Then three-year-old Pang Matet looked up at her mother eagerly pointing at a flimsy postcard, her index finger hovering over an image of people on an ice-skating rink. She didn’t know anything about the people on the postcard.
For her, it was just a destination – one she would soon call home.
To Matet, that postcard was America in its entirety - just gliding on ice and wide smiles.
That’s sophomore biology major Matet’s earliest memory from before she left the Gambella region in Ethiopia with her mother and nine-month-old brother in October 1999. For her, it was just an adventure – a transition from one place to another.
Little did she know she was fleeing from her home country as a refugee to escape disputes over wealth, war and politics. The Ethiopian Civil War ended in 1991, but the violent arguments were far from over. Territorial disagreements between the north and south, specifically with Eritrea, led to millions of dollars being spent on war that resulted in many casualties. This caused people to fear for their lives and leave Sudan.
The flat landscape, the hard rains and the long nights spent in a refugee camp turned into hazy memories, but 16 years later, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln gave her the chance to make up for the memories she wasn’t able to make .
Matet recalls her first experience on a plane, including throwing up on that plane. She remembers stepping on an escalator for the first time, which was for her, scary, moving stairs. But never did these first times cause her courage to waver.
“I didn’t know where I was or why, but I had the ‘yeah, let’s go!’ attitude,” she said.
Matet arrived at a place far from the ice-skating image – Dallas – where her stepfather spent two or three years completing the long resettlement process while Matet, her brother and mother patiently waited in Gambella.
From Dallas, the family made their way to Marshall County, Iowa. In fifth grade, Matet came to Lincoln after her father made the decision to attend Doane College.
Lincoln is a refugee resettlement community with several assistant agencies, including Lutheran Family Services, Heartland Refugee Resettlement and Catholic Social Services. Each one helps refugees and immigrants make the transition, assisting with learning English, learning to drive and landing a job.
“Lincoln has so many great welfare programs for families,” Matet said. “My mom was able to get a job. We were able to get to a lot of our goals.”
But there was one goal Matet wasn’t sure she would be able to achieve. She wanted to go back to Ethiopia. She wanted to see where she spent those first few years. She wanted more than just a few scraps of memories of her home country.
During her freshman year, Matet attended a study abroad fair on campus. She walked through the booths, thinking about how she’d like to spend some time outside of the United States. Maybe she’d go junior or senior year, she thought.
Then a sign caught her eye.
Ethiopia.
“I stopped in my tracks and I knew,” she said.
Financial conflicts and lack of time in the school year previously held Matet back from studying abroad, but full funding through scholarships and grants broke down the barriers that once separated her from her dream. She decided to venture to Ethiopia before the three coordinators and eight students who would join her on June 3. Only a 22-hour long plane ride stood between Matet and her home country.
“I still get goose bumps thinking about arriving,” Matet said. “I knew it was my mom’s sister in the flesh because of her defined cheekbones. Walking up to the traditional hut-styled home, I heard my grandma say my name and I froze. I had never felt that way before… like finding someone who already loves me as much as my mother does.”
Her grandmother poured a bucket of water on Matet’s feet, right hand and head and whispered a prayer. The dripping water ran together with Matet’s tears.
The number of times her family members prayed during her week with them came as a surprise to Matet, but the surprises kept coming when she saw the conditions the people of Ethiopia lived in. These are the details her three-year-old memory left behind before.
“Pang was connected to Africa because of her family and yes, absolutely, she was interested in health and rural communities,” Mary Willis, a nutrition and health sciences professor and trip coordinator said. “But she didn’t have an idea of what it would be like.”
Students participate in research on intensive malnutrition and ethics, followed by data collection before being exposed to international topics, such as food security, health, nutrition and the factors that lead to disease.
Seeing the children in Ethiopia sent chills down Matet’s spine. She left Ethiopia with a new realization: She wanted to be in the pediatrics field.
“Some children had close to nothing and would beg for pens because they wanted to go to school,” Matet said. “There’s so many medical field problems, but these can be solved. It only takes one person to go out there and make a change.”
Now with eight younger siblings, Matet said the Ethiopian kids opened her eyes to the life she and her siblings would be living had her family not boarded the plane to the land of smiling ice skaters. Matet is now exploring ways to get involved with Doctors Without Borders, an organization that provides medical assistance in impoverished areas worldwide.
Looking back on her journey, Matet said she’s thankful for that one split-second at the study abroad fair.
“If that moment didn’t happen,” she said, trailing off. “If I went out a different door and didn’t see an Ethiopia option… I wouldn’t have stumbled upon this opportunity. Life works in amazing ways.”
Source: dailynebraskan.com
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