summer to visit and with Hatim visiting Vermillion frequently, Anis said keeping her native culture instilled in her daughters’ lives has been challenging — but not impossible.

“I think my biggest challenge right now is with Arabic, because they are exposed to English all the time,” she said. “It’s such a beautiful language, and I just don’t want them to lose it.”

Talking with students and community members throughout the past five years, Anis said the preconceived notion many people believe in which she is thankful she was living in the U.S. during the most intense moments of the revolution is sometimes bothersome.

“I really didn’t have a response for that (statement) because my mom is there, my nephews are there, my sister is there, my grandma is there, all the people I care about in the world are there,” she said. “Even the ones that I don’t know personally who died, it hurts when they die at such a young age.”

Proving a point

Even at the age of 17, Shamly Mackey is confident in his decision to attend USD to study computer science.

While most of his family and peers from Sri Lanka never considered the U.S. as an option in the countries he might go to study, Mackey was determined to prove them wrong. So when Mackey arrived in the U.S. Aug. 19, he knew he had already surpassed major hurdles in his educational journey.

“The thing (my parents) failed to notice about me coming to the U.S. to study was it didn’t matter where I went, since there are different types of crowds everywhere, and it depends on how you turn out to be and not the country and the people there,” Mackey said.

Communicating with his family on a weekly-basis, Mackey said his parents have now come to appreciate his decision in choosing to study at USD.

Attending USD at a younger age than most, Mackey said he still wonders about his family back in Sri Lanka and how they continue to interact with each other in his absence.

“My brother is the one I miss the most,” he said. “It’s just sad I won’t be there for him like physically and emotionally when he is growing up.”

Not planning to return home to Sri Lanka for another two years because of the large traveling expense, Mackey is also leery about the well being of his father, who works for the company NOLIMIT.

Bodu Bala Sena, a Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist organization that campaigns against the country’s minority Muslim and Christian communities, has in the past targeted the company, which employs Muslim businessmen, said Mackey.

“Most likely nothing will happen to them, but it’s still on my mind,” Mackey said.