Donald Dains and Abraham Ater

[00:04] ABRAHAM DINATOR: My name is Abraham Dinator I'm 41 years old. Today's date is January 19, 2021. Calling in from Atlanta, Georgia. My partner today is Donald Ray Dane, and he's my best friend.

[00:27] DONALD RAY DAINS: Okay. My name is Donald Ray Dains My age is 54. Today's January 19, 2021. I'm in Tucson, Arizona, and my partner is Dr. Abraham Deng Ater and he is my best friend.

[00:51] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Dan. It's good to catch up again. Now we are in different ue in the west, it's too hot there. And here in the south, a little cold, but it's not that bad. I hope you are doing good. We are going to talk about our journey when we started in 2007, and then we went back in 2009 together and what we encountered along the way. I think that journey was quite an experience with both of us. In 2007, when I asked you to go back with me, that was my first time going back to see my mother. And from that time, you insisted that I need to go with you so that I can see, I can experience. And then we left Tucson, Arizona. It was around May, if I'm not wrong. Yeah, it was around May 2007. Then we went to Kakumo refugee camp. And we went in the back of the truck all the way to Juba and then to the village. In the village. We settled in the village called Fokta in South Sudan. And there we were in the commissioner's compound waiting to see where we can locate my mother. We asked people around, where our parents, where is our relatives and everything like that. And then one day we were walking around the neighborhood and the kids were with us, trying to follow you because he had your camera with you. Try to take a picture of them. You did. Actually, there were night pictures, by the way. One evening we were in little compound taking pictures, and then all of a sudden, a lady woke up to us, two ladies, one old lady and one young lady. And then someone yelled out, that's your mom. That's your sister. So we run to each other and we grab each other, hug each other. Fortunately, you have your camera on and then you capture the woman. So how was that like to you seeing that moment?

[03:21] DONALD RAY DAINS: I was. It was emotional and surreal and it happened really fast. It was unexpected. I know we were waiting around for a long time in the village in Puktop, waiting for word where your family might be and. But when she came out and you guys didn't recognize each other, I kind of had a sense that it was your mother. Just by the way you guys. Even though she didn't recognize you and you didn't recognize her, I think you both knew. And that was kind of a magical moment. And it really. For me, it brought the whole trip full circle, even though we were just getting started. And then the day was kind of a blur, you know, and we ate and sat around the fire and talked until late in the night. And most of the time I didn't know what was being talked about.

[04:26] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah.

[04:28] DONALD RAY DAINS: Or maybe Caswelli. I don't know.

[04:30] ABRAHAM DINATOR: But that's why you came to experience the language first hand.

[04:37] DONALD RAY DAINS: But, you know, it was. I still feel like our journey isn't over yet. I felt like it was just the opening salvo, you know, to bigger and better things and. But who knows, right?

[04:57] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah. So I don't know what it's like at that time. I just. We just ran to each other and grabbed each other and hugged each other. Did I cry? Did she cry? Did I cry? Somebody did.

[05:11] DONALD RAY DAINS: I think you guys did because you embraced each other for a long time. You just tell each other and everybody was singing and dancing and, you know, that were. That were around you and a lot of, you know, smiles and hugs and a lot of discussion, you know, and I think a little bit of. Maybe a little bit of shock because it had been so long and so much has had happened in the time that you were apart. Yeah. Yeah. You cried and she cried and your sister cried and I cried and there was, like I said, there was singing and dancing and.

[05:59] ABRAHAM DINATOR: I don't really know what happened. It's just happened in the moment. I was not expecting anything to happen. It just happened. So I don't know how the feeling was. Oh, can you hear us?

[06:16] DONALD RAY DAINS: I can.

[06:17] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Oh, okay. Okay.

[06:19] DONALD RAY DAINS: I was just listening. I'm sorry.

[06:21] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Oh, okay. Yeah. And then do you remember what happened next day?

[06:28] DONALD RAY DAINS: I believe we got up early and. Because I'm a slow walker and I'll give some context, I'm 510 and most Dinka are at least 6 foot tall, used to walking long distances. And I have some big old clunky hiking boots on and I got a short stride, so I needed to get started. So we were going to walk out to her village, which was about six hours, three hours one way, three hours back. And so I started early and Abraham would catch up to me and then speed past me, and then he would get out of sight and he would wait in the distance and then I would catch up and. And then I thought I would get a break and I'd get a rest a little bit because, you know, he did. But as soon as I would get up, catch up to him, he would take off again and walk ahead of me. And I remember we had. We had personal security because, you know, it's dangerous. We're in. We're in the jungle. We're in the wild. There's, you know, militia and, you know, lions and rhinos and elephants and all kinds of stuff and snakes and.

[07:51] ABRAHAM DINATOR: But, yeah, I was gonna ask you that. You know, remember when you were left behind and we would go ahead and sit down waiting for you? I don't know. We didn't tell you, and I didn't tell you. I know you would be scared. What happened? In a way, a big snake jumped in front of us, was my cousin. Remember, my cousin was leading the way. There were only two of us ahead. So big snake jumped on us, and he was, like, pissed, so he pulled out his gun and tried to shoot it. So it went back to the hole. You know, that big crack went down. It's gone. And then he like, yeah, there's a lot of them right there. So tell your friend to be careful. And I was like, if I tell him now, he might scream and he might go back to Phoc to. And she would not be able to see my village to where my mother lived. So I kept quiet. Do you think you would have. You would have went back had I told you that there's a lot of snack here?

[09:05] DONALD RAY DAINS: Nope. I was in it for the long haul, man. I wasn't scared. I wasn't worried about it.

[09:10] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Okay, good. Oh, so I should have told you then.

[09:14] DONALD RAY DAINS: Yeah, no, it was no big deal. But I could have used the information, though. That would have been good to know.

[09:20] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah, that's a lot of them there. So we went to the village, and I remember that everybody came and welcomed us. And then they brought out a big goat or a lamb, the Killipas, so that they can welcome us. I still have that picture that you took, was my cousin cutting the throat. Slitting the throat of that goat. And they tried to cut the meat so that it can be cooked in times so that we can go back to Phuket. And I know walking back there were three hours one way, so my plan is to stay the night there. But you refuse to eat. You know why.

[10:15] DONALD RAY DAINS: Yeah, well, it's not that I refuse to eat. If you remember, when we got to Kenya, we were both sick, and I never felt better. And. And I was always not feeling great. And when we walked out to the village outside of. It was. It was hooked up, right? Yeah, yeah, the village was wedding, y'all.

[10:41] ABRAHAM DINATOR: No, the village.

[10:44] DONALD RAY DAINS: Okay.

[10:44] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah.

[10:45] DONALD RAY DAINS: So. So when we were walking to the village and you forgot this part. We had been walking for about two hours. Your mom and all of the women came. Came up behind us and passed us, and they were carrying stuff on their head.

[11:00] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah, yeah.

[11:02] DONALD RAY DAINS: And they all walked past us, out ahead of us and got to the village before us. Yeah, they had left like, maybe an hour and a half after we left. So they not only left after we left, they passed us and got to the village before us carrying stuff on their heads, which was bad food.

[11:24] ABRAHAM DINATOR: They didn't have shoes on.

[11:26] DONALD RAY DAINS: Yeah, they didn't have. Yeah, they didn't have shoes on there.

[11:29] ABRAHAM DINATOR: So.

[11:29] DONALD RAY DAINS: But I. I was overheated that day and. And not feeling well. And I think you. You forgot. They were drinking. The. The elder men were drinking Kigali. Do you remember the. The liquor they were passing around? It was the Kill me.

[11:49] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Oh, no, that's alcohol.

[11:51] DONALD RAY DAINS: Yeah, alcohol. It was Kagali, right?

[11:55] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Oh, yeah. There are different kind. You would call it here liquor, but it's. They call it Montul.

[12:07] DONALD RAY DAINS: Montul, yeah.

[12:09] ABRAHAM DINATOR: They brew it out of liquid, sugar and sweat. Just like. Maybe that's just like the brew, the liquor here, but it's hot. It's just coming out of barrel.

[12:22] DONALD RAY DAINS: Right.

[12:23] ABRAHAM DINATOR: So when they bring it, if they drink a little bit of it, if you drink too much, it kill you. It gets you sick.

[12:29] DONALD RAY DAINS: Like, it got me sick. So.

[12:30] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah. Yeah. So that's very strong. It's like 7 more than 75 alcohol by volume. Yeah. So I don't know.

[12:43] DONALD RAY DAINS: And then when they killed the goat, I was kind of made me a little nauseous. So, Yeah, I didn't eat. And so everybody was worried about me.

[12:51] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah. And that's why we had to leave that evening without spending the night there, because we didn't want you to go hungry at night and take you back to folktale.

[13:04] DONALD RAY DAINS: That was fine, but thank you.

[13:06] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah. But the experience. Did we know what their spirit were? I know it would be nice had we spent a day or two there so that you can experience walking through the village and see. But the experience being there that one day or few hours. How was it? How was it? Like.

[13:32] DONALD RAY DAINS: I felt really comfortable. It felt like I felt very welcome. And I probably would have. No, there's no. Probably would have. I had no problem with staying that night. If you remember, all the elders and your mother, everybody was so worried about me because I didn't eat that. I was kind of forced to go back because they wanted me to go back and eat.

[13:57] ABRAHAM DINATOR: That's right.

[13:59] DONALD RAY DAINS: Back to the. Back to the commissioner's compound. So I did what they suggested and I didn't put up a fuss. But I would have had no qualms staying there with you.

[14:09] ABRAHAM DINATOR: That's right.

[14:11] DONALD RAY DAINS: Yeah.

[14:11] ABRAHAM DINATOR: It's. You know, that goat, it tastes really good. It's organic and it's way better than the meat here.

[14:21] DONALD RAY DAINS: You forget, though, that's all we ate the whole month we were there was go.

[14:25] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Oh, yeah, yeah.

[14:27] DONALD RAY DAINS: Just that great of meat.

[14:29] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Right. And so that was good then.

[14:35] DONALD RAY DAINS: It was.

[14:36] ABRAHAM DINATOR: It was a good day.

[14:37] DONALD RAY DAINS: It was. And I don't know if you remember, but when we got there and they were passing around the liquor, the alcohol, your sisters were singing and they were dancing and welcoming you back. And.

[14:55] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah, that was really nice for them to welcome us. And after you left, after I took you back, I came back to that village and spent seven days in the village. And they did a big welcoming. More than what they did when you were there. That's what they were trying to do. They were hoping for you to spend extra two days there so they could do the welcoming and everybody would be coming. They invite from other villages to come around. And that's what they did. They killed not only a goat, but they killed a big bull. That big bull. And there was a big ceremony and the celebration was really bigger than that day. So that was special. And then when I left, when we went back, you know what my cousin found along the way in that trail that we were walking? A big lion, real wild lion.

[16:06] DONALD RAY DAINS: I'm a little jealous now, but okay. I didn't hear about this.

[16:10] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Oh, yeah. That was after he left. And then I came back. And then I tried to go back and find the big white lion that mostly they eat cows and people even try to kill them. So my cousin were trying to kill him and he was very wild, so they were able to shoot it down, but it was really too dangerous, so they had to evacuate me. They had to run me away to the nearest village before the killing. But it was quite a while experience. Dangerous, dangerous experience.

[16:51] DONALD RAY DAINS: So was this after I had flown out already?

[16:54] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah. Okay, so remember when I walk you back to Panyagur? Yes. I took you. We went to Panagore and you fly, you flew from there to Loki to. Then I came back and I went to the village to spend the seven days there. So when we were walking back, that's when we find that Big lion. Very big lion.

[17:21] DONALD RAY DAINS: Okay.

[17:21] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah.

[17:22] DONALD RAY DAINS: So I remember you were there.

[17:24] ABRAHAM DINATOR: But who knows? You might have killed either you or me. So it was too dangerous for to kill that because. But because they had gun, they have to shoot it away from the people.

[17:39] DONALD RAY DAINS: Oh, wow.

[17:40] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah.

[17:41] DONALD RAY DAINS: Was it a male lion or a female lion or.

[17:45] ABRAHAM DINATOR: They were saying it was a male lion. Oh, wow. Yeah. They were telling me, because we found a male, the female is around. Should be around somewhere, because most of the time they work together. They go together. Yeah.

[18:01] DONALD RAY DAINS: So let me play something here, and I'll let you listen to it. It'll start here in a second, but you'll recognize the. So when we walked back, I stayed in the compound. And you went back, actually, for a couple of days, and then you came back. So I was alone in the compound.

[18:29] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Oh, it could have been that time, because I know it was me coming back from the. From.

[18:39] DONALD RAY DAINS: Yeah. So here you go.

[18:43] ABRAHAM DINATOR: You played it.

[18:44] DONALD RAY DAINS: I'm gonna play it right now. Do you remember that?

[19:03] ABRAHAM DINATOR: You know, it's breaking up, but I remember that's when they were dancing and they were doing. That's what we call a row. Row in dinga is just like women jumping. Not jumping up and down, but it's kind of dance. That's why you have hip hop here and dance different kind of dance. Yeah, but I remember that. I remember that.

[19:29] DONALD RAY DAINS: So if you. If you. You kind of back, you kind of jumped over a bunch of parts. I mean, even the trip from. From Kakama to. To Bore Town and. Or Juba, and then Juba to Bortown, and then Bore Town to Dukpadit. Remember when the. The governor of Kwame. Yeah. He had that lion in the cage. Remember the lion that I pet.

[19:56] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Oh, it's like I wanted to pet that. The first governor of Zhongli.

[20:05] DONALD RAY DAINS: Yeah. Okay.

[20:06] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah. That was our first visit. Kualmanyang was our second visit in 2009. So governor. So the first governor, Tong Lake, had that lion as a pet. He kept it like a pet in his compound. Yeah. Yeah, I remember that. I was scared of it.

[20:28] DONALD RAY DAINS: Yeah. I was like, okay, take my picture. Take my picture. And you're just standing there looking at me, and I'm like, take it. Take it.

[20:33] ABRAHAM DINATOR: I'm scared.

[20:34] DONALD RAY DAINS: And then the lion stood up, and it grabbed me in the back of the head. You're just looking at me. I'm like, take the picture.

[20:39] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah, I know lion kill. I see lion that a while in the wild, and they kill people. And that's why I was afraid. Like, why Are you keeping the lion at home? Get closer. Yeah. So, yeah, there are things that. In our first visit, when I was taking you from Folktale to Panagore, we were stuck along the way and you were digging to get the car out. I was wondering if you feel like, oh, man, I wouldn't go back anymore.

[21:14] DONALD RAY DAINS: No, I'll go back. That's not a problem. Remember, it was. It was towards the end of the first trip, and that was after we had already gone out and we found your mother and we went out to her village, came back, you went out, you went back out to her village and. And I was alone in. Not alone, but I was left at Booktube. And then you came back and the rainy season was started. So the commissioner, I guess, had a car or a couple of cars, and they were. They were leaving to go back to one leg. And so we felt that we needed to get in the vehicles because we weren't scheduled to leave for about another two weeks or something, right?

[21:57] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah, yeah. We were not.

[22:00] DONALD RAY DAINS: And so we. When we left, we got stuck, like, 10 times in the mud and. And, you know, had to dig ourselves out. And I think it took all day long just to get from Phuket to Wangle. And then the next day we're like, you know, how am I going to get back to Kenya, to Nairobi? And their United nations plane was there. And remember, I.

[22:32] ABRAHAM DINATOR: He boarded that plane. Yeah.

[22:35] DONALD RAY DAINS: Yeah. Well, I asked him if he'd give me a ride and he said no. And then when I showed him some money, he said, yeah.

[22:43] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Oh, that's how you get it.

[22:46] DONALD RAY DAINS: That's how I got it. Yeah. Because when I. When I arrived in Loka Tokyo, at the airport there in Loki, they asked me where I was coming from and how I got there because I had no stamps in my passport.

[22:59] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Oh.

[23:01] DONALD RAY DAINS: So then it cost me more money to get into Loki.

[23:04] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Oh. Oh, I didn't know that. Those are the challenges, though. Those are the challenges. So. Yeah. So on our second trip, when we went back in 2009, I know you read in the magazine, or the first trip in the magazine, that a python had eaten. Swallowed a God at the UN compound.

[23:33] DONALD RAY DAINS: Yeah.

[23:34] ABRAHAM DINATOR: And he told me, why did you tell me that snake that can swallow people here?

[23:41] DONALD RAY DAINS: Remember that? Yeah, that was. Yeah. Well, I didn't learn that till I came home the second time, so. And the second time. Well, the first, when I came home, you had told me about the python, and we looked it up and we saw it and it had got stuck in the fence, and they Killed. They cut it open and they found the young, young woman in there. And then I was like, oh my God, why did you tell me about. Snakes are so big, they can eat people. But they were so big that they could eat water buffalo.

[24:16] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah, they eat water buffalo. Yeah.

[24:19] DONALD RAY DAINS: And they couldn't move. And then the termites would build termite mounds over the water buffalo or the snake as it digested the water buffalo. And then when it comes out, they're enormous snakes.

[24:30] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah. They decomposed because they done. Their digestive system is not like us here. It took a while because they swallowed everybody everything in. So their stomach have to digest that for a while.

[24:45] DONALD RAY DAINS: So I don't know if you remember when we got to the temp camp, the tent camp in Juba, Right. Yeah. And they found a nine foot spinning cobra in underneath my bed.

[25:02] ABRAHAM DINATOR: I remember that. We were both scared of that.

[25:07] DONALD RAY DAINS: Yeah, it was, it was pretty harrowing. So were eating breakfast, I think it was. And they were cleaning our. Our tent. The girls were just sweeping the dirt out from it and the snake went over her hand. And then everybody went crazy and they started ripping all our stuff out of the tent and throwing it everywhere. And we're like, what are you doing? What are you doing? And they're like, there's a cobra in here. Yeah, like what? And it came racing out after everybody. And, and, and then I would take a picture and they would look at me and scold me for taking the picture because the noise distracted them. And then when they turned back to look at the snake, the snake would be coming out after them. And so they're like, don't take a picture, you're gonna get me baked. Yeah.

[25:52] ABRAHAM DINATOR: And you know that snake was not there to eat us. And maybe God protected us. But what happened? It was eating those nuts. The nut we have that you had in your bag and. No, it was coming after the mice. The mice were coming to eat them peanuts and things like that in your bed. So they were looking at nuts. And at night we heard it. Actually we heard the noise, but we didn't know what it was. So he was not really trying to come at us because I think he had spent the night there under the bed it looking for mice. And the only way he would have eaten us is like when we try to kill him or to kill it, then that would have been a problem. But we were lucky. That is a big poisonous snakes. We would have been. Would have not been alive had it bitten one of us. Yeah. But those who are coming come out of The Nile, you can't move the hand out of the Nile.

[26:55] DONALD RAY DAINS: So yeah, that was.

[27:00] ABRAHAM DINATOR: So there are big kind of snake like that that are too poisonous. So I remember that we went to, we were trying to get to the Governor, Governor Kwal, so that he can give us escort back home for our insecurity issues. And they help us. And you also brought in a big sticks. Can you explain better? You can explain them better what they are, what they were.

[27:33] DONALD RAY DAINS: So we're kind of jumping over a lot of parts just because so much happened. And so initially, remember when we got there, we're staying on the outskirts of Juba. And it was right after New Year. No, it was after Christmas but before New Year's. And so we're staying in this little block hut with a tin roof. And everybody started celebrating when the sun went down. So everybody was getting drunk and shooting off guns and blowing things up.

[28:06] ABRAHAM DINATOR: The New Year Eve, the New Year's.

[28:08] DONALD RAY DAINS: Eve, which is, which is Sudan, South Sudan's Independence Day.

[28:13] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Independence, right.

[28:14] DONALD RAY DAINS: So all night long were hearing machine gun fire, heavy machine guns, explosions. There was even some, you know, maybe some fights, I don't know, but it was, it was, it sounded like full scale war. I recorded some of it. You wanted to go outside and see what was going on. And I was like, no, right?

[28:35] ABRAHAM DINATOR: No, no, don't go outside. Yeah, it's not, it wasn't firework like here. It wasn't a firework. It was real gun and fire.

[28:48] DONALD RAY DAINS: So we didn't sleep much that night. And then, and then after that is when we, we had brought hand carved mesquite canes that were made here in, in Southern Arizona to, to give Salvakir the, the President Walman Young Commissioner of Duke and the chief of. The chief of Duke Padilla and the commissioner. And so we had a meeting with the President Salvakir. But he had left.

[29:28] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah, he was, he went to Khartoum for a meeting.

[29:31] DONALD RAY DAINS: Right. So we still had the meeting with his, the presidential advisor. And Abraham was unwrapping the, the cane and it was a bald eagle head and he was unwrapping it. And do you remember you couldn't get the wrapping off. And before I could get my knife out to cut the wrapping, you smashed the cane on the table and broke the beak off of the eagle.

[29:59] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Right. I was trying to pull out that string like this and it got down on the table and the head, the head of the eagle broken. And.

[30:11] DONALD RAY DAINS: Then everybody in there was so mortified by that that they had to pain and so Then they had to find glue and somebody to fix it. And it was. It was pretty funny. Hold on, I got a call coming in. Okay. You there?

[30:45] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah, yes, I'm here.

[30:47] DONALD RAY DAINS: Okay, I can't hear you again, so let me.

[31:05] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah, can you hear me?

[31:06] DONALD RAY DAINS: Okay, there we are. I'm sorry. I got you now.

[31:11] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Okay, so I believe with that cane, it was a gift that you got from your friend, from your relatives, from your native community for native community.

[31:24] DONALD RAY DAINS: Right.

[31:25] ABRAHAM DINATOR: And what I've been thinking about, I think that give wasn't meant to be with self accused, with the president. That's how come I broke it while I was giving it to them by accident. I didn't mean it.

[31:40] DONALD RAY DAINS: Right.

[31:42] ABRAHAM DINATOR: But everybody else gave, like for the governor, for the chiefs. Didn't break, but that, that head broke off. So I feel bad about it, but I thought maybe it wasn't meant for him.

[31:56] DONALD RAY DAINS: No, it's. That's a perfect analogy. I think, I think you're exactly right. But I thought it was really funny.

[32:06] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah, it was really funny. Everybody looking at. But it was looking really, really nice. That was a nice one. And, and they say that they will fix it. Don't take it.

[32:20] DONALD RAY DAINS: We will.

[32:21] ABRAHAM DINATOR: We will. We'll try to fix it. So we left it in the office, but we. We gave 11.

[32:27] DONALD RAY DAINS: The MP, who is the member of parliament that we gave the. The one.

[32:34] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Oh my God.

[32:35] DONALD RAY DAINS: Yeah. Mr. McCarry. Yeah.

[32:38] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Okay, so I'm trying to talk about why we were going there. We were going there for the nonprofit that we found after our first trip. Our goal was to build a school. So we were going there to find a place where to find the land to do the registration with the government. At that time it was called government of Southern Sudan. It was not a country yet because it was 2009. So we got the registration and we went home. The land was donated to build a school. Can you talk more about that?

[33:16] DONALD RAY DAINS: Yeah. So the first trip when we were sitting around the fire, actually that, that evening after you had met your mom and they had gone back to the village, you asked me, what do we do now? And I'm like, I don't know. And then you said, well, maybe we can build a school. And I was like, okay. I'm like, well, maybe we can build three schools. You know, naively I didn't know how hard it would build. Would be to even try to build a school, let alone build a school. But so we came back to Tucson and we got. We got a non profit started here in Tucson, raised a bunch of Money went back in 2009. We took, I think we took about, it was either 12 or 16 bags.

[34:05] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Of, 16 bag of medical supplies. Play balls, breath. Yeah.

[34:11] DONALD RAY DAINS: Toys for the kids, clothes, books, medical supplies. And we registered with the government of Southern Sudan as an ngo. And then we also went and spoke to all the village elders in Duke Badit and they donated the land to you on high ground. And so, so we achieved all of that and we came back and we raised even more money and had lots of fundraisers and whatnot. And we, we were going to go back. We were going to go back, I think in 2010. I think it was, yes, a year later. And there was some violence that was happening, but we were still going to go back. But I guess it was kind of a two or three fold thing. @ the same time that the violence was breaking out. They had swooped in from behind War town and over 8,000 people were killed. And they, they also killed the, the gentleman who was putting up the walls for the school and they knocked the school down. And also at that same time, Gabby Gifford and her staff were shot here in Tucson, Arizona. And she was also, she was our supporter. And also Gabe was, Gabe Zimmerman. He was killed.

[36:06] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Oh, yeah.

[36:07] DONALD RAY DAINS: So they were our supporters and they were going to help us with diplomatic passports and stuff like that and also help us facilitate working with the government in everything that we're trying to do. And then, so when that also happened, that really stopped everything.

[36:25] ABRAHAM DINATOR: And there was a recession too. The recession that started here in the US in 2008. It kicked in and our donors predeling money were drilling and donors kind of hold that.

[36:41] DONALD RAY DAINS: Right.

[36:42] ABRAHAM DINATOR: That was mostly another part.

[36:44] DONALD RAY DAINS: Right. But we still had raised substantial amounts of money. But so remember, we had gone back to Chicago a couple of times to speak with the Episcopal Church of Southern Sudan. And you had met with other guys from your community who were also doing the same thing out of, I think it was Colorado and then one back Eastern Chicago.

[37:09] ABRAHAM DINATOR: In Utah.

[37:10] DONALD RAY DAINS: Right. And so I, I kind of stepped back from, from that feeling that I was trying to impose what I felt your community needed. And I, I, I felt that it would be better if you guys stepped up and made the decisions as to what direction the nonprofit went and what it was that you did in the community, for the community on behalf of the guys here in the States. And so then the nonprofit changed and you became United for.

[37:58] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah, I can tell what happened. We merged with those two guys. Nonprofit. We merged and we rename it to United Vision for Change. The website is now unitedvisionswithsforchain.com and it's still active now because of that. We were trying to combine our effort. That's what we were doing. And what happened now is we use our organization 5133 status and merged that and became one. And because of South Sudan became independent, insecurity became rampant and there's no way to do the development. So we decided that we need to provide a scholarship to those refugees, students who were displaced from South Sudan. But our main goal of building a school is still there. We are still going to build a school. So now what we are doing now we provide a scholarship to students in Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan. And so far we have provided scholarship to 38 students in Kenya right now, four of which three of which are going to graduate from high school this year and the rest still along the way. So we provide scholarship only to high school. That's what we've been doing right now. And every year we do the fundraisers to keep scholarship alive, scholarship hope alive. But the building of school is still there and we are going to. We are still going to do it. And we appreciate your support that you do. And even if you trying to join us now, we still need your help and your friends, everybody to help us do that. Phareza those children.

[39:53] DONALD RAY DAINS: Well, you know, you know, for your support.

[39:56] ABRAHAM DINATOR: I appreciate it.

[39:58] DONALD RAY DAINS: Absolutely. Well, you know that I'll be there.

[40:05] SPEAKER C: Do you mind, Donald, if you would tell Abraham, he. Well, first, Abraham, would you tell Donald why you asked him to go with you the first time? And then Donald, would you just. Why did you go to Sudan and just talk to each other? You don't talk to me.

[40:23] DONALD RAY DAINS: So I can't see his video. He. He was kind of blocking up and now his video is gone. I can't hear anything.

[40:31] SPEAKER C: Were you able to hear my question?

[40:33] DONALD RAY DAINS: I heard your question, yeah. Okay.

[40:35] ABRAHAM DINATOR: So can you hear me okay, there?

[40:37] DONALD RAY DAINS: I hear you, but I just can't see you.

[40:39] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Oh, okay. I'm still there maybe. Yeah. But if I can. You can hear me, that's fine. Go ahead.

[40:47] DONALD RAY DAINS: Okay. So the first question as to why I wanted to go to Sudan.

[40:52] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah. Remember it was me asking you that I'm going to see my mother at one point to find her where she was. And I asked you, would you like to come with me? And you say yes. So why would you want to come with me? And it's very dangerous. Like you saw. It wasn't easy.

[41:16] DONALD RAY DAINS: Yeah. So there's a few parts to that question. So first part would be when I first saw Abraham. I met him. He was working at Costco, pushing carts. And I was a film student at the U. Of A. And I just thought, you know, Abraham was. You don't see Dinka pushing carts in Tucson. You know, it might sound like a. A weird thing to say. And I just thought, you know, what is this guy doing, you know, working in the blazing sun, pushing carts? You know, you just didn't. You didn't look like you were from Tucson. And remember, I introduced myself. I'm like, hey, you know, I'm Donnie. I'm a field student. I'd like to kind of know your story. And I did a little interview of you and I. And I got. We got to know each other, and, you know, we did the interview, and I did a little documentary about.

[42:11] ABRAHAM DINATOR: That was in 2002.

[42:12] DONALD RAY DAINS: Oh, actually, yeah, maybe it was 2002. Yeah. So got. Did a little documentary about, you know, how you came to work at Costco and where you're from and whatever. And we became friends, and I. And I said, you know, if you ever go back to Sudan, I said, I'd love to go with you and help you find your family. And at that point, I had already known your story, you know, because we had, you know, spent a lot of time together and whatnot. And so I was. I knew I could help in some way, shape or form find your family. So I wasn't scared. You know, I had served in the military, and so during the Gulf War, and I deployed and all that kind of stuff, so I'd already been in plenty of dangerous situations, and I wasn't worried about it.

[43:11] ABRAHAM DINATOR: It wasn't bad, was it?

[43:12] DONALD RAY DAINS: No, it was an amazing experience. But I had got to know your character already already, and I knew you as the person, and so I wasn't worried about you or me. I didn't feel that I was being misinformed. I knew it was going to be dangerous. I knew the history of South Sudan, and I knew the history of Lokokyo and even Kenya. But one might go there with the thought of danger being prevalent and around every corner. And that's not what I found. What I found was that people were friendly. People were willing to help, and they were willing to give you what little that they had to help you along your way, along your journey to find. To reconnect with your family. And I felt that that was very humbling, and I was very appreciative because there were a lot of times where we got. We got stuck or in A bind. And the community around us or the people around us that were helping shepherd us through kind of took care of us. And so I wasn't. I was never really fearful in that sense. You know what I mean?

[44:38] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Right now there's a big flat and my mother fled the village and she's trying to go back home. If I go now, would you go with me?

[44:49] DONALD RAY DAINS: Sure.

[44:51] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Okay.

[44:52] DONALD RAY DAINS: Got a canoe?

[44:56] ABRAHAM DINATOR: We have a canoe. You know that road that we travel?

[44:59] DONALD RAY DAINS: Yeah.

[45:00] ABRAHAM DINATOR: It's not traveled by, by road anymore. You have to use a boat, like row that boat that you have to row manually all the way to the village because of the big flood in the area.

[45:14] DONALD RAY DAINS: So they. Do they go through the Zhang Lei Canal or just.

[45:19] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah, they go through the Zhang Lei Canal and people are living, staying and finding the high ground and living there. My mother was there, so I have to let her leave and. But my sister is still back there looking after the cattle. Yeah.

[45:37] DONALD RAY DAINS: Well, this is not the, the first time though, that they've been in a bad spot because I remember one other time that there was some violence breaking out and we needed to locate your family. And so a lot of us pulled resources together to where we could get it so they could get out of there.

[46:01] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Yeah. And yeah, that situation now is a disaster after disaster. It was fighting and now is the flooding.

[46:11] DONALD RAY DAINS: So.

[46:12] ABRAHAM DINATOR: And who knows? Now the rainy season is tough, but the water still has not receded yet. And we are fearful that there will be a lot of disease outbreaks and all kind of bad things, naked biting people. And we are working with that same non profit organization that we form to try to come up with medical supplies like especially anti malaria medicine and snakes medicine. Because his neck is so bad right now because of the flood.

[46:45] DONALD RAY DAINS: Right.

[46:46] ABRAHAM DINATOR: They're trying to live where people live. They're trying to find dry, dry areas and people are sleeping with them and they're not. They're biting people, they're beating people. So we did that one time and we send mosquito nets home. So we're going to try to do it again to help people.

[47:08] DONALD RAY DAINS: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I. The one thing that I would suggest this time, Abraham, is we absolutely have to get the United States government involved at a State Department level to where we have some assistance to where we have some assistance with the US Embassy or the US Consulate in Juba to where they can help us, or the United nations to where they can help us. Because it became so burdensome to carry around 16 gigantic bags, just you and me and the amount of money that we had to spend to do this if we had somebody to not only help finance, but also provide some logistical support. We got the ideas and we got the people that want to help. It's just a matter of the level of need is so great. It's greater than what you and I can do physically.

[48:08] ABRAHAM DINATOR: It's greater than it was when we were there, greater now because of the political environment in the area. And. Yeah, so now it's really dire. People have no food and everything is bad. So I appreciate it and we will catch up and see how we can move on from there.

[48:30] DONALD RAY DAINS: Absolutely. I'm game.

[48:34] ABRAHAM DINATOR: Just.