Collage Written Reflection

Thinking Creatively!

I tried to make my collage as creative as I could and I think I have done that quite well comparing to similar previous work I had done.

One of the creative aspects of my poster was the way I displayed my pictures and the way I tried to make my background a bit more colorful than just a black paper, the main way I tried to display my pictures originally was by putting them in order around the poster to make it look like the Lost Boys stepped migration. Another part that I tried to make creative is the words I stuck on above or next to some pictures. I tried to make those creative by writing them in different colors from the paper they were stuck on, adding appropriate shapes to them, or cutting them into a different shape.

Reason Critically!

First of all, all of my pictures were relevant and each of them show a different part of the Lost Boys’ trip. For every part of my poster I also chose pictures that I though showed quite well there emotions and how they felt, I also tried to place them in the order of how I though they would felt them. For example at the start, on the bottom left, I wanted to represent happiness and excitement in their home village in Sudan by showing a picture of Dinkas performing a traditional dance where they look happy, I then tried to represent them getting attacked by showing pictures of guns shooting at the Sudan map and the Sudan flag, I then had pictures of the long walk in the desert, pictures of refugee camps and survivors and to show them moving from the refugee camps to America a picture of a plane with a sign that says hope.

To show all the problems they had in America I basically had a picture for each problem like the picture of a building that says jobs and a queue of black stickman in front of the entrance. Basically I had a picture for every step of their migration and for nearly all of their emotion.

Communicate Effectively!

I think my collage shows pretty well my understanding of the Lost Boys plight because I have a few pictures for each main action that happened in their story and because most, nearly all, of my pictures do not show them being happy, Mainly because they were not, and also nearly all of my pictures represent a challenge they had and how it was hard for them to surmount it. An example is I have two pictures that show the long walk from Sudan to Kenya and I have pictures showing them having minimum-Wage jobs, which I picked because I though that they represent quite well their bad situation.

Live Ethically!

I tried to make my collage in a way that anyone that would see it would stop to take a better look and understand how hard it was for the boys to survive and just live later. I think it might make them act or react because I have some quite shocking pictures such as the one of the kids caged in a wooden sort of little prison or like the picture of a kid with a gun.

I think if my poster actually did touch them then they try to find out more about the Lost Boys of Sudan and might try to look a way to help them.

Santinos adapting to America

Peter Nyaroli Dut was one of the many "Lost Boys of Sudan" that was forced to migrate due to

fierce civil wars and conflicts that raged during 20 years throughout Sudan, and that led to his villages genesis. After escaping dangers and hard conditions including; wild animal attacks, hunger and thirst, A long walk without their parents and nearly constant gunfires at them, the surviving "Lost boys" reached a refugee cam. They lived a hard life there for 10 years and Peter was one of the few boys that got picked, along with other boys, including Santino Majok Chuor, to migrate one last time to Houston, Texas.

When Peter was moved to America, he didn't know anything about American's culture, people and even language, the first difficulty he faced with the other Lost Boys picked to go to America, was to learn their language because even with a basic understanding of English it would not have been enough to live in America, so with some classes he succeeded really well to that first obstacle.

But once he learnt there language he still had the problem of not knowing about all the rest, and another difficulty which he quickly learned would be a big difficulty was money and paying for the rents and other required bills, fortunately for him and the other boys the organisation that moved them there paid for most of it at first. Because of the expensive apartments and because he was also trying to get some education, but had trouble with that due to his missing birth certificate and unknown age, he tried to get some jobs to help pay and since did not find any place that accepted him decided to move to Olathe, Kansas. It was still hard for him to find a job there since he had no education but he managed to find small jobs one of them being a part time job at Wall mart where he had to collect shopping carts in the parking lot. One of the issues he faced there was racism and discrimination, as the manager that hired him told him to work outside in the heat, and used racist arguments such as "Since it is hot in America you are used to the heat so you can work outside" or even "You are already burnt", to justify herself. Even though he accepted the job Peter still felt offended by those comments and said that "Even though it is hot in Africa it doesn't mean we have to work in the heat".

With a low-cost salary, the help of the Organisation, and patience Peter managed to get into a high school despite not knowing his exact age, which really made things harder, he managed to make some friends and even tried out for the basketball team. Unfortunately he didn't get in as the other players knew things and playing techniques that were unknown to him. Once in the school he already started planning for college, he already had a good one in mind but when went to talk about it to his counselor it turned out the couselor had been thinking about a smaller two year community college rather than the one peter had been thinking about, this is a difficulty because the cousellor had underestimated Peter and though of him as a person with less education than he actually was, the cousellor also told him that the college Peter was thinking about required a biography and even asked him if he knew how to do it (showing he doesn't think he is able to) but Peter surprised him by pulling out his finished biography, the cousellor started reading it but soon after stopped and said he could not read it because it was to sad, this really shows the discrimination that cousellor had as he really underestimated Peter and though of him as needing help and not being educated, it turned out with the year of education he had Peter became really smart and indepentdent.

Peter Nyaroli Dut arrived in America as an uneducated Dinka who didn't even know English but after only a year managed to get into a high school and learned enough to even get into a college later. In overall Peter assimilated quite well into the American culture but still not forgeting of his cultures as a Dinka.