That is the story of two immensely gifted sons of Africa who every migrated to America and thrived. One you’ve heard of: Elon Musk. The opposite, Valentino Achak Deng, was a “misplaced boy” from Sudan who survived massacres, lions and crocodiles and moved to Atlanta as a refugee.
Musk and Deng have since gone in reverse instructions.
Born in South Africa, Musk has proved himself one of many nice tech entrepreneurs in historical past, with outstanding achievements in rockets, electrical autos, mind implants and satellite tv for pc web. But Musk has warned that “the basic weak point of Western civilization is empathy,” and by demolishing the USA Company for Worldwide Growth he’s now destroying the lives of many impoverished kids on the continent the place he grew up.
Valentino, an previous buddy of mine, is the other, for his traumas have left him exuding empathy. I like Musk’s genius, however I want it have been leavened by Valentino’s selflessness.
So I got here right here to the distant city of Aweil in South Sudan to see what may be discovered from Valentino. Possibly, simply possibly, Musk will learn this and recognize that the measure of a person is much less his web value than his web humanity.
Valentino’s odyssey started when he was 7 and a Sudanese militia raided his village, forcing him to flee for his life. Dropping all contact together with his household, surviving by consuming leaves and animal carcasses, he spent 5 years dodging bullets and land mines. Finally, he reached a Kenyan refugee camp, the place he says he made a pact with God: For those who let me get to America, I’ll use these connections to assist my nation.
In 2001, he arrived in Atlanta. The author Dave Eggers wrote a best-selling e-book about Valentino, “What Is the What,” and Valentino and Eggers used the royalties to begin a college in what in 2011 turned the nation of South Sudan.
Then every thing went fallacious. Civil warfare erupted. A insurgent military drew close to the college, and Valentino apprehensive that his college students could be kidnapped. When President Barack Obama honored Valentino on the White Home, highly effective folks in South Sudan grew jealous, main goons to assault him and loot his college. He acquired demise threats and his automotive was shot at, however he refused to run: What Valentino shares with Musk is tenacity.
Valentino moved his college to a safer location within the bigger metropolis of Aweil, and now his Cornerstones Imaginative and prescient Academy has 2,200 college students from across the nation, chosen by aggressive examination. He’s proud that women outnumber boys there.
Many faculties across the nation stopped functioning through the civil warfare. Public college lecturers haven’t been paid their salaries for the final 12 months, so that they aren’t inclined to show. Twice as many “colleges” operate outside under trees as in everlasting buildings. Greater than 70 p.c of South Sudanese kids don’t attend college.
All this has made Valentino all of the extra decided to persist, for he argues that training is one of the simplest ways to beat the tribalism, corruption and AK-47 tradition which have so broken his nation.
“I can’t let these households down,” he informed me, and he needs to place his personal luck to a better goal. “I got here out of a grave to make a distinction.”
Cornerstones Academy is the other of posh. Lessons typically have greater than 100 college students, and a few school rooms have filth flooring. College students lack desks and enough books. There isn’t a common electrical energy or operating water. A donor from Seattle, supporting the college via Valentino’s VAD Foundation, is paying for a nicely that can quickly present pure water for the primary time.
The academy gives pc lessons, nevertheless it can’t afford web for the scholars. (Valentino goals of the Starlink web entry pioneered by Musk.) A instructor goes on-line via a cell community and tasks his pc display onto the wall as college students watch. “We present the scholars what they will do sooner or later,” Valentino stated.
And these college students! They’re inspiring.
Daniella Adut Deng, 20, is an orphan who was raised by an aunt who compelled her to drop out of faculty within the fourth grade. Daniella secretly tried to maintain up her expertise by different kids’s books, and after two years she was in a position to return to highschool — although she says her aunt beat her with a stick for insisting on returning to class.
The aunt loaded Daniella with chores — cooking, procuring and laundry — and has tried to marry her off since she was 14. Daniella acquired within the behavior of doing her homework between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m., when the hut was quiet and her aunt couldn’t object.
Daniella walks 80 minutes every option to college, with no breakfast or lunch, typically aching from malaria or a beating, as a result of she goals of going to school this fall and turning into a physician. “She’s exceptionally intelligent,” Valentino informed me, and he or she has ranked close to the highest of her class of 500.
“Nothing can cease me from going to school,” she informed me, however once I requested she acknowledged that she had no thought how she may elevate the $5,000 a 12 months this could price.
As for Valentino, he misses America; he goals of Buffalo wings and rooster chimichangas. He retains an American flag in his workplace and flies it within the schoolyard on particular days to remind college students that their training is feasible solely due to American donors (together with Instances readers — I’ve written in regards to the college a couple of times over time; for individuals who wish to assist it, go to his foundation’s website). Valentino additionally hopes to draw American volunteer lecturers.
Valentino had malaria once I visited, however he gritted his tooth and picked me up from my guesthouse in his battered and dying pickup truck. A son of Africa who discovered success in America, Valentino acknowledges that he received the lottery of life and is decided to assist those that didn’t.
Elon Musk, take notice.
I’m delighted to announce that Sofia Barnett, a senior at Brown College, is the winner of my 2025 win-a-trip contest. Sofia, an completed scholar journalist from Texas, will accompany me on a reporting journey later this 12 months. The runner-up is Anvee Bhutani of the Columbia Journalism College. Due to all who utilized.
