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'For us, school is freedom' By Nurit Wurgaft Tags: Eritrea, refugees, Darfur  At nine o'clock on a recent Tuesday morning, shortly after the beginning of the first lesson and immediately after we introduced ourselves, all 12 Eritrean students stood up and left the class en masse. Why? They refused to answer any questions and returned to their dorm rooms. They had decided on their protest action the night before. "We are not used to being told what to do," explained one of them later. "We are not little children." "You'd better get used to it," replied one of the youth group counselors on hand, "because at school you will also have to follow the rules and do as you are told." Advertisement The 18 youths, aged 13-16, six from Darfur and 12 from Eritrea, arrived in Israel alone without their families, and have spent the past month on Kibbutz Naaran in the Jordan Valley. They are preparing for the next stage of their lives: studying at high schools in the Kadouri and Ayanot Youth Villages. Some of the teens lost relatives in the massacres in Darfur, others fled Eritrea on the eve of their conscription to the army. A few left or were sent away from their homes long before they arrived in Israel. None of them had planned to study. "I went to school for five years and figured my learning days were over," said E. a boy from Darfur who came to Israel seven months ago. "My parents worked in the fields and so did I. When I left, they thought I would work and send money home. I told them I was going to study and had no money. Now I don't phone my mother because every time I call, she asks for money. I know their situation is difficult, but I can't give up this opportunity to learn. I told her this, but she doesn't understand." This small group reflects a new phenomenon. Dozens of minors from Eritrea, Darfur and southern Sudan have come to Israel in the past year alone. It is unclear what prompted them to come here or exactly how they arrived. "None of us came by ourselves," says D. "I came with older friends and the others had help, too." Most of the 100 or so youths who have come to Israel from East Africa try to hide their age and claim to be older, possibly on the assumption this would make it easier for them to find work. Only a small minority have expressed an interest in a high-school education. The rest can be found unloading goods at stores in Tel Aviv or cleaning restaurants. When local youth movements realized how many teens were involved, an effort was mounted to help them: Members of Hanoar Haoved Vehalomed opened a kind of ulpan (Hebrew-language program) in Jaffa, and Hamahanot Haolim decided to donate a bomb-shelter clubhouse and to help prepare those who want to study. Kibbutz Naaran was founded in the late 1970s, almost abandoned toward the end of the 1980s and repopulated in the late 1990s. Today this young kibbutz has 80 members and a successful date plantation, although most of the members work in educational projects, many geared toward youth. Plans are being made to rent an apartment for the boys who do not want to study, and the kibbutz members will maintain contact with them, to protect them from exploitation, and to involve them in after-work activities. Host families are also being sought for the youths who will be studying in a boarding school. The decision to take the boys interested in learning out of the shelters in South Tel Aviv and to move them to a kibbutz was based on the desire to strengthen their commitment to studying and also to put pressure on the authorities. Michal Friedler, who coordinates the youth movements' efforts on their behalf, says the goal is "for the state to take responsibility for every child living in Israel, no matter how he arrived and why he is here. We are operating as an educational, ethical and Zionist body, but are not philanthropists. We want to remind the government and the public where we came from. I think that in Israel's 60th [Independence day], whose theme is Israeli children, it is unreasonable for there to be children living in the streets." With Israelis The Eritrean youths gathered in one of the dorm rooms and welcomed the two youth group counselors with stony silence. The counselors tried the approaches familiar to them from their movement - a disciplinary reprimand and a pep talk. The silence continued. Only after the councelors softened their tone and reminded the boys that the focus was on their best interests, did they begin trying to explain their feelings. "We don't want to live all together in a single dorm room," said one. Another asked if they would also be learning in a classroom separate from the Israelis. "Maybe at first you will be by yourselves, until you learn Hebrew. Otherwise, it will be very difficult for you," the counselors explained. The youths were not convinced. "We were afraid they wouldn't want to give us an education like Israeli children," said one boy later. "Maybe they wouldn't want us to be their friends." The group gave the counselors a list of requests to be passed on to their future school, particularly a demand that the group be split up. After that, the atmosphere became calmer. "We realized they were taking us seriously," says D., 16, from Asmara, Eritrea. "We know that the school decides, and not us, but at least they listened to us." Friedler said that the strike surprised the staff. "We expected there to be suspicions regarding the studies, but not such fierce ones," she said, noting that the language barrier and the cultural differences between the youths and the counselors exacerbates the emotional difficulties, which stem from knowledge of the Africans' experiences. "When one of the boys was sick and I told him to drink some water and rest, he said, 'I want my mommy.' But there is no mommy. And if it is hard for me because I do not understand them, I can imagine how hard it is for them, when everything here is so incomprehensible to them," Friedler said. The six youths from Darfur stayed behind in the room that was being used as a classroom. The counselor wrote words on the board, with a few letters missing, for the youths to fill in - "happy children," "wonderful day." Wonderful, she said, is better than good. No one seemed enthusiastic. Although they had not joined the Eritreans' strike, they were also anxious. The day before they had gone to Jerusalem, for blood tests. This routine procedure angered and insulted them. "They took a lot of blood," said one boy. "We don't know why. Maybe they don't want us here at the school at all." A. is only 14, but for already for five years he has lived away from home. His family farmed bean fields in the small southern Darfur village of Kas. After his father and brother were killed by the Janjaweed militias in 2003, he was sent to an uncle in Khartoum. He says he went to school there for a while, but mostly worked in his uncle's supermarket. When he had saved up enough money, in the fall of 2007, he left Khartoum and came to Israel via Egypt. Why Israel, he is asked. "I really don't know where I am going," he said in reasonable Hebrew - which he learned in Israeli jails and on the streets of Tel Aviv - mixed with a little English. He left Khartoum after police there began chasing and deporting Darfuris. In Cairo he lived with a friend who had already been there a long time. After just one week there, however, the friend asked him if he had a bag for his belongings, and told him they were leaving. "Where? Why?" asked A., but his friend would not tell him anything except that there would be work where they were going. The managed to cross the Egyptian border and were caught on the Israeli side. A. spent five months in the Ketziot detention facility, in Hadera, and then in Maasiyahu prison. "Then the police told me: 'There's the door, now go.'" He went to Tel Aviv and slept on the floor of a Darfuri friend, and began looking for work. He wandered around for two or three weeks until he heard about Mesila (the Hebrew acronym for the foreign community information and aid center), which he heard would help him go back to his studies. "For me that was like a dream and I still don't believe it," A. said. He wondered aloud about the Ayanot school that would soon be his home. "They told me it is a small school," he added, sounding worried. "In Darfur, a small school is not good. Our village has a small school and if someone has a diploma from a small school, nobody looks at him. Only big schools are good." He was relieved when we told him that the curriculum throughout Israel is the same at all schools, as are the matriculation exams, but then A. began to worry about something else: "I can't pay for a good school. I have no money. No one here can pay." The promise that he would not have to pay made him smile, and for the first time, perhaps, allowed him to think seriously about his studies and the future. "I will learn a lot. I want to learn technology. Maybe I'll be a doctor." After the walkout ended and the youths calmed down, the counselors came back and explained about Passover. The boys liked the idea of celebrating freedom. "We celebrated our freedom the day we arrived in Israel," said D. "Only then did we know we would not have to serve in the army. In Darfur, the army is slavery. For us, going to school to learn is freedom. We know how to work, but if we study we will know how to do more things." The desire to go far is shared by all the youths, even though they have no idea how well they will succeed. Do they miss the big city? No, A. replied. The second time he is asked about his ambitions, the word "doctor" comes more easily to his lips. If all goes well, quite a few doctors will come out of this group: D. said he also wants to be a doctor, and if not, he'll be happy working in some other science. One of the boys from Darfur confessed that he wants to be a journalist, another wants to be a soccer player. And E. dreams of working in a bank - "so that I will have lot of money." Bookmark to del.icio.us   Hamas on the Holocaust Al-Aqsa TV claims Jews concocted the Holocaust. 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