A Sudanese Refugee Brings a Taste of Home to the U.S. about:reader?url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/27/nyregion/a-su...

nytimes.com

A Sudanese Refugee Brings a Taste

of Home to the U.S.

8-9 minutes

SALT LAKE CITY — Kaltum Mohamed took one last look at the
inside of her home in the Darfur region of Sudan and closed the
front door. She took the hands of her children, then 5 and 3, and
walked away.

She moved slowly, burdened with the few practical possessions

she could bring and the small cache of money and valuables
hidden inside her clothing.

It was 2003, the beginning of fighting between rebel groups and

government forces that would eventually displace millions and
create what the United Nations called the world’s worst
humanitarian crisis.

“I was panicking from the troubles and the fighting,” Ms.

Mohamed, 44, said in an interview in Salt Lake City last month,
partly in English and partly in Sudanese Arabic through an
interpreter. “I left everything behind in Darfur, everything I owned,
taking just what I could carry.”

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Through a friend already on the way to Libya, she had sent a note
to her husband, Ahmed Suliman, saying that she was coming to
him. Mr. Suliman had a good income and security in Libya, where
he had been for four years. He owned a farm and a small grocery
store, and he also arranged transportation carrying people back
and forth from Sudan to Benghazi, Libya.

Ms. Mohamed and her children boarded a transport truck, which

took two weeks to reach Libya. During the trip, they would
sometimes get out and walk, joining a stream of refugees who
had also left their homes.

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As she walked with the children, Ms. Mohamed tried to think

about being safe with her husband and not dwell on the fact that
nearly all her worldly goods were gone forever.

Ms. Mohamed recalled walking in an ever-changing line of friends

and strangers. When she would stop to rest, the line would move
on. Sometimes she would recognize those she had seen before.
Others she lost track of.

Some were hopeful, glad to have escaped with their lives. Others
walked slowly, heads bowed in despair at all they had lost.

The line seemed endless.

Ms. Mohamed met her husband in Kufra, Libya. With the family
reunited and heading to Benghazi together, they felt relief, as if

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the travails of seeking refuge were over.

They spent nearly a decade in comfort and relative safety, having

three more children. But after the Arab Spring protests began in
2011, violence flared, and the family decided to flee. They
decided to go to the Saloum refugee and resettlement camp in
Egypt, more than 800 miles away.

The journey, in their own car, was easier this time. But on the
way, the car hit an obstacle and rolled several times. Ms.
Mohamed, not belted in, was roughly thrown around, hitting her
head several times; she would have headaches and nausea for
weeks afterward. Hours after the accident, another family offered
to drive them to their destination in Egypt.

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In the camp, she and her husband filled out resettlement

documents, which were given to the International Rescue
Committee, one of the eight organizations supported by The New
York Times Neediest Cases Fund. While at the camp, Ms.
Mohamed earned money by cooking her native Sudanese food
and learned to prepare food for large groups.

“I love to cook,” she said. “I have been cooking since I was 7

years old. That is why they call me ‘mother of all.’”

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In 2013, the family learned they would be resettled in Salt Lake

City. When they arrived that April, “I felt safe for the first time in
years,” Ms. Mohamed said.

After settling in the family’s new home, Ms. Mohamed expressed

interest in starting a food business and in September 2014 was
enrolled in the Spice Kitchen Incubator, an International Rescue
Committee program that helps resettled refugees develop food
businesses.

Ms. Mohamed began her catering business, specializing in

Sudanese cuisine, in February 2015. She and her husband also
matched their savings through an International Rescue
Committee program, and reinvested it in the business. Ms.
Mohamed dreamed of eventually expanding the business and
owning a food truck.

Natalie El-Deiry, the deputy director of the agency in Salt Lake

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City, said, “One of the remarkable things about Kaltum and her
family is that they utilized every single program we have at the
I.R.C. to move their family forward, to become independent and
self-sufficient.”

Two years after starting the business, the couple were able to
meet their goal. Their bright green truck, like the business, is
named Mother of All. Mr. Suliman, 57, drives the truck and helps
with the catering. They want to continue to save and buy a bigger
truck.

“I want all Americans to taste my food,” Ms. Mohamed said.

The family is approaching five years of living in the United States,

which means they will soon be able to apply for citizenship. “We
will be lucky to have them as citizens in this great country,” Ms.
El-Deiry said.

Looking around her four-bedroom apartment during the interview,

Ms. Mohamed said, “We are lucky to be here.”

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