James Nguen was just seven years old in the early 1980s when the village he lived in with his family in Sudan was attacked.

It was early in the morning and he fled to the bush as the attackers shot his neighbours and set fire to buildings. Hiding for hours in the bush, he expected to go back to find his mother, father and siblings. But when he returned no one was there and there was nothing but corpses lying around. He would become one of the thousands of Lost Boys of Sudan.

Nguen shared his story with teachers attending the Central Alberta Teachers’ Convention on Thursday at Westerner Park, giving them a view of the challenges new Canadians have had before coming to Canada and once they arrive.

It was one of many sessions offered to Central Alberta teachers to help them learn new ways to inspire students in the classroom and improve their teaching skills.

Nguen said when he was a child, people said if the men come to attack to go the way the sun comes up, so after the attacks when no one came to help him he started walking in that direction. Eventually he met up with other children, fleeing without their parents.

They had nothing to eat and no water with them. Nguen didn’t even have shoes on his feet. The children scavenged what they could, with many dying on the trip to Ethiopia. The children sang to keep themselves going, some had to drink their own urine and many collapsed along the way.

They were run out of Ethiopia by soldiers and had to flee to the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, where the boys had to build their own shelters out of tarps given to them by the UN, pieces of scrap wood and metal.

Nguen lived there for a decade before arriving in Calgary in 2001.

He said he felt isolated in Calgary at first. He was used to living with groups of people, but he arrived in Calgary on his own. He only had a Grade 7 education when he arrived, but he wasn’t allowed to start upgrading until he’d been in the province for 12 months.

When he finally became a student he had trouble getting enough money for rent and food and had to use the food bank.

Eventually he would meet Elizabeth, herself a Sudanese refugee, they married and now have two boys Dor and Kam. Nguen, 28, is in his fourth year at the University of Calgary studying international development.

He said through all of the hardships he learned to be resilient and that no problem is everlasting.

“With all of the hardships I was able to learn that whatever happens to you if you remain tolerant you will get over problems,” Nguen said.

“If you never give up and never give in you will succeed.”

When he thought he would never see his family again he found out his mother was still alive and living in southern Sudan. He made his first trip there in 2007, returning again in 2009. He has started the Biluany Literacy and Water Project to help in reconstruction in southern Sudan.

sobrien@reddeeradvocate.com