Few of us can forget the horrors of the 1990’s Romanian orphanages. Following the fall of the Ceausescu Communist regime in 1989, Romania, though newly liberated, became known for the appalling conditions within its state-run orphanages and institutions. The world was stunned by television and newspaper images of half-starved abandoned children chained to their beds. Aid agencies rushed to help; governments throughout the world condemned what they saw; and newspaper columns were full of accounts of the atrocities.

Yet behind the scenes, the practice in Romania of abandoning children went unchallenged. A 1990 UNICEF report claimed that at the time, 86,000 children lived in institutions. Despite media attention to the situation, by 1994, that number had risen to 98,000. Perhaps even more surprising is that despite a significant increase in international adoptions, that 1994 figure had only fallen to just over 80,000 in 2005. Between 1992 and 1994, about 10,000 Romanian children were adopted by foreign families worldwide, according to a report by Toronto Life.

Official line

Officially, the orphanages in Romania have all been closed as one of the preconditions for joining the European Union (EU) in 2007, which followed a 2001 European Parliament report criticizing the country for its continued mistreatment of orphans. However, today the question remains: What exactly has happened to the thousands of children who were living in the large state orphanages?

While international adoption has been illegal in Romania since 2001, a report published by the Romanian National Authority for Child Protection in 2004 told of a total of 81,233 orphans at that time. Of those, 14,825 now live in foster care in Romania, 26,612 are in state care, and the remaining orphans are either living with extended family members or in private care homes. The now-notorious orphanages of those television images in the 1990s have all been replaced by smaller and more modern institutions, where six or seven children share a room, despite the official line that there is no overcrowding or bed sharing.  

Meanwhile, the world’s media has largely moved on to other, more current events. Aside from a few celebrities, such as J.K. Rowling, author of the “Harry Potter” books, and Sarah Brown, wife of Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who have rallied to the cause of Romanian orphans, the major problems Romania’s child care system faces have been ignored. Most people think these problems ended once and for all when Romania joined the EU in 2007. Indeed, Baroness Emma Nicholson, member of European Parliament for South East England and an international campaigner for children’s rights, was once credited with bringing media attention to the grim conditions within Romanian orphanages. Last year, however, the baroness went so far as to claim that “Romania has fundamentally reformed its child protection system and has gone from having the worst system in Europe to developing one of the best.”

The real story

Sadly, however, the reality is far different. The U.N.’s 2009 report State of the World’s Children claims Romania’s child mortality rate is 15,000 per year. In comparison, the child mortality rate in the United States is reported to be 8,000 per year. Although the children who remain in the state institutions are no longer tied to beds, they face other problems. In October 2008, the General Directorate of Social Welfare and Child Services (DGASPC) issued a report in which the Romanian head of the Social Inspection Agency, Maria Muga, stated that 92.5 percent of the children in state care do not own any toys; 97.5 percent have no cultural and sporting equipment; 77.5 percent have no school supplies; and 65 percent have no toiletry and hygiene supplies.

As for the children now in foster care, a recent DGASPC report claims that, on average, there is one social worker for every 100 children. Since joining the EU, Romania has guaranteed that at least one social worker monitors the progress of 25 children in foster care. The report goes on to detail significant problems at the organizational level of foster care, backing up the 2006 UNICEF Romania report, which concludes, “an underestimation of the issues at stake has resulted in too many reforms under pressure, which in turn have led to uncoordinated, contradictory and unfocussed stop-and-go reforms.” 

Indeed, the sheer number of so many children requiring some kind of state help creates further problems. A joint UNICEF and World Bank study in April 2009 explored the impact of the global recession on the poor in Romania, and concluded that Romania’s state services “are either insufficient or lacking the necessary quality to effectively protect the most in need children.” It is hardly surprising that problems go unchecked or ignored when there are so few Romanian social workers. Transparency International, an anticorruption watchdog organization, ranked Romania as the second most corrupt country in the EU last year. In a country where bribes are all too common, questions still remain about the effectiveness and integrity of Romania’s child support services.

Much has been made of the success of Romanian migration workers. According to a February 2009 New York Times article, one-third of Romanians now work and live abroad, mostly within the EU member states, enjoying better wages and perhaps a higher quality of life. Meanwhile, Romanian statistics tell us that 10 percent of children in state care are there simply because their parents are working abroad and they have no family member available to look after them. Yet even those children who live with relatives could still face difficulties. According to the Romanian Child Protection Department, despite having access to cell phones and other gadgets, Romanian children still suffer the psychological damage associated with long-term separation from their parents.

The Relief Fund for Romania estimates that there are 6,000 street children in the country, while UNICEF estimated in 2004 that 2,000 children lived on the streets of Bucharest, 500 of them permanently, either working or begging to survive. The majority of these street children spend their days in the capital, either because of overcrowding where they live or because of their disinterest in school, whereas the 500 children who are mainly orphans are 24-hour street children, spending their nights sleeping rough. The 2001 Oscar-nominated film Children Underground documented their hardship, with harrowing scenes of bored children spending their days in a daze, getting high and feeling worthless.

Special cases

Life for the “typical” Romanian orphan is brighter than it is for disabled and Roma orphans. According to a 2007 Harvard Review article, “having attained EU membership, Romania now has less incentive to improve the conditions for disabled children, but has instead turned a blind eye.” Romania’s Law 272 on children’s rights specifies that orphans under the age of two cannot live in state-run institutions, but disabled orphans are to be sent there from birth.

The sad fact is that disabled children are unlikely to be placed with foster families, and they will spend their entire lives in these institutions, which may not be officially called “orphanages.” These institutions are, according to the Harvard Review, “not proper homes for children and further the development of disabilities.” UNICEF estimates that there are about 200 of these institutions in Romania, housing up to 30,000 disabled children. The report goes on to claim that only 28 percent of the 52,000 disabled children living in Romania obtain some level of education.

The Gypsy community of Romania may be romanticized by outsiders, but according to UNICEF, the Roma population, which makes up 7 percent of the Romanian population, has a poverty rate of 77 percent. Karen Bucur, director of Pathway to Joy, a Romanian-American charity that works with the Gypsy community, told me, “Their poverty is hard to describe. There is no running water, [and] with that comes health issues and diseases. The children are uneducated for the most part.”

A representative of the Scottish charity Mary’s Meals added, “With only the local rubbish dump to play on, the children are so deprived that they steal to eat. Many of them live in 19th-century conditions.” One could argue that due to the stigma attached to the Roma community within Romania, these vulnerable children rely even more on outside help in a country where their own social services cannot be relied upon.

Bucur tells of two little abandoned Roma girls, Alexandra and Alina, whom the charity found in a dreadful state last winter. The girls were without clothing and food, and with no immediate support from Social Services. The charity was forced to act independently to secure the children’s safety, and Alexandra and Alina now live with a foster family financially supported by Pathway to Joy.

One aspect worth examining, as it is seemingly ignored by the Romanian government, is the support available to the now-adult orphans of the Ceausescu regime. As explored in an in-depth 2005 BBC report, for many, a normal adult life remains out of reach. The report concluded that while some had indeed managed to make a successful life for themselves, many remained traumatized. With little support from the government and surviving on the fringes of society, many of these now-adult orphans are addicted to drugs or alcohol. Other survivors — those who had been tied into their hospital cots for their entire childhood — now show signs of stunted growth and have difficulty walking. Others still wear diapers or can take food only from a bottle because they never had the chance to develop their chewing muscles.

A scandal in Romania earlier this year involved a man who died in a hospital, waiting to be seen after he had a heart attack. One nurse admitted that nobody treated him because he “looked too poor to be able to offer a bribe to be seen.” In a country where health care can often depend on how much you are prepared to bribe doctors for treatment, orphans are unlikely to receive the best treatment possible, as fast as possible.

Following EU criticism, the Romanian government has promised reforms and recently set up a toll- free telephone number that Romanians can call to reveal the names of hospitals and doctors who have accepted bribes. Within an hour of opening, the telephone lines were inundated with calls, and jammed.

A long way to go

It could be argued that an orphan’s fate in Romania often comes down to sheer luck. If an orphan is fortunate enough to be taken in by a loving foster family or to receive help through one of the local charities such as Pathway to Joy or Mary’s Meals, he or she may well be able to have a normal childhood. However, if an orphan is disabled, or happens to have been born in a Gypsy village, or is living on the street, his or her life — and certainly mental well-being — hang in the balance.

Vast improvements have been made in Romania’s child welfare issues — undoubtedly Baroness Nicholson’s remarks give us all reason to hope this is so. Yet Romania still has a long way to go. The responsibility to remember Romanian children and to fight for their welfare lies not only with the Romanian government and with EU country members, but with individuals across the globe. Romania is no longer the country we read about a decade ago. It is receiving financial support from the EU and the World Bank, and a number of reforms have been introduced to help the poor. Admittedly, these efforts have had mixed results, with UNICEF claiming earlier this year that welfare money is not reaching the most needy. We cannot simply ignore the daily struggle the poor face in the small Balkan country of 22 million. Romania and its orphans need not only our support, but also our continued interest, to truly prosper.

Stephen Patrick Maughan

At 7 o’clock on a cool fall morning, Matthew Kongo steps out of the Spencer Press printing plant and into daylight. The air coming off the ocean to the east is moist, the world quiet compared to the printing room inside where Kongo, 65, has been working the night shift. He wears a gray fleece jacket, dark jeans, and heavy leather work boots. Large thin-rimmed glasses balance on his wide nose, magnifying soft, sleepless brown eyes.

Kongo is still for a moment, looking out into the company’s parking lot as if taking in the world anew. During his 12-hour shifts, he stands at a computer terminal, moving paper into the production line with a large crane. After a spate of recent layoffs, he has been manning two cranes at once to increase efficiency. It’s difficult, repetitive work, especially with an injured back, a lingering reminder of his previous life in Sudan.

Kongo spots his coworker Hassan Ahmed’s Toyota four-door pulling around to the worker’s entrance. He slowly walks over to the car and gets inside. Ahmed is a refugee from Sudan, as is Kongo, although they come from far corners of the large country. Ahmed is from Darfur in the west; Kongo is from southern Sudan.

During the drive back to Portland, Maine, half an hour to the north, the two men speak of their home country and the problems there. They talk about ethnic and religious conflicts, about disputes between the central government and outlying areas, about the brutal wars that have engulfed the country for most of their lives. Solutions to Sudan’s problems seem hard to come by, and the causes almost too numerous to count.

Ahmed drops Kongo off at his home, an apartment in a three-story Victorian near the heart of Portland. Kongo climbs the stairs to the third floor where he and his family live. His wife Rose is about to head off to her job at Maine Medical Center, so they have only a brief moment together before she leaves. Their 10-year-old daughter Nancy, her hair tightly braided, is just finishing breakfast and is ready for Kongo to take her to school.

Kongo slowly makes his way back down the stars as Nancy runs ahead and jumps into the backseat of his Dodge sedan. Kongo then drives her across town to Cathedral School, where she has recently started classes. She had been going to the local public school, but was recommended by her teachers to go to a private school where she might have more opportunities. Kongo and Rose are hopeful that Nancy will go to college one day. Her sister Catherine, 19, arrived in the United States as an adolescent, and has had a tougher time adjusting to life in her new home. She recently graduated from high school and is now babysitting for relatives.

After dropping Nancy off at school, Kongo returns home for breakfast and a few hours of sleep. But he has many things he needs to do today. There is a meeting with fellow refugees to discuss housing options, a stop at Hannaford for the family’s groceries, and an upcoming community event to plan. His next shift at Spencer Press starts again tonight at seven.
 
*****

The door opens and cold air rushes into the auditorium. Two young children enter and make their way to one of the round tables where other Sudanese children sit. Two tables of adults are among the children. Between the stage and the tables, a small group of boys and girls in jeans, hooded sweatshirts, and wool sweaters walk around a circle of chairs, while R & B blasts from large speakers on either side of the stage.

Kongo, dressed in a striped charcoal suit, leans back in a folding metal chair, his body relaxed but his face serious. Deep wrinkles frame his pursed lips. The deejay near the stage hits a switch and the music abruptly stops. The children run to sit down, bumping against one another, some winding up on the hardwood floor. The sound of laughter erupts inside the room. A large smile flashes across Kongo’s face as he leans forward, his hands coming together in a single loud clap.
 
Tonight is billed as a “Back to School Night” by the Sudanese Community Association of Maine, which hopes to show these children how important education is to their new lives in America. Kongo is president of the association. Fifty children are present tonight — many more than last year — but there are few parents. It’s one of the main problems the association faces in trying to send these children to college one day. For so many Sudanese in Maine, life is little more than work, school, food, and sleep. There is hardly time for events like these, where parents can show their enthusiasm for school.

The youngest children, no more than four or five years old, chase each other around the room, while the women, wearing bright dresses and dark suits, sit at their table and speak in hushed tones. At the men’s table there’s talk of Sudan, Al-Bashir, United Nations troops, and the upcoming game: Patriots vs. Dolphins. Kongo is among them, standing up to shake the hand of every adult who walks through the door. Then he leans into a conversation and answers questions in a mix of Arabic and English. Rose sits at the women’s table and speaks to a Sudanese woman in her 60s, who has just arrived in the United States. Nancy listens attentively at one of the far tables with the rest of the children.

Nancy’s sister Catherine, in jeans and a fleece jacket, is the night’s emcee. After the games, she challenges the children with trivia questions: “Who is the president of the United States?”; “Who was the first president of the United States?”; “Who was the president before the current one?”; “Who is the president of Sudan?” A child raises her hand confidently, but when she’s called on she sinks into her seat, smiles, and loses her words. Most of the children know the answer to the first three questions, but the younger ones have trouble naming the president of Sudan. Several older children, sitting at their own table in the back, raise their hands. When called on, they intone, “Al-Bashir.”

In the last 15 years, Maine has attracted Sudanese refugees with its image of a slow pace of life and the absence of violent crime. There are over 6,000 living in the state, most of them in Portland. Kongo came to Maine because he thought it would be a good place to raise his children. Unfortunately, many refugees — Kongo included — have found Portland to be a typical city with its share of drugs, racism, and hostility to immigrants.

Excitement pulses through the room as trays, bowls, and boxes of food emerge from the kitchen: okra with stewed beef, eggplant in peanut sauce, salad greens, cucumber and tomatoes, white rice, macaroni and cheese, potato chips, meatballs, and pepperoni pizza. The children are reminded to have a little of everything, to not eat just one kind of food. They line up single file, a train of children, front to back, waiting impatiently for their turn as the adults move through the line first.

When dinner is over, Kongo slowly stands and walks to the front of the room. He takes the microphone and speaks to the children in English. He urges those who have come alone to go straight home and tell their parents all about tonight. And he encourages everyone to tell their Sudanese friends who are not present how much fun they had and to come to the next event. He wishes them all a good night, and then puts the microphone down and makes his way back to his table. As children leave, Kongo joins the men folding and stacking chairs on the side of the auditorium. 

*****

Sudan, Kongo’s homeland and the largest country in Africa, sits south of Egypt on the Red Sea and covers an area of 1 million square miles — about one-third the size of the United States. Sudan has been in a state of civil war for most of the last 50 years, and as a result, Sudanese refugees have been forced to resettle throughout the world. The conflicts between the north and the south — and the recent conflict in Darfur, which began in 2003 — have complex historical antecedents that cannot be explained simply (as they often are) as a war between black Africans and Arabs or between Christians and Muslims. But however complex, Kongo is quick to point out that race and religion play an important role in the civil wars.

Sudan is a diverse country, with more than 140 native languages, 19 ethnic groups, and many local religions. Christianity arrived in the fourth century and Islam followed several hundred years later, brought into the Nile region by Arabs from the Middle East. The Arabs, who came to dominate the north, forcibly spread Islam throughout much of the area. They began programs to centralize authority in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, while marginalizing outlying areas. They enslaved black Africans and extracted resources from the south, including ivory and, more recently, oil. Most of the country’s arable land and natural resources are located in the south.

Kongo was born in Yei, a provincial headquarters on Sudan’s southern border with the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) and Uganda. He was born on December 8, 1944, 12 years before Sudan gained its independence from the British and 11 years before the south’s trouble with the north began in earnest. The British had co-ruled Sudan as a colony from 1899 until 1955 with Egypt. In practice, however, Sudan was ruled as two separate states: a northern Islamic state and a southern Christian state.

When Kongo was a boy, a mutiny by disaffected southern soldiers led the British to rush plans for Sudanese independence. They granted formal independence on January 1, 1956, before a permanent constitution could be signed into law. Debate about southern autonomy and federalism were relegated to the future. With the south’s concerns unaddressed, a civil war broke out in the form of a guerilla conflict that turned into a conventional war. Aside from a 10-year break from 1973 to 1983, which did little to ameliorate the underlying causes of the first war, war has continued for 50 years. A peace agreement signed in January 2005 signaled a chance for lasting peace in southern Sudan, just as the fighting in Darfur escalated.

Kongo was born into the Mundu, one of the many black African tribes indigenous to southern Sudan. He was raised in the Catholic Church, and moved when he was 18 to El Obeid, a town southwest of Khartoum, to start high school at the Comboni Catholic School. But after only one year he decided it would be best to leave Sudan; the civil war had intensified to the point where he feared for his life. The borders in the south were closed. The only way out of Sudan into exile would be to make the dangerous journey through the north. He telephoned his parents and told them he was about to leave the country. They gave him their blessing and said, simply, “Go in peace, and let God guide you and bless you.” He would never see them again.

Ready to make the journey out of Sudan, 19-year-old Kongo was joined by one of his teachers, Alfonse Abugo. They packed their bags and took a train to Khartoum, where they boarded a bus to the eastern city of Kassala, on the border with Ethiopia (now part of  present-day Eritrea), where the flat yellow desert stretches to the base of gray, rocky cliffs that rise 1,000 feet over the city. From Kassala they walked into the wilderness toward the border. Alert to the possibility of trouble, the two men buried their bags in the sand under a bridge before entering a small nomadic village. There, among huts thrown together with mud, canvas, and tin, they were met by several men with friendly gestures, and were given milk to drink. They took a seat on a mat outside one of the huts, where they rested.

After an hour filled with quiet conversation, a man appeared wearing a white jelabia — a long flowing shirt that reaches down past the knees — over white baggy pants. A long, curved sword hung from his waist. Their luck seemed to be up.

The man began interrogating them, asking them why they were on the border, about to leave the country. Kongo lied. He told the man that they were on their way to Asmara, in Ethiopia, for a weekend of shopping. The man became more and more suspicious, and asked them about their faith. He accused them of being antigovernment because they were southerners and Christians. He accused them of leaving the country to join the rebels. They denied the charges.

As the man became increasingly agitated, one of the other men from the village stood up and told the travelers, “Please know that I am not going to be one of those that may harm you. And let your blood not touch me or my children.” Incensed by the outburst, the hostile man attacked this man, their defender, saying that he was antigovernment. “You are a traitor,” he yelled.

While the Arab men argued, Kongo leaned over to his teacher and said, “This is the chance. You start running.” Kongo was young, broad-shouldered, and strong. He was confident that he could ward off the men if they attacked, especially since they wore long, clumsy clothes that would keep them from running fast. “And never mind about whatever is happening to me,” he told his friend. “I will be behind to make sure that nobody runs after you.”

Abugo turned and ran toward the bridge where they had hidden their bags. A commotion ensued, and the agitated man chased after Abugo. Kongo rushed after the man and kicked his legs out from under him. He took the man’s sword and stood over him. The other men scattered as Kongo brought the sword — still in its sheath — up into the air and then down onto the man’s back with a dull thud. As the man cried out, Kongo ran off into the desert, joining his teacher under the bridge, where they spent the night. In the morning, they walked several miles down the road before reaching a roadside bus stop, where they got on a bus that took them to Asmara. Kongo would not return to Sudan for 26 years.

*****

The aisles of Portland’s Hannaford supermarket are brimming with food. Kongo is in the cereal aisle, leaning into his shopping cart as he makes his way to the back of the store to pick up a carton of orange juice. He moves through the store slowly, methodically.

In the meat section, Kongo recognizes a West African immigrant in his late 30s. They shake hands and the man asks him about another member of the Sudanese community. Kongo explains that there have been two untimely deaths in the man’s family. The conversation switches directions, and the man says he knows of some jobs opening up at a local plant. He asks Kongo if he can pass the information on to the Sudanese community. “No problem,” Kongo replies.

Moving on to a new aisle, Kongo adds a box of tea and a package of sliced banana bread to his cart before heading to the customer service desk to send a remittance to his niece in Cairo, Egypt — the real business of his visit to Hannaford. Kongo’s niece and her three children, like many displaced Sudanese, are waiting in Egypt for their refugee status to be confirmed by the United Nations so that they can be accepted to a new home, most likely the United States, Canada, or Australia.

Kongo takes a Western Union slip from a pile and squints to read the instructions; he left his glasses at home. He leans on the table, his head close to the slip. After carefully filling out the form, he takes it up to the counter. “You’re missing a section,” says the young man. Kongo walks back to the pile of slips, takes another, and fills out the missing section.

Back at the counter, while Kongo waits in line, some change drops out of his pocket. “Sir,” a man behind him says, and points to the ground. A large smile flashes across Kongo’s face. He bends over to pick it up. “Thank you,” he says, before turning forward and resuming his stoic expression.

At the counter, the man looks over the form again. Everything seems to be correct this time. He spells out the name aloud while Kongo listens to make sure the money goes to the right person. “One hundred dollars,” Kongo says. “No, one hundred and twenty dollars.” The man turns to enter the information in his machine. “One hundred dollars for her rent deposit, twenty dollars for pocket money. One hundred dollars there is like five hundred dollars here.”

*****

The Kongo family lived in Cairo in 2000. They were four of the more than 414,000 displaced Sudanese there, many awaiting emigration to an unknown new home. Rose was the first to get a job, so she worked while Kongo stayed home with their young daughters.

Displaced persons seeking refugee status are required to register with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees within a week of arrival. After Kongo registered, he was given a date and time to return for an interview. He would need to provide the reason he fled Sudan and give evidence that he could not return. While many spend years awaiting refugee status, it did not take long for Kongo. His was an obvious case.

After escaping Sudan in 1963, Kongo lived in several East African countries, graduating from high school and then working for various firms before becoming the chief executive officer of a logistics company in Uganda. The company handled all of the exports for Uganda during a coffee boom, and Kongo reaped the benefits: cars, a driver, and a staffed house. But despite the plush life he had made for himself in Uganda, Kongo yearned to return to Sudan, his home.

So in 1989, three years after marrying Rose, Kongo moved his family to Juba, the capital of southern Sudan, about 100 miles from his native Yei. He accepted a position as a relief and agricultural coordinator for Sudan Aid, a nongovernmental organization working with internally displaced people in southern Sudan during the height of the second civil war. As government soldiers shelled the towns of southern Sudan, scores of people made the journey to Juba to live in camps on the outskirts of town. Kongo arranged for aid to be distributed within the camps.

Then in 1999, without warning, Kongo was arrested and charged with aiding the rebels. He adamantly denied the charge, but was sent to a detention center anyway. Government officers interrogated him about his alleged involvement with the rebels. Interrogations in the prison involved psychological intimidation, beatings, and pressure holds. Kongo sustained a back injury that would not be treated until he reached the United States over a year later. The pain still has not totally subsided. Kongo refused to admit to a crime he had not committed, but the interrogations continued with no formal trial.

While he was imprisoned, Sudan Aid and the Catholic Church worked on his behalf. Their efforts paid off, and he was released a month after he entered prison, on the condition that he never reveal the details of his stay. He continues to keep his silence.

Knowing that he could be arrested again at any moment if he remained in Sudan, Kongo fled to Egypt with his family, leaving on a train in the middle of the night. After a year in Cairo, they were accepted into the United States and arrived in Portland on January 31, 2001.

*****

It’s Saturday night, and Portland’s many restaurants are full of patrons. As the night wears on, the tiny bars on Congress Street and the large, popular ones in the Old Port begin to fill up. Bands take the stage and music escapes through doorways into the cobbled streets.

Kongo sits on one of the couches in his living room. He leans back, letting his right leg extend straight out in front of him, his bare feet resting on the carpet. News from CNN flashes across a large-screen TV sitting prominently on a wooden entertainment center. Rebels in Darfur have scored a major victory against government soldiers in Sudan. Kongo watches attentively. With little time to read, he has turned to CNN to stay informed and learn about politics.

In the spring, Kongo’s political skills were put to the test when the Maine legislature considered a bill to divest the state’s retirement funds from Sudan. The Sudanese government uses much of its revenue for military expenditures, meaning that money invested in Sudan indirectly funds weapons used in Darfur. At the time, Maine had more than $50,000,000 invested in companies doing business in Sudan.

Several members of the Maine House and Senate were reluctant to vote in favor of the bill, so Kongo got in his Dodge sedan and drove to Augusta, the state capital, to lobby with other Sudanese refugees on behalf of the bill. He spoke to the opponents, explaining the situation in Sudan. He made the drive three times. Later, when the bill came to a vote, it passed unanimously. In April, Kongo was invited to stand beside Governor Baldacci as he signed it into law.

Kongo calls to Nancy, who is in another room doing homework while her older sister watches TV. She opens the door, and R & B follows her out of the room. Kongo asks her in Arabic to put on hot water and make a cup of Milo, a chocolate drink popular in the developing world.

“In the time I’ve been in the United States,” Kongo says, “I have never once been to a beer bar. I have never had one beer outside of my home. There just isn’t any time.”

Nancy returns with a cup of Milo on a saucer, and sets it down on the coffee table in the center of the room. Rose is working at Maine Medical Center until 1 o’clock tonight, assisting doctors in the emergency room. Nancy returns to her room through the kitchen. The girls do not like CNN, so they usually watch their own TV while Kongo takes in the world’s events by himself. Sometimes, particularly when professional wrestling is on, they all sit together in the living room and watch.

Across Portland, on Munjoy Hill and in Kennedy Park, Sudanese children are watching Egyptian movies on satellite TV; they are watching American sitcoms with their siblings, and they are playing games with neighborhood friends. Their parents are coming home from work, or are heading out the door on their way to work, or are in the next room studying for a college class. Some are sitting next to their children, telling stories. There are moments of relaxation.

“I’m becoming too old to work on my feet all the time,” Kongo says meditatively. “Perhaps I will go back to school. Political science. Or maybe economics. You need a degree to work in an office in this country.” There’s a pause, and then a smile. “I might start my own business. I ran a transportation business before, in Africa. I could buy a truck, an 18-wheeler. I know a man who would drive it.”

Tomorrow evening at 6 o’clock, Kongo will pull on his work boots and drive to Hassan Ahmed’s house to pick him up. The two will then drive to Spencer Press and start another workweek. Kongo will stand at his computer terminal for another 12 hours, moving rolls of paper into the production line.

For now, though, he sits back on his couch and contemplates the possibilities.

Kyle Boelte and Anna M. Weaver are documenting Sudanese refugee life on four continents. More information can be found at www.acrossfourcontinents.org.

Kyle Boelte

It is 6 a.m. Monday. The winter sun has not yet risen, but slowly, shadows of men flit through the dark. They gather against the bare rock walls of Pare de Sufrir Church in Woodside.

And in the morning emptiness, the laborers of Roosevelt Avenue begin their daylong vigil for temporary work.

A giant white cross hangs on the corner of the church, obscured by the elevated tracks of the No. 7 line that runs along Roosevelt. At 8:30 a.m., more than 50 Latino men, mostly from Ecuador, gather on all four corners of the intersection and wait.

For day laborers, New York City has long been a mecca where pay was good and work plentiful, according to Oscar Parades-Morales, executive director of the Latin American Workers Project in Jackson Heights. As the rest of the nation went through the subprime mortgage crisis, workers from as far off as California converged on the city looking for work, says Parades-Morales.

But in recent months, the construction industry has entered a slump. New York state has lost 2,000 jobs in construction since September 2007, according to the Department of Labor. A report released by the New York Building Congress, which represents the construction industry, expects 30,000 jobs to be lost in the city by 2010.

On Roosevelt, the workers are already facing difficult times. Last October, police arrested 10 laborers for obstructing the sidewalk at 37th Avenue and Broadway, three blocks east of the intersection. The incident was unusual, but has left the men apprehensive.

Below the white cross is a short, middle-aged, undocumented man who refused to reveal his name. “Jose” crossed into the United States from Ecuador seven years ago with his family.

“Running. Running [through] El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico,” he says. “Maybe all day here.”

Jose is desperate for work. He needs money for child support payments to maintain visitation rights to his daughter and son.

Jose’s friend, “Jorges,” who also declined to identify himself, has his family in Ecuador. He came to New York City in 1986 when Ronald Reagan was president. He is taller than the others and is dressed in a brown leather jacket and a navy blue “NY” cap turned backward on his head.

“My baby,” he says of his nine-year-old son as he pulls out a passport-size photo of a black-haired, chubby boy from his wallet. “My wife.” He displays a photo of an unsmiling woman.

“No job yesterday. This year, no job,” he says. He has filled out an application for work in Manhattan, but no one calls him. So he ends up with the uncertainty of Roosevelt, waiting for contractors who pay less than minimum wage and hire one person for jobs that require at least two workers.

The men wait at a street corner until a contractor pulls up looking for day laborers. The men come cheap and one will do the work of many Americans. They are uniformly dressed in caps, sweatshirts, and blue jeans, and tote black knapsacks. There are a disproportionate number of mustaches in the crowd, a sign of manhood in Latin American nations.

At 9 a.m., the men stand around, doing nothing. Some sit on the litter-strewn sidewalk in their baggy jeans. Concrete is a natural conductor; it sucks the warmth of the human body. The younger men choose to be in the sunlight farther down 69th Street, but the older men stay under the cold shadow of the El. When a car pulls up, the extra seconds it takes to hurry back to Roosevelt can cost them the day’s job.

Some talk. Others don’t. Women walk by without sparing them a glance. The day laborers do not seem to notice. They are transfixed by the flow of traffic. When innocuous vans pause on the street, the men stare and wait for them to pull to the curb. A car honks on Roosevelt. Every man turns his head toward the car, but it doesn’t stop.

A green sedan pulls up to the curb. Three men race up to the car, hopeful. The lady asks for directions; the men help her out.

Every time I talk to Jose and Jorges, men dart across Roosevelt, thinking I’m hiring for a job. “You want worker?” they ask.

“They are like bee. Everybody will sting the car. They are like, grab the person,” says Pamela Plum, the owner of Color and Cut, a salon on 69th and Roosevelt, outside which the laborers wait.

The men switch positions and move from the wall of the church to the edge of the sidewalk. One man in a denim shirt is barely as tall as the mailbox he leans against.
At 9:37 a.m., a gray car pulls up. Three laborers go up to it and stand at attention. The driver gets out and talks on the phone, gesturing furiously. He then haggles with the laborers. The three get hired.

The going price for labor is cheap. It used to be $120; now they are lucky if they get $80 for a whole day’s work.

George Memdoza, 25, has blue-green eyes, fair skin, and a protruding belly. He came from Ecuador 10 years ago and lives with his mother.

He got a job moving furniture Sunday at 9 p.m. He finished work at 5 a.m. For eight hours of work, he was paid $80.

“No job is easy,” he says. “There was only me. Moving everything. Bed, cabinet, chair. Right now, my eyes very sleepy.” He came directly to Roosevelt after that job. “No go back to house,” he says.

Memdoza is harsh on the police. “Police come to intersection, ask if we have coke, marijuana. I’m no <i>narco</i>. Police <i>no comprende</i>,” he says.

This erratic work is the only source of income for these men. They are undocumented and unskilled, and the economic recession has snatched away too many jobs.

“The economic crisis is horrible,” says Parades-Morales at the Latin American Workers Project. “I have workers on the street who don’t find jobs for three, four months.” Parades-Morales tells of a man who got seven hours of work one week, and then two hours of work the next.

Many fall prey to unscrupulous contractors who do not pay at the end of the day, according to Parades-Morales. The men have no Occupational Safety and Health Administration training, a fact illustrated by the fake Nikes the men wear. Too few are in heavy-duty construction boots. In 2008, 21 men were killed in construction-related accidents in New York City; 17 of them were Latinos, according to Parades-Morales.

At 10:30 a.m., a plain white van pulls up. Men dart into traffic to get to the other side of the intersection, Jorges among them. About 20 cluster around the van.

“This guy, everyday he come here, take four, five people for delivery,” explains Jose, Jorges’ friend.

Jorges is not hired. The younger men are cooler, the older ones more jittery. They have greater family obligations. They have kids and must send money home. Jorges unfolds a yellow Western Union receipt and displays a $30 deposit to Ecuador proudly. He says that he needs a job today to pay his $100-per-week rent.

The small man leaning against the mailbox is at the edge of the sidewalk, anxiously scanning traffic.

By 10:37 a.m., most conversation has ceased. The El thunders by constantly. Many younger men give up and leave. The older men hang on.

At 11:30 a.m., in a Starbucks 10 blocks down the road, two elderly white men discuss the day laborers. “I remember postcards where the authorities fight the illegal immigrants [from Latin America] off because once they land, they start sucking off the public welfare system. … They come here and find heaven.”

At 2:30 p.m., there are two men outside Pare de Sufrir. Everyone else has left. Jose and Jorges waited for five hours but they finally gave up.

One week later in November, the men complain about the residents of 69th Street. Some men had drunk beer and created a racket overnight on 69th and Broadway, for which the day laborers had been blamed.

“What we do? We trying to live,” said Jose.

As night falls, the brothels along Roosevelt traditionally come alive as day laborers seek female company away from home and family. But these days, no one goes, according to Gustavo Gomez, a day laborer with family in Ecuador. Money no longer flows along Roosevelt.
 

In The Fray Contributor