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[00:00:00] Melissa Fleming

My guest this week was born in war-torn South Sudan and spent much of her early life in a refugee camp. These days, she speaks out for others who've been forced to flee.

 

[00:00:12] Mary Maker

I want to be seen. I want to be heard. I want to be acknowledged. I want to be at the table, making decisions and feeling like a part of something. Are you able to see us? Are you able to go beyond the news and really understand that this is someone like you?

 

[00:00:39] Melissa Fleming

Mary Maker is Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR. From the Â鶹APP, I'm Melissa Fleming. This is Awake at Night. Welcome, Mary. It's so good to see you here.

 

[00:01:04] Mary Maker

So lovely to see you.

 

[00:01:05] Melissa Fleming

It's good to you again.

 

[00:01:07] Mary Maker

I know, right? We've been meeting. I love this.

 

[00:01:09] Melissa Fleming

We've been meeting. And I want to go back to the time when we first met at the Kakuma Refugee Camp. But first, I want to hear a little bit more about you. You are from South Sudan. You were born in the middle of its civil war, and that led you to flee from your home at a very young age. I want to ask you about your experiences, but I also want to ask you about your name. Your chosen name is Mary.

 

[00:01:38] Mary Maker

Yes.

 

[00:01:39] Melissa Fleming

But you were originally called something else. What was that and what did it mean?

 

[00:01:42] Mary Maker

Yes, my Sudanese name is Nyiriak, [inaudible] Maker, Maker Deng Malou. South Sudanese girls we get lots of names, right? And the name is either what's happening around you at that time. Nyiriak means war. And I know cousins called Thiijin, which means born in prison, or probably one of your parents was in prison. Nyandeng is a common South Sudanese name, which means born during the rain. You know, the names can get pretty bleak based off what's happening around you. And I happen to be Nyiriak.

 

[00:02:19] Melissa Fleming

You changed it to Mary.

 

[00:02:22] Mary Maker

I changed it to Mary. Like not very much of a change because it's still in all my government names, right? But pretty much more like a baptism of like I love Mary. And it used to be Mary Magdalene, but my mother is like, 'There's no way I can... It's a mouthful to say Mary Magdalene.' So, I ended up with Mary, and it stuck. I love Mary Maker because of the literal sense - making Mary. Even though my dad's name is a completely different meaning to that.

 

 

[00:02:54] Melissa Fleming

Okay, Mary Maker, is war your earliest memory?

 

[00:02:57] Mary Maker 

It is my earliest memory and earliest memory in a sense when your parents or your aunts in the refugee camps keep recounting home and it's told to you, you almost feel like you're there, right? For me earliest memories or like things that are stuck to me is the sound of the Antonov, which is.... I don't know the origin, but I think it's these Russian planes that would drop bombs in most parts of Sudan during the civil war. And I was not immune to it.

I was born in a small little town called Chukudum. And Chukudum was one of the towns where SPLM made its military base. And SPLM stands for Sudanese People Liberation Army, right? It was the army that was commissioned to almost fight for secularity of Sudan during that time. And mostly fighting for the rights of the southerners to feel like they're a part of the government and they are a part of the community in the country. So I find myself born in this small little military town. And of course, it was being bombed by the opposition.

And as a child, as my mother, we had to learn how to jump into the troughs. So we used to call them khandaq. And these troughs were dug out as a space where you hear the Antonov coming. It has a very distinct sound and noise that it makes. Not every plane sounds the same, right? And you could hear it from miles and miles away. And your job as a child, as a mother, is to run as fast as you can to these khandaqs and jump in. It's almost like a sound that had been absorbed into our bodies.

You just knew what to do. The Antonov will come. And when it comes you need to know how to run. You need to know how to jump. Those are the only few things that you get to know. So as a young mother, my mother didn't have a moment to hold a baby, to smell like the scent of a newborn or feel the arms or like you know what new mothers do. She was conditioned to knowing the sound of the Antonov and to know when to run like most parents in South Sudan during that time.

 

[00:05:16] Melissa Fleming

So always in this kind of fight or flight mode where you have to escape and try to... And these were dug trenches, right, that people, just ordinary people had to go and hide themselves in to protect themselves from the bombing?

 

[00:05:36] Mary Maker

From the bombing. And these were very weird bombs. I don't know how they look like, because again, I'm working off memory here. But there's a reason why so many southerners, so many South Sudanese are decapitated or like are handicapped. These bombs will roll on a leveled ground, like literally sizzling anything on their way. And we had so many kids without limbs, so many fathers without limbs. And the khandaq was the only way out.

 

[00:06:04] Melissa Fleming

So that's really all you knew up until the age of I believe four?

 

[00:06:09] Mary Maker

All until the age of four. I have very small, few memories of beautiful Sudan. Very few.

 

[00:06:17] Melissa Fleming

What did it look like?

 

[00:06:19] Mary Maker

We lived in this small town called Boma. It's on the border of Ethiopia and Sudan, and close to Kakuma Refugee Camp, actually. So on the northeastern side of Sudan. It was a small little town. For the first time we had a moment of normalcy.

 

[00:06:35] Melissa Fleming

So this was after you left the military town.

 

[00:06:38] Mary Maker 

Yes, we left the military town. We went to Ethiopia. That's what my parents told me. We went to Ethiopia, but all the refugee camps were full. So my mother was like, 'There's no way we can survive in these camps.' So we walked to the nearest town, which was Boma, near Ethiopia, and we settled there before my younger sister was born.

And in this town, there was a moment of normalcy. We would go to church every Sunday. We would milk cows. I come from a pastoralist community. We would milk cows. On Sunday, or on Easter, my uncle would become Jesus, and he is crucified on the Cross. And I'm like, 'No, that is my uncle.' It was just like very few moments of like, okay, we had a life. You would wake up, you'd go milk.

There were a few schools that were in Boma and kids were going to school. And I wanted to go to school, but I was too young. But Boma was a small town that also had a lot of SPLM influence, but also many communities. So now the tribal wars or the tribal clashes came to the town. We weren't immune from that either. And this is when my mom had to make a decision to move to Kakuma. 

 

 

[00:07:54] Melissa Fleming

So to flee into Kenya. That must have been a journey. How did you get there?

 

[00:08:01] Mary Maker 

Walking [for] months. I wouldn't say it's days because it, you know, like it's a lot... There's one thing to use a truck, but there's one thing to walk from one town to the other is you're making your way down south, you know, to Kenya. I just do remember that very moment when we made it to the border line. I used to think it was a line. You know, there would be like probably a red dome-shaped, something, like at the border. I'm like, 'Where's the line?' I was so obsessed with that, but it was just another border line with hundreds of refugees coming either from Ethiopia or coming from Sudan or coming from the other side of Sudan around Uganda or something like that.

We all just found ourselves in this border town called Lokichogio in Kenya, and there were soldiers. The first thing you have to do is surrender your arms. Like for them to know that you're a refugee, like, 'Give us your gun so that we know that you are not coming in as a terrorist.' And it used to baffle me, like, how does the word terrorism and refugee get into the same sentence, right? But there we were. We were walking with one of my uncles. He had to surrender his gun. And you're taking this new title - the refugee.

And the soldiers almost like hand you to UNHCR in that very moment. There was always a truck, knowing, almost expecting new arrivals, right? And it's a white truck and you see the UNHCR logo, you know, with the hands holding each other. And I remember my mom trying to spell it out for me - U.N.H.C.R. And she's like, 'We're safe. I think we made it.' But at that moment, I see my mother crying with my grandmother. I don't know if she's my actual grandmother. It's that African thing where like, 'Your grandmother and my grandmother we went to the same school.' Or something like that. You just end up... She's your relative. You accept them as they are. And we are here at the border, and you could see the pain, the joy, the relief of making it to safety. But also the pain of leaving home. Almost like that grappling on like, 'Should we take this new title? Is this actually the end of home, right?' As we get onto this truck and being led to the reception.

And at the reception there are the thousands of refugees right there waiting to be documented. And I think that was my very first time in an interrogation room almost, right? Where your mother has to answer these questions: 'Why are you seeking safety? What are you running away from?' And my mother would say these things like, 'What do they want to hear?' Because there's an interpreter, right? You're like, 'I've lost my brother. I have lost people. I just need my kids to be safe.' And you're dipped in ink, you know. And all your documents, like your information is taken. And we find ourselves in the camp and my mother can recognize faces, my uncles that had fled to the camp back in 1992 as part of the Lost Boys of South Sudan.

 

[00:11:19] Melissa Fleming

So there was a reunion of sorts. How old were you?

 

[00:11:22] Mary Maker

I was probably four or five. It's hard to know because your mother is like, 'Oh, you were born when the moon was shining.' I'm like, 'Could you please tell me exactly so that I know how to go to an astronomy or something like that?' Nope, you just never know and like most refugees, you're given January 1st. That's your birthday.

 

[00:11:42] Melissa Fleming

That's your birthday now. 

 

[00:11:45] Mary Maker

Yeah. I had to choose a different one when I came to the US later on, but I had January 1st for such a long time.

 

[00:11:50] Melissa Fleming

What is the birthday you chose later?

 

[00:11:52] Mary Maker

I chose June, because it's the middle of the year, and I chose June 18th. I became a Gemini. I should have read astrology or something, and kind of like, you know. But I went with June 18th, because it was close to World Refugee Day - June 20th. So, I don't know why I came up with it, but it was close.

 

[00:12:10] Melissa Fleming

What is your earliest memory of the Kakuma Refugee Camp?

 

[00:12:17] Mary Maker 

I have so many memories of Kakuma. I think the first one was going to school. I think it was a mandate at that point where like every parent had to take their kids to school. And I went to Turkwel Nursery School or kindergarten and there was 200 of us in this tiny classroom but in that very moment we all can't speak English, right? We can't speak Swahili either. Everyone is speaking in their mother tongue.

And to just give you a demographic of Kakuma. You know, it's 10 plus countries, right? We have Somali kids. We have Eritrean kids. It's Ethiopians, Congolese. And there we are, like all speaking different languages. And at that very moment you don't understand each other. But we started to laugh at the small instances of a torn patch on your trousers. Or a kid sleeping over porridge or something like that. But we all knew what we had gone through. We just couldn't articulate death. We couldn't articulate the loss of a parent, an aunt.

In that moment, we had a moment to just be kids, and cause mischief, and write our names on sand. And the empowerment that created on like, 'I can write the name Nyiriak on sand.' It was a lot of letters, but there was something beautiful about singing the ABCs and all the singing games and nursery rhymes that I didn't honestly understand. We sang about the "Ring a Ring o' Roses." Something that I'm like, 'I don't know what this is, but it sounds good. I'd just say whatever the teacher is saying, you know.' Those are some of my earliest memories.

 

 

[00:14:04] Melissa Fleming

Sounds like a happy memory.

 

[00:14:06] Mary Maker

It is. It is a happy memory.

 

[00:14:09] Melissa Fleming

How long did you spend during that initial time in the Kakuma Camp?

 

[00:14:14] Mary Maker 

It was long. I think probably since I was five into seven, before my father came to the camp. My father was a soldier in Sudan. And I remember when he first came to Kakuma and he was trying to make me read some of the work that he was doing. He was writing a constitution for the new government, if we were going to ever get a new government. South Sudan was not in the making at that point. But... He was a politician, very eager to like, you know, constitution of a country.

And he would say these amazing words like ¡°constitution¡±, ¡°human rights¡±, ¡°bogus¡±. And I'm like, 'Oh, I love English. These are really amazing words.' And I would just repeat whatever he was saying. And he's like, 'You're going to go to a boarding school.' Because probably he did see how impossible it was going to be for me to succeed in the camp through education. And it was during this time when you know, Nelson Mandela's words were everywhere in the camp: 'Education is the key. It's the only thing that is going to make the child of a farmer become the president of a nation.' Or something like that. And I held these words to heart where I'm like, 'I believe in education. I know it's going to work.' But I think he could see the dead end of so many kids that had graduated from high school and no scholarships coming to the camp. So, I got enrolled in a boarding school.

 

[00:15:40] Melissa Fleming

In Kenya?

 

[00:15:41] Mary Maker 

In Kenya, outside the camp. And I think it was my first time to leave the camp. That feeling of leaving a 100-degree refugee camp and taking a bus to Nairobi or to Nakuru. And the roads were not okay during that time, so it was like almost a three-day journey. And you make it to Kitale, and you could feel the breeze. You know, for the first time, you're almost feeling like the cool weather or something like that. And you start to see electricity, and you see big buildings.

And I remember before I left the camp to go to, we call it "down Kenya", you know, down country. It's almost like Kakuma is not a part of Kenya at all to so many kids in Kakuma Refugee Camp. And most of the kids will sing, 'I'm going to Nairobi. I'm going to leave you now.' I don't even know what we were singing but like, 'Goodbye and see you again.' I was so excited about going, the whole idea of going to Nairobi and, you know, feeling the city. And it was my very first time to dream. It's hard to dream of anything in the camp when the camp walls almost cage you. There's no development in the camp during that time. Right now there's a few developments, but still.

And I remember being enrolled in this boarding school, Good Samaritan Academy in Nakuru. It's a three-hour drive from Nairobi. And I had a teacher. I was seeing a piano for the first time. There were a lot of kids that wanted to touch it. But I had backpack. I had a book. You know, in the camp, one book was [inaudible] to be shared among 200 kids. You know the teachers were mostly refugee teachers. They're teaching you in the accents of the... It's almost like a teacher speaking in Dinka, my native [language], and translating it almost into English. There was a difference between refugee teachers, Kenyan teachers, or American teachers, or like humanitarian workers that came. You could see the level in English almost changing. And I wanted to master English by all means possible.

 

[00:17:54] Melissa Fleming

What was it like being a refugee in a boarding school among students who were not refugees?

 

[00:18:02] Mary Maker 

The difference was clear. I was an eight-year-old in first grade. Most kids were almost six years or seven at that time. You're already older. I'm taller than most of the kids in the classroom. I couldn't read or write. Most of the kids already knew how to read or write. I couldn't speak English or Swahili. They just put me there because they're like, there's no way an eight-year-old is going back to kindergarten or something like that.

I think I was shocked to be in this space in the first place. We were 25 students in a classroom. I'm coming from a place where we were 200 of us in a tiny classroom. Most of kids were Kenyans. I was not. And I remember I couldn't even say anything about Sudan because how do I connect with kids that have never seen war, right? And sometimes I would talk about some things from my own community like, 'Oh, I know how to cook.' They're like, 'You're eight.' You know, and I'm coming from a different culture where like as a girl it's almost impossible for you to even be in school. I was lucky because my father really believed in education. And that's when I started to realize that I was different from most of the kids.

 

[00:19:10] Melissa Fleming

You were there all alone as an eight-year-old who had been uprooted. It must have been really tough. You left your mother back in the camp. Your father was in Sudan. What was that like for you?

 

[00:19:26] Mary Maker 

It was hard, but there was a moment where I could fully be myself. Boarding schools are very common in Kenya. I think there were only three first graders that were boarders. All the rest, they were day scholars, or like they would come during the day and go back home. We would sleep earlier. There was a matron that would, you know, kind of like teach us how to wash your uniform or like brush your teeth in the morning. Almost like the school became my parents. Your teacher is making sure that you've oiled your face or like you actually put on your uniform right in the morning. And there was this very moment where you're taught critical thinking and to question things.

While in the community I was coming from, you're not supposed to be heard. So almost school was my little safe haven and a place where I could fully be myself. For the first time I really got so interested in theatre, right? I loved the whole idea of taking on a new character and almost shaming the community. You could get away with things as an actor, right? It wasn't taught. It was almost like a way of life or something like that. And I remember the first time. It was a Christian school, so we would go to church every Sunday and they would ask like, 'Any performers?' I called myself Little Angel. You know, like I would stand up and I would go and sing "Daddy Cool" in church, you know, by Boney M. And everyone is like, you know, shocked. But it's the only song I heard on the radio, you know.

 

[00:21:07] Melissa Fleming

¡°Daddy Cool¡±?

 

[00:21:08] Mary Maker

Yes. You know, so I'm right there on stage rocking it.

 

[00:21:12] Melissa Fleming

Do you remember a line from it?

 

[00:21:12] Mary Maker 

Yes. Daddy, daddy cool. And everyone was just gasping. But I'm like, 'But our daddy is cool.' You know, like, 'But God is cool.' You know, or something like that. I think I just started to transition into performance slowly, and at this time, I couldn't go back to the camp. It was a dangerous journey for an eight-year-old to make from Nakuru to Kakuma Refugee Camp. It's three days. Most of the time it's raining, so the roads are washed away, or things like that.

So I ended up living with my stepmother in Nairobi, and she was wicked. And she would hide behind church most of the time. So I was like, this is the time for me to produce things, you know, in church that could either talk about abuse at home or things like that. And I would write all my plays around that, and I would put them in church. And everyone clapped for me and I'd get awards or things like that. And I'm like, 'I love theatre.' And for a minute you almost forget that you're a child of war because of the moment you're on stage, and you're taking on this new character that has a happy ending. All my stories had a happy ending. They had to have a happy ending. You almost like synthesized war. You almost synthesized death, and you became a whole new person.

 

[00:22:38] Melissa Fleming

So it was in a way your own form of self-therapy.

 

[00:22:40] Mary Maker

Yes. I became my own therapist. From early on I think performance was a way to relieve a lot of things. And I wrote a lot of things around patriarchy. As a woman, I loved being a witch in most of the plays that I wrote because it was this powerful woman role that even men feared. Most of the plays ended up with, you know, God striking the witch with lightning, but I loved playing that role.

 

[00:23:06] Melissa Fleming

How long were you at that school?

 

[00:23:08] Mary Maker

I was there until 8th grade, and then I got accepted to a boarding school for high school. But during this time, I lost both my mom and my dad. My mom went back to Sudan. As I said, crossing that border line and her coming to Kakuma Refugee Camp, she was conflicted about it like most parents that will never choose to learn English or Swahili. Because they're like, 'No. Sudan will be okay.' And they're stuck in that time. And people sneak back to the country to go and check and see if things have cooled down. And unfortunately, my mother didn't make it back. She died in 2009.

 

 

[00:23:51] Melissa Fleming

What happened to her?

 

[00:23:53] Mary Maker 

I don't know so much. They said she was sick and died after childbirth or she was killed. No one talks about it because I was never allowed to go to her funeral. I was a girl. And my mother only gave birth to girls. It's me and my three younger sisters. And I remember during her funeral, which we didn't attend. So, the many people that made it to come to our home, they would be like, 'Oh, we're so sorry. Your mother didn't leave any child behind.' And you can imagine my rage of like, 'Are we just sketches in here?' I'm like, 'There's four of us. There's me and my three younger sisters.'

And I just knew at that very moment there was no one else left to protect us. My dad was grieving, and his grief took him in 2012 when he also passed away. And then now you have to realize that you not only have to take on the refugee title, there is [also] the orphan title. And everyone just looking at you and shaking their head and sad and cry for you. Because my younger sister was five years old when all my parents passed. And I was 13, almost 14 years old. So now you are ushered into this new world of fending for yourself.

 

[00:25:19] Melissa Fleming

Because your dad was actually paying for your education, right?

 

[00:25:21] Mary Maker

Yes.

 

[00:25:21] Melissa Fleming

And so that... After he died there was no more money.

 

[00:25:24] Mary Maker 

There was no more of that. There was more money to do that. So I had one choice - to go back to the camp. But I was so close to graduating. And I was grieving. I was not only grieving my dad, I was grieving my mother. I was grieving my younger brother, because my mom had just given birth to my younger brother, who died immediately after childbirth. And my mom followed afterwards.

And then there's the talk in the community of, 'How can five family members die at the same time?' Before my mom and my younger brother died, I lost my grandmother and my grandfather. And so, there was talk around like, 'Oh, it might be witchcraft. Or it might this. Do you see how the other kids are so skinny or this and all of that?' They're like, 'The kids are next.' And so I was so afraid of death. It was almost like death was reminding the young Mary like, 'Hey, I'm in charge of you.' Refugees were prone to death. Like it was a part of our lives.

 

[00:26:21] Melissa Fleming

You were the oldest then.

 

[00:26:22] Mary Maker

I was the oldest then.

 

[00:26:24] Melissa Fleming

And where were your younger sisters?

 

[00:26:26] Mary Maker 

My younger sisters, at that point, we were under the care of my aunt. But still it was almost like after I lost my dad, everyone was like, 'You cannot cry. You're the oldest. You have to look strong. Now these kids are your kids.' I'm like, 'I'm barely 15, right? I cannot be taking care of kids.' But then you have to take on that role as fast as you can. So at some point, you're almost forced to grow faster. And I had to become an adult. I had to understand systems. I had to understand how things work. I had to understand scholarships. I had to understand opportunities coming to the camp. I had to avail myself at ration centres and make sure we got food every month. I also had to counsel my siblings to stay out of trouble. I had to understand that community could easily marry us off.

We don't have any male relatives that could easily fight for us. My father is no longer there to be like, 'You need to go to school.' School was another thing. Like I dropped out for a few months before I could figure out who gets to take care of my siblings when I'm in school. And when you're in school, you're worried, are they being abused? Are they being taken care of? And I was this star in school. You know, I was talkative. I was singing. I was the overcommitted rapture. You know, like I was in sports. I was on stage. I was in Christian union or things like that. But you were struggling. I was like, 'God forbid that anyone knows that I'm struggling at home.' 

 

[00:28:01] Melissa Fleming

Well it must have been quite something to have to leave that opportunity that you had to be in boarding school and to return to the Kakuma Refugee Camp. And to be the one who was responsible for your sisters and still try to get educated yourself. It's remarkable in the face of all of that grief and all of that loss that you were able to move on.

 

[00:28:27] Mary Maker

You almost have to put grief aside. Like you don't have the luxury of grieving almost. You know, you have to believe education is going to work out.

 

[00:28:42] Melissa Fleming

But were the education opportunities there when you were returned back to Kakuma?

 

 

[00:28:45] Mary Maker 

Not quite. So I graduated in 2015. I didn't do well because of, you know, being on and off in school, not affording school fees, being chased out of school, sneaking back into school. Like I was very notorious. And I didn't perform well during that time. And I remember in 2016 I went back knocking on every school asking them to take me in. And one school in particular, Anestar Victory Girls, I think the principal or like the director of the school really believed in giving refugees an opportunity and he gave me tuition free. And I went back. I performed really well.

And then I asked myself, 'What was the point of even going back? Cause now I have a good grade, but I will never have... I don't have the security to show universities that I can take a loan.' So I went back to the camp. And like many refugees, I became a teacher. I'm not trained. I'm not qualified. And I was teaching high school students. I was teaching biology, storytelling. Kakuma Refugee Secondary School is this big school. Thousands and thousands of kids going in. And I'm a teacher. I am the same age as most of the students going to school there.

I was so passionate about education, and I remember in one of my classes. Again, this is 120, 90 students. Less than 10 were girls. And some of them were young mothers. So, you can imagine in the middle of the class when a young girl comes to you and they're like, 'Hey, Madam Mary, I need to go and breastfeed my kid.' I have no choice than to let them go. So how are they...? How can they win when they sit for the national exams? But here I was. I've already done that exam. I did really well, but I don't have any opportunity. I remember when I met you in 2017, I hadn't even got an opportunity. I was still a teacher.

 

[00:30:40] Melissa Fleming

I remember that very well. We organized a TEDx event in the Kakuma Refugee Camp - TEDxKakumaCamp. And you were chosen as one of our featured speakers. And I remember being so struck by your story and your passion for education. That you were a teacher. Everything that you'd gone through. How did that, standing up on that TED stage...? And we were able to broadcast your talk all over the world. The recording of that talk was then put on TED.com, which meant it got incredible numbers of views. Well over a million. How did that change your life?

 

[00:31:32] Mary Maker 

I think I remember when you guys asked me to do the TED Talk. I went to one of my teachers. I'm like, 'What's a TED Talk?' And she brought me all these videos. I'm like, 'Oh, sh--!¡¯ Oh, sorry. I'm like, 'Holy cow! I'm doing one of those!' And I remember, when I got back to Kakuma to do the talk, at that point, I knew what this meant. It meant that someone somewhere out there would probably not only just invest in me but also invest in a young refugee.

I think the talk was why I fight for the education of refugee girls like myself. And for me, it was like all the hoops that I had to jump through. Many a time, even though I was so hopeful, my hope was diminishing at some point because you're in this camp. You're applying for opportunities. You're teaching. You're doing everything that you are told to do as a young girl for you to succeed, and yet it wasn't panning out, right? So, you can imagine how demoralizing that could be.

At this time here the talk got like over a million views. And I was applying for universities abroad. I was... For the first time, I was learning how to type. You know, it¡¯s the "Z" and the "A" and all of that. I'm learning SATs. I was doing critical thinking. I was doing crash courses on America. And I got admitted immediately, I think, after the TED Talk. I got admitted to two schools. One was Meredith College in North Carolina. And I also got admitted to St. Olaf in Minnesota. I chose Minnesota not knowing where it was on the map. I should have read [about] the weather or something like that.

But it was grand. It was big. And I was like, 'If I can get in, I know there's more smarter kids in the camp.' But I'm like, 'Imagine if all those kids could see that I made it out, that they too could make it out.' And I remember when I took that first flight to come to Minnesota, I was like, 'Oh, I am in America. This is amazing, you know.' I went to... Our school looked like Hogwarts. Like if you've watched Harry Potter, it's such a beautiful campus, you know, down in Northfield, Minnesota. And there's libraries full of books, you know. There's a dining hall. There are all these things. I got a dorm room, you know. A room where I could be in by myself with another roommate. You know, I'm coming from a big family of over 17 of us. You know, like a bedroom, that's a luxury, you know.

All of these things that you're getting to learn. I'm being immersed into the American culture. I'm getting a crash course on America too, you know. And then keeping up to speed. It was during that time. It was during the death of George Floyd too. So, you're learning so much, like on race, on, you know, politics and catching up to so much.

But I just wanted to become a college kid. I wanted to become a college kid, signing up for classes, groups. Signing up for activities on campus. Going on tours. I joined every club again. I became again the over-committed rapture. I was in the running club. I even went to chess club, and I didn't know what to do in that club. I started a new organization on campus. It was called POC Ole Theater. I just loved being a college kid. And going to... It felt like the movies. You know and taking college buses or the yellow buses.

You know, like I love all this experience, and I want more kids like myself to feel and absorb this. And I hope more universities can see, you know, kids like myself. I answered everything in my political science classes about refugees. I was raising my hand, and all the other kids are being, you know, like, 'Oh, it's lunchtime.' I'm like, 'No. We are here to learn and learning we shall get today.' You know, yeah.

 

[00:35:47] Melissa Fleming

You had an amazing opportunity, but it was through all of the enthusiasm, the hard work. And I know that you're constantly thinking back to the life before. I mean you're a Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR. You're thinking constantly about the plight of refugees. When you think about refugees now, what is keeping you awake at night?

 

 

[00:36:14] Mary Maker

I think what keeps me awake is the small Mary in the camp wanting opportunities to come her way. I think I was doing everything right, that I thought was right, that my parents told me to do. And there's so many kids that never get opportunities to get out of the camp. I saw weddings in the camp. I saw burials in the camp. And I used to be like, 'I don't want to get married in the camp. God, please!' I just... There's a permanence to the camp, even though it's temporal, right? And for me, I was like, 'I understand education. I understand how to apply for universities.' So, my friends and I think as freshman students in college, we started a non-profit - Elimisha Kakuma - which means Educate Kakuma. And fast forward six years later, we've now placed close to 60 students to one of the top universities in the world with over $20 million in scholarships, just in under six years.

 

[00:37:19] Melissa Fleming

And you basically... I mean, the business model is you go to these universities and convince them that it's in their interest to accept refugees.

 

[00:37:31] Mary Maker 

Yeah. I think that has been the biggest achievement, not just for me, but for all the other three co-founders. And it's a lot of hard work. It's lot of knocking on doors. Universities, most of them have never seen refugee students. They do hear "refugees" on the news, but every time you hear the news that is probably 20, 25 years of someone's life in a refugee camp somewhere around the world. And what we've been able to do is open their eyes to seeing that, hey, we have smart kids in these camps too that also deserve a fighting chance in the classroom. That's what keeps me awake at night.

And I know I can never solve the over 126 million displaced refugees around the world, but I do understand education. And I do understand how the system works. Our job, as one of our college counselors puts it, is translating the camp context to universities and making universities see that these kids can also succeed. Refugees do bring so much to the community. And they bring a whole different culture, a whole different lens on life, you know. And that is powerful and important.

As a Goodwill Ambassador, I often feel like I will never be able to do justice to all the different stories of refugees. We have refugees in different locations around the world. Our stories are very different, but also similar. We lost our home, you know. And we are seeking to feel like a part of something. And home will never leave us. You know, I left the camp, but it never left me. Like you're constantly... I'm constantly thinking of how do I get my siblings out of the camp? I dream of the camp because it's where I spent most of my life.

 

[00:39:35] Melissa Fleming

It must be as also UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador tough and painful for you to see that there have been such devastating cuts to the budget of UNHCR and other organizations that are helping refugees. What would your message be to those countries that are supporting refugees or were supporting refugees and have stopped?

 

[00:40:03] Mary Maker

I lived in the camp for two decades of my life. It was tough. I remember you getting sick in the camp. I never saw an ambulance in the camp, not once. Probably there's one now or two in a camp of 300,000 refugees. And I remember having to wait for the doctor to come probably on Wednesday or Friday as they fly into the camp. And there's all these refugees lining up to be seen. I remember how over the years food rations became smaller and smaller. And families making the harder choice of, okay, one meal a day. You know, 'Okay, we are going to give the kids first before the rest can take the ration.' This was over like 10,15 years ago. And with the aid cuts right now, there's that indignity of like, 'Should I die here or go back home and die in war?' Because you don't have food. Might as well go and die home in war.

 

[00:41:06] Melissa Fleming

When you were in Kakuma, the thing that you had to worry about was more self-actualization, education.

 

[00:41:13] Mary Maker

Right now it's food.

 

[00:41:14] Melissa Fleming

How am I going get out of here? And now there's the basic necessities to survive or struggle because of the funding cuts.

 

[00:41:20] Mary Maker

Because of the funding cuts. Like for me it's mostly hunger, what a meal can do. Like the dignity a meal could do to somebody. And I feel like the aid cuts have really been hard on families. Again, we're still looking for self-actualization rather than thinking about the basic needs. We want to be part of communities, but that's impossible if I'm still thinking of safety, or food, of the basic needs that every human being deserves.

 

[00:41:53] Melissa Fleming

When you do advocacy on behalf of UNHCR as Goodwill Ambassador, what are your top messages you most want them to hear?

 

[00:42:02] Mary Maker

I'm always like throwing out the word like, 'I want to be seen. I want to be heard. I want to be acknowledged. I want to be at the table, making decisions and feeling like a part of something.' It's only our stories that carry us forward. And some of us will never want their stories to be seen but it doesn't mean they don't exist. Are you able to see us? Are you able to go beyond the news or things like that and really understand that this is someone like you? This is someone that once had a job, that once paid taxes and belonged to a community, that has had probably their entire life shaken. We just want to be seen and heard and included.

 

[00:42:51] Melissa Fleming

You live here in New York now, Mary?

 

[00:42:53] Mary Maker

Yes.

 

[00:42:54] Melissa Fleming

That means you graduated from college.

 

[00:42:56] Mary Maker

Yes.

 

[00:42:56] Melissa Fleming

And what are you doing now?

 

[00:42:57] Mary Maker

Oh, I'm doing everything all at once. I'm everywhere, right? I'm writing a play right now, currently.

 

 

[00:43:05] Melissa Fleming

You brought an incredible looking diary with you. Can you just hold it up. What's in it?

 

[00:43:13] Mary Maker

It's an artist's masterpiece. I write my poetry in here. And yes, a lot of work like the midnight thoughts or things like that. I'm currently writing a play. I love writing poetry. I love writing plays and giving talks.

 

[00:43:29] Melissa Fleming

Would you like to read us a poem?

 

[00:43:31] Mary Maker

Yes. This one is called ¡°The Exceptional Refugee.¡± I wrote it like a while back. I'm saying this because many a times I find myself as the exceptional refugee, but the point is almost every single story or every single refugee is just an exceptional refugee that has not been heard or discovered or seen, you know.

So, to be an exceptional refugee means to break yourself down in crowds, to recount memories long buried, the one that makes you animal. It means standing there paraded and examined in public view, next to the magazine photos of children dying, flies mapping their ribs like coordinates. It means becoming the break in the media feed that makes others feel good about their lives. This exceptional refugee takes a bullet to the head, or the eye perhaps, and still smiles for the brochures. They become experts on pain. Diversity wins. Discomfort. The exceptional refugee is resettled, or granted a scholarship, given a stage, while a room full of policy makers often debates her future without her. She fights hard to be the top. She performs resilience. She wrestles her trauma into something tender, something digestible. Then offers it wrapped in hope. She curates a facade of what you want to see.

The idea of the exceptional refugee forgets or is made to forget the silent refugee, the one caged behind camp walls. The one who lines up at 3 a.m. for cornmeal and a bar of soap. The one who school ignores, who applies to over 50 institutions, but is denied for lack of 20% of the fees. The one goes from office to office to cover the hidden cost of taking a flight to a university. Who lacks documents. Who can't afford exams, nor travel to take those exams. Who doesn't even understand what document is needed from them. Whose Wi-Fi keeps cutting when they're trying to submit an exam. The one who menstruates in camps, who lactates in camps, marries in camps, dies in camps. Those silent Venuses, but not really silent, just not heard, trapped. And so the exceptional refugee comes to represent us all, but she doesn't know us all.

 

[00:46:09] Melissa Fleming

Mary, you are an exceptional refugee. You're an exceptional woman. And it's been really an honour and a pleasure to have you here at Awake at Night and to see you again in New York City after having met you first in the Kakuma Refugee Camp.

 

[00:46:27] Mary Maker

It's a miracle, right?

 

[00:46:28] Melissa Fleming

It feels like a miracle. It feels like you are a miracle.

 

[00:46:34] Mary Maker

Thank you, Melissa.

 

[00:46:37] Melissa Fleming

Thank you for listening to Awake at Night. We'll be back soon with more incredible and inspiring stories from people working against huge challenges to make this world a better and safer place.

To find out more about the series and the extraordinary people featured, do visit un.org/awake-at-night. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and please take the time to review us. It helps more people to find the show.

Thanks to my editor Bethany Bell and to my colleagues at the UN: Katerina Kitidi, Roberta Politi, Geneva Damayanti, Abby Vardeleon, Alison Corbet, Laura Rodriguez de Castro, Eric Balgley, Jason Candler, Benji Candelario, Anzhelika Devis, Tulin Battikhi, Bissera Kostova, Brianna Rowe, Joon Park, and Taeyoung Lee. The original music for this podcast was written and performed by Nadine Shah and produced by Ben Hillier.