"God Grew Tired of Us"

After watching what we have of God Grew Tired of Us, I have come to understand the plight of refugees, namely the Lost Boys, on a much deeper level. While it is easy to read and study about the journey that these boys (many of them now men) have taken, I don’t believe you actually get a real sense of what they are going through until you see it. And while watching it on a projector screen while sitting comfortably in a university classroom is completely different than being there, with the boys as they make their journey from Africa to America, it still brings you the closest emotional connection to their voyage. In reading Fadlalla’s article on refugees, I felt it, like many other sources, while trying to create an identity and place of belonging for refugees, still in their description loses the sense of humanity and personality of the refugees. They are described as a group, not individuals with each their own separate personality and character. This is where I believe God Grew Tired of Us excels. In watching their lives on the refugee camp to their journey across the world to America, we see the boys as people, not just a statistic. And not only do we see them as people in general, but people very similar to ourselves. Yes, they are boys living in a country thousands of miles from our own who have grown up in a situation I can not even imagine being in, they are still people. As inquisitive as young children on their first plane flight, the boys are so intent on learning about things we take for granted. However, this lack of knowledge was not what impacted me the most about the boys, it was their strong connection to each other. Without any true place to call home, they depended on each other for survival. They joke and laugh with each other in the camps, like they haven’t endured pain that no one else can imagine. They look after each other too, even when they are apart. In both Fadlalla’s article and God Grew Tired of Us the boys going to America had very concrete plans of making money to send back to their “family” in the camp. Overall, I think that what this movie has shown so far has broadened my knowledge and views of refugees ten-fold, and done more than show the facts, it has shown the people behind the statistics, and I can’t wait to see how their journey to America progresses.