Following Freedom's Trail

Newsweek, September, 2002 by Donatella Lorch (NEWSWEEK correspondent Donatella Lorch is currently an Alicia Patterson Fellow, researching refugee resettlement.)

Abdul Gadir Musa didn't mind the sand and dust, which blew in from the desert through the windows and parched his skin, or the 105-degree heat that lulled his four young children into a silent daze. Lurching across Kenya's rutted dirt roads on a bus crowded beyond capacity, Musa passed the stifling hours musing to himself about life in the United States. "I am so happy," he said. "This is the first time I have taken a bus. Today, I even took a shower, because in America, you have to be clean."

Musa's dream of going to America may soon become reality. He and all the other passengers in the eight-bus convoy are Somali Bantus, a long-persecuted people from one of the world's most ruined countries. Two centuries ago their ancestors were taken from their homes in Mozambique,...