A Lost Boy Grows Up

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/08/magazine/a-lost-boy-grows-up.html?hp

by wallflower • 13 years ago

67 12 13 years ago

nytimes.com

primitivesuave• 13 years ago

His resilience is extraordinary.

l0stb0y• 13 years ago

Thanks!

ojbyrne• 13 years ago

If this is actually Jacob Deng Mach, welcome. Your story was inspiring, and you belong here.

drakaal2• 13 years ago

I volunteered in Sudan. People tell me how bad they have it here. They complain about things. They tell me how their job sucks. How hard they have it.

Sudan was hell. I can't imagine places worse. I saw infants clinging to their dead mother in the street. Diseases that disfigured. Horrible treatment of women and children.

It is not all like that, but there are little pockets of Hell through out it.

I was there trying to help with water purification. I no longer take for granted many things. I know the value of clean water, vaccinations, sanitation, human rights.

I would say that everyone should go there once so they can appreciate how great it is to not be there.

auctiontheory• 13 years ago

I saw infants clinging to their dead mother in the street.

Wow. That gives one a perspective on life.

drakaal2• 13 years ago

Yeah. And being told by doctors that I shouldn't have picked up an infant without a Hazmat suit was eye opening.

The Doctors and Nurses barely touch anything, they swear, and I believe them, that a scrape from a railing, or a fall on the stairs can be all it takes to get an HIV infection. Like we think of tetanus they think of Hep, and HIV.

srean• 13 years ago

this would perhaps add a little photographic perspective http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_RgGNiCL8jK0/TFuDfppScAI/AAAAAAAAA3... Its the iconic picture by Kevin Carter shot 3 months prior to him committing suicide.

jlukecarlson• 13 years ago

Jacob told the Greens he was sure they had struggled as well. “What matters,” he said, “is your determination, your dedication, your ability to move your own challenges.”

Given his life experiences it is so cool that he refrains from judging people and it's sad that people who have endured much much less feel entitled to look down on others.

paternalist• 13 years ago

Take up the White Man's burden

Send forth the best ye breed

Go bind your sons to exile

To serve your captives' need;

To wait in heavy harness,

On fluttered folk and wild

Your new-caught, sullen peoples,

Half-devil and half-child.

ClassicFarris• 13 years ago

There is also a NYT documentary at http://www.hulu.com/watch/566985 which I saw browsing on Hulu.

A Lost Boy Grows Up

Related Stories