History as it Happens: Burden beyond our borders

A hut where some of Nyakade Tot’s family live.

By its very nature as a global pandemic, the coronavirus has reached into every country and crevice of our earth, unilaterally changing the lives of those in its wake. For many residents in Anoka County, the inconvenience of sheltering in place, receiving unemployment, or wearing a mask causes stress. The routine has shifted, work has changed, lifestyles shaken. For some, however, it has brought about an unmatched level of instability and worry.

Nyakade Tot, of Coon Rapids, received her U.S. citizenship in 2006, after immigrating from South Sudan and escaping an abusive marriage she entered into as a child bride. She learned English, fed her children, and worked her way through school. She bought a house and has since founded the Sudd Women Outreach Project (SWOP) whose mission is to help single parents and domestic violence survivors realize they too can have a life free of violence. Any money she could save paid for school tuition and food for her family in Africa. Now, with reduced hours at work and a growing concern for the many friends, relatives and one elderly aunt living in South Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia, Egypt and Israel, Tot waits helplessly as the virus marches across the continent.

Her father arrived first in the city of Nasir from a village called Wanding. Tot grew up in a household of 25 cousins, uncles and aunts who earned money cleaning homes and doing the washing of the city people. Back in the village, an equal number of relatives lived in homes made from wood on farms that produced the food for themselves and those in the city. Each day the children would bring in milk and firewood to sell, joining their city cousins in the market who sold Juray, a type of doughnut, and tea to shoppers. They made enough each day to buy food for the next, but not anymore. The virus has halted this commerce, closed the schools, and shuttered the market.

In this letter to her homeland, Tot explains her worries, fears and hopes for the traditions and people she holds dear:

Coming to America was one of the best decisions that I had ever made because here, life is full of opportunities and challenges. Imagine a nation (South Sudan) that emerged from nearly 60 years of conflict and after independence had its own internal civil strife for the last seven years — yet there is no end in sight. Now comes the coronavirus, which has devastated the world, and how are you going to fare, my motherland?

Nyateeni Rualmim Wur is the aunt of Nyakade Tot, of Coon Rapids. Wur lives in Ethiopia. Tot had hoped to visit her, but now cannot due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

I am worried as I know that there are no medical facilities, machines, well-trained doctors, nurses and CNAs. Imagine a nation with only four ventilators! I am worried because nearly 90% of your citizens depend on food aid from international agencies. I am worried for a nation that cannot provide for her citizens. I am worried because COVID-19 has robbed my people of opportunities to work, collect firewood to sell and cook tea by the side of the roads.

I am exhausted, I am tired, I am financially stretched and overwhelmed both physically and emotionally. Being a health care worker in America at this time is not easy as I cannot stop worrying about being exposed to COVID-19 in my daily interactions with patients. It causes me to panic because this killer virus has no immediate symptoms to know whether one has it or not. I am worried about the wellbeing of my family as I shuttle between home and work while the rest of America is shut down. I am worried about being away from my children as they are home alone without guidance, and I find myself partly their parent, partly their teacher, at home with all the technological challenges. I am overwhelmed and feel as though the walls are closing in on both ends of the world. It is very tiresome and worrisome each day.

This year, I thought of visiting my aunt in Ethiopia, as she is the only person left in my dad’s family side, but because of this pandemic I will not be able to see her. She wanted to see me before anything happened to her.

As I get up each morning, I think of you, my motherland. I wonder how much worse can it get as you try to lift yourself from the dust of civil wars and endless destructions? It is mind-boggling when I think of your beauty in my childhood memories, as my little eyes see blue sky as far as they can, hanging down on the far end of the world. A beautiful land blessed with abundant resources and great agricultural prospects everywhere you turn. Your beauty reminds me to stay positive even if I am mentally defeated by day-to-day activities. With all my worries and concerns of you, my motherland, I believe that you still have it in you, a fight that you have waged for nearly a century. Having it all here in America, I can’t relax knowing that many of you, families, relatives and fellow countrymen and women still lack basic human needs.

I am praying for you and cry for you as my love for you will never end.

I love you my motherland!

Rebecca Ebnet-Desens is executive director of the Anoka County Historical Society. This piece is part of a series in partnership with the Anoka County Historical Society documenting aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic for future generations.