It was a reception a movie star might expect.
Angela Kershner / The Citizen
John Dau signs a copy of his book, “God Grew Tired of Us: A Memoir,” during a book signing to raise money for a clinic in Sudan. The signing was held last month at the Lodge at Welch Allyn in Skaneateles Falls.
John Dau signs a copy of his book, “God Grew Tired of Us: A Memoir,” during a book signing to raise money for a clinic in Sudan. The signing was held last month at the Lodge at Welch Allyn in Skaneateles Falls.
When the film “God Grew Tired of Us” was shown two weeks ago at Syracuse University, one of its subjects was given a rousing standing ovation as he walked on stage to speak.
But John Bul Dau is no movie star. At least not yet. As one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, Dau has seen his life turn into a whirlwind of activity after having survived ethnic cleansing in his home country of Sudan, a war-weary country located just south of Egypt in northern Africa.
The award-winning documentary “God Grew Tired of Us” will be shown this weekend, at the Auburn Public Theater. After the screening, Dau will be available for questions, and he will hold a book signing for his memoir of the same name.
All of the proceeds from the two showings will benefit Dau's medical clinic.
The World According to Dau
Dau is now 34. But when he was just 13, Dau's village in southern Sudan was attacked by Sudanese government troops. He was forced to flee with only the clothing on his back.
“I began to hear a dull thumping that seemed to be slapping me in the ear. In my sleep, it was just something annoying, but then I woke up and scrambled outside the crowded hut I shared with other children. Everyone was running, and the sky was lit up by mortar blasts,” Dau wrote in his memoir.
“I saw my father run past, so I ran after him. The women and children were running and crying. I could hear bullets, zzzzing zzzing, whistling past us. I can still hear that sound. I thought that the end of the world the Bible talks about was here.”
Today, Dau lives in Syracuse with his new wife, Sudanese-born Martha, and their 6-month-old baby girl, Abot.
He works nearly full-time as a security guard at St. Joseph's Hospital and is also earning his degree from the prestigious Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.
Then there is the book and movie tour, his work on a medical clinic now being built near his former village and the challenges of being a new father and husband.
Despite his demanding schedule, Dau seems undaunted by it all.
At a fundraiser last month at Welch Allyn's Lodge in Skaneateles Falls, the 6-foot-7-inch man chatted amicably with his many admirers and signed a few autographs as 230 guests packed the auditorium. And many more tickets could have been sold - the event was a sellout a week prior.
“Never Give Up”
His father told him never to give up, but many would have easily done so considering the never-ending hardships he had to endure for nearly five years.
Dau began his talk in Skaneateles Falls in a subdued voice, remembrances consistently lightened by humor and punctuated by his faith as a Christian.
“There was nothing to eat,” Dau said of his exodus to refugee camps in Ethiopia. “We'd chew some grass so we could stay alive. Often there was no water, so people would sometimes eat mud.”
Still, his father's unwavering belief in hope carried him on.
“He told me to never give up, because if you give up, the next step ahead might help you,” Dau said. “You persevere, you win.”
Hundreds of Sudanese refugees, most of them “Lost Boys” such as Dau, now live in the greater Syracuse area. When Dau was sponsored by the Skaneateles' First Presbyterian Church in 2001 to apply for American citizenship (a process now completed), he asked the Rev. Dr. Craig Lindsey how long the transition period would be. Lindsey replied that three months was standard.
Dau made it clear he wanted to stay close with his new church.
“'He told me, 'I look forward to my children, and their children, getting to know this community,'” Lindsey said.
One of Dau's admirers is former SU Chancellor Kenneth “Buzz” Shaw.
“I teach leadership, and Mr. Dau is a great leader,” said Shaw, who lives in Skaneateles, and is now a professor at the Whitman School of Management at SU. “He's a great example for a great many people.”
Dau's life was simple but happy before the war began.
“When I think of Sudan, I like to remember life in my village. The land there was good, with plenty of water and grasslands for the cattle and goats that my people, the Dinka, survive on. But in 1983, when I was 10, the troubles began,” he writes. “Sudan's Arab president, Gaafar Muhammad Nimeiri, declared that Sudan would become a Muslim state and that sharia law would be the law of the land.
“But we did not want this, .... we Africans were the true Sudanese, not the Arab colonialists who had come into our land from the north.”
Favorite at Sundance
Actor Brad Pitt is the executive producer of “God Grew Tired of Us,” and it is narrated by Australian actress Nicole Kidman. Last year, it was one of only four documentaries in the history of Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival in Utah to win the two top prizes - the Grand Jury prize and the award as the audience's favorite.
The movie begins in harrowing fashion as Dau and the others recount the plight of the nearly 30,000 Lost Boys who had to leave their villages during the civil war, enduring harrowing conditions such as starvation, wild animals and the constant threat of further attacks. The boys were targeted because the government troops and militias did not want them to grow up to be soldiers.
In 2001, nearly 4,000 of the approximately 12,000 Lost Boys living in the Kakuma refugee camp, near the Kenyan border were chosen by the International Rescue Committee program to relocate to the United States.
When the documentary switches to the Lost Boys' bumpy transition to American culture, it is also very entertaining. They have never heard or seen modern appliances, or rows upon rows of food in supermarkets, and they reluctantly try doughnuts for the first time. There's also very funny exchanges about the role of Santa Claus and Christmas trees.
Still, despite the light-heartedness of this portion of the film, a grim reality is never far away - that they still have loved ones living under great stress and risk back in Sudan.
In 2004, Dau was fortunate to bring both his mother and sister to live near him in Syracuse. The film reaches its emotional peak in the scene where Dau's mother arrives at Hancock Airport in Syracuse.
“God Grew Tired of Us” takes its title from the Bible, where Daniel believes he is like those in the Old Testament who has been forsaken by God.
But John Bul Dau is no movie star. At least not yet. As one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, Dau has seen his life turn into a whirlwind of activity after having survived ethnic cleansing in his home country of Sudan, a war-weary country located just south of Egypt in northern Africa.
The award-winning documentary “God Grew Tired of Us” will be shown this weekend, at the Auburn Public Theater. After the screening, Dau will be available for questions, and he will hold a book signing for his memoir of the same name.
All of the proceeds from the two showings will benefit Dau's medical clinic.
The World According to Dau
Dau is now 34. But when he was just 13, Dau's village in southern Sudan was attacked by Sudanese government troops. He was forced to flee with only the clothing on his back.
“I began to hear a dull thumping that seemed to be slapping me in the ear. In my sleep, it was just something annoying, but then I woke up and scrambled outside the crowded hut I shared with other children. Everyone was running, and the sky was lit up by mortar blasts,” Dau wrote in his memoir.
“I saw my father run past, so I ran after him. The women and children were running and crying. I could hear bullets, zzzzing zzzing, whistling past us. I can still hear that sound. I thought that the end of the world the Bible talks about was here.”
Today, Dau lives in Syracuse with his new wife, Sudanese-born Martha, and their 6-month-old baby girl, Abot.
He works nearly full-time as a security guard at St. Joseph's Hospital and is also earning his degree from the prestigious Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.
Then there is the book and movie tour, his work on a medical clinic now being built near his former village and the challenges of being a new father and husband.
Despite his demanding schedule, Dau seems undaunted by it all.
At a fundraiser last month at Welch Allyn's Lodge in Skaneateles Falls, the 6-foot-7-inch man chatted amicably with his many admirers and signed a few autographs as 230 guests packed the auditorium. And many more tickets could have been sold - the event was a sellout a week prior.
“Never Give Up”
His father told him never to give up, but many would have easily done so considering the never-ending hardships he had to endure for nearly five years.
Dau began his talk in Skaneateles Falls in a subdued voice, remembrances consistently lightened by humor and punctuated by his faith as a Christian.
“There was nothing to eat,” Dau said of his exodus to refugee camps in Ethiopia. “We'd chew some grass so we could stay alive. Often there was no water, so people would sometimes eat mud.”
Still, his father's unwavering belief in hope carried him on.
“He told me to never give up, because if you give up, the next step ahead might help you,” Dau said. “You persevere, you win.”
Hundreds of Sudanese refugees, most of them “Lost Boys” such as Dau, now live in the greater Syracuse area. When Dau was sponsored by the Skaneateles' First Presbyterian Church in 2001 to apply for American citizenship (a process now completed), he asked the Rev. Dr. Craig Lindsey how long the transition period would be. Lindsey replied that three months was standard.
Dau made it clear he wanted to stay close with his new church.
“'He told me, 'I look forward to my children, and their children, getting to know this community,'” Lindsey said.
One of Dau's admirers is former SU Chancellor Kenneth “Buzz” Shaw.
“I teach leadership, and Mr. Dau is a great leader,” said Shaw, who lives in Skaneateles, and is now a professor at the Whitman School of Management at SU. “He's a great example for a great many people.”
Dau's life was simple but happy before the war began.
“When I think of Sudan, I like to remember life in my village. The land there was good, with plenty of water and grasslands for the cattle and goats that my people, the Dinka, survive on. But in 1983, when I was 10, the troubles began,” he writes. “Sudan's Arab president, Gaafar Muhammad Nimeiri, declared that Sudan would become a Muslim state and that sharia law would be the law of the land.
“But we did not want this, .... we Africans were the true Sudanese, not the Arab colonialists who had come into our land from the north.”
Favorite at Sundance
Actor Brad Pitt is the executive producer of “God Grew Tired of Us,” and it is narrated by Australian actress Nicole Kidman. Last year, it was one of only four documentaries in the history of Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival in Utah to win the two top prizes - the Grand Jury prize and the award as the audience's favorite.
The movie begins in harrowing fashion as Dau and the others recount the plight of the nearly 30,000 Lost Boys who had to leave their villages during the civil war, enduring harrowing conditions such as starvation, wild animals and the constant threat of further attacks. The boys were targeted because the government troops and militias did not want them to grow up to be soldiers.
In 2001, nearly 4,000 of the approximately 12,000 Lost Boys living in the Kakuma refugee camp, near the Kenyan border were chosen by the International Rescue Committee program to relocate to the United States.
When the documentary switches to the Lost Boys' bumpy transition to American culture, it is also very entertaining. They have never heard or seen modern appliances, or rows upon rows of food in supermarkets, and they reluctantly try doughnuts for the first time. There's also very funny exchanges about the role of Santa Claus and Christmas trees.
Still, despite the light-heartedness of this portion of the film, a grim reality is never far away - that they still have loved ones living under great stress and risk back in Sudan.
In 2004, Dau was fortunate to bring both his mother and sister to live near him in Syracuse. The film reaches its emotional peak in the scene where Dau's mother arrives at Hancock Airport in Syracuse.
“God Grew Tired of Us” takes its title from the Bible, where Daniel believes he is like those in the Old Testament who has been forsaken by God.
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