A PAIR volunteer shared the following account of the aspirations of several refugees.

From Burundi... To College

I posed this question to Luke, Ernest, and Kevin, three Burundian refugee boys in ninth grade in Houston:

If you had $100,000, what would you do?
a) pay for college tuition for you and your siblings
b) buy a car for your family, and your friends’ families
c) send it to Africa to help other refugees

Their answer was “a.” Even I was surprised—although I knew they wanted to go to college, not having a car was a major problem as well.

I could tell how acutely they felt the need to pursue higher education, not only by their answer to this question, but also by their questions posed to me. “How much does it cost to go to college? How many years does it take to become a doctor?” The wheels were turning in their heads when they realized that engineers get to finish school earlier than doctors.

Part of the reason they want to go to college so earnestly is that they see the American education system as a wonderful institution. “The schools here teach very good,” Luke informed me. I found this ironic because they attend one of the worst high schools in Houston, which became even more over-burdened after Hurricane Katrina. Even the weaknesses of this high school, however, pale in comparison to those of the schools in Tanzania, where teachers believed firmly in corporal punishment. Luke showed me the scars on his leg, explaining, “[The teacher] beat me with a stick because I was late! … if you don't know the answer [to a question the teacher asks]…” Luke vigorously gestured slapping. To Luke, Ernest, and Kevin, going to school in the U.S. is a privilege of which they want to take full advantage.

Their current living situation is another motivating factor to go to college. In both Ernest and Kevin's apartments, six people share two bedrooms and one bathroom. The first thing that I noticed about Luke's apartment when I walked in was the gaping hole in the front door where the doorknob was supposed to be. Luke shook his head with frustration, explaining that he went to the management at the apartment complex to tell them to fix it six days ago and again yesterday. An atmosphere of fear permeates the apartment complex at night. In fact, even in daylight hours he won't venture into the community center to use the computers, because the people who share those computers bang on his door with ferocious dogs and abuse girls.