Home of the Brave

“I reach into my pocket

and feel the soft cloth

I carry with me everywhere.

Blue and yellow,

torn at the edges,

the size of my hand,

soft as new grass after good rain.” 

The blue and yellow cloth that Kek carries around with him is from the time when he was separated from his mother during the attack on his family’s camp. When his mother falls and screams at him to run, he tears off a piece of her dress before fleeing. The fabric represents his lost mother and his hope to be reunited with her in America. 

“In my old home back in Africa,

cattle mean life.

They are our reason

to rise with the sun,

to move with the rains,

to rest with the stars.

They are the way we know

our place in the world.”

Kek does not understand why more Americans don’t value the cow. They are central to the Sudanese way of life. This is why seeing the sad-looking cow at the farm warms Kek’s heart and reminds him of his former home, even if it is a maligned version of the herds he once knew. 

“Still, when Ganwar grasps my hand

we are like two calves in the clouds

pretending we know how to fly.”

It is an awkward greeting between cousins, as Ganwar and Kek have lost too much between them both. They are living reminders of the losses their family has endured and they don’t know how to greet each other in the face of the changes they have experienced.

“You laugh like your brother, he says.

He is quiet. His grin is gone.”

Ganwar remarks that Kek laughs like Lual, Kek’s older brother who was murdered in the raid. Lual was Ganwar’s best friend, and Kek is an unwelcome and uncomfortable reminder of Lual’s death and how Ganwar could so easily have faced the same fate.

“It’s a strange pain

to be with those you belong to

and feel you don’t belong.”

Kek struggles to feel comfortable in his new living environment with his aunt and cousin. They are his family but he no longer feels like he knows them. The deaths and losses have forever changed them, and as a result, Kek doesn’t feel that he has a place in their home. This is an especially troubling idea: that family can be a reminder of past trauma.

“Sometimes, it seems to me,

a hole can be

as real and solid

as a boulder or a tree.”

Kek defines the losses that his family has endured as “holes” that exist within their lives. The emptiness that they carry within them is a constant burden that they will bear forever, on top of the other struggles they experience. This is the portion of assimilation that can be easily forgotten by established Americans: that many refugees arrive to this country not by choice but largely from necessity—if they stay where they are, they are likely to die or be gravely injured. 

“Hoping isn’t foolish, I say.

If I can make it all the way here,

then anything can happen.”

Kek’s inexhaustible well of hope is an inspiration to everyone he encounters in the book. In this quote, he tells Ganwar that if someone like himself could make it from Sudan to America, then anything is possible. It also instills hope with logic, as opposed to making hope only idyllic. 

“I’m used to not understanding, I say.

It’s like playing a game

with no rules.”

Although these lines are delivered with unintended humor, they actually reveal a wise understanding that Kek has developed. He has been thrown into a new world and culture that he has a hard time understanding, and to him, it is like playing a game where there are no rules. In many ways, the madness and chaos of the violence he’s previously encountered may allow him to achieve this outlook more easily than the average American. 

“I look at our faces

and see all the colors of the earth—

brown and pink and yellow and white and black—

and yet we are all sitting at the same desks,

wanting to learn the same things.” 

Kek is amazed at the range of diversity within his school. In his ESL class alone, he meets a range of students from all over the world. It is one of the aspects of America that Kek finds most amazing. This will stand in sharp contrast to the white, American bigots Kek encounters later in the book.

“Waiting is hard, too,

Hannah says,

and I can see that she

also knows sad places.” 

Kek and Hannah bond over their respective losses and separations. Kek tells Hannah and the other children at the lunch table about his father and brother, and that he is waiting to hear if his mother will be found. Hannah’s mother, sequestered in a drug rehabilitation facility, does not see her daughter, and Hannah waits for the day her mother is released and returns to her.

“You can’t be sure

what will happen, I say.

Life changes. So you must hope.

I want so much to believe my words.” 

Kek’s mantra of hope is one that others take to heart, but one that he sometimes doubts himself. He staunchly believes in the sanctity of hope but is not without times where he worries that he might be wrong. Nonetheless, he continues to speak of hope, in order to perhaps make it materialize around him. 

“She needs someone to talk to her.

In my old home they would laugh at me,

but when I talked to the cattle,

they would grow calm and easy to herd.” 

Kek tells Lou what Gol the cow needs to be happy. He speaks so kindly and plainly to her about her cow that Lou decides that Kek can make a difference in the cow’s life, and that perhaps the cow can do the same for this young boy.

“We always had somewhere to go.

Not like here, stuck in the apartment

or at school.

He sighs. It all made sense.

Here, nothing makes sense.”

In the quote, Ganwar complains about his situation in America. He feels trapped at home or at school and laments that things are not like they were in Sudan. He belonged there, he knew his place there, and he was comfortable there. In America, he feels compartmentalized.

“It’s a good day.

The cow has a new name.

And I have one, too.”

At school, Kek’s class votes on a name for his cow. Kek’s choice, Gol, which means “family” in Sudanese, wins with the most votes. Mr. Franklin congratulates Kek by calling him “Cowboy,” an American term. Kek is pleased with both his nickname and the cow’s new name.

“But when I am working, my mind doesn’t travel

where it shouldn’t go.

I’m only here,

with the chickens underfoot

and Gol nudging for an ear scratch.”

For Kek, Lou’s farm becomes an escape from the harsh realities of life for a refugee. There he can focus on completing hard, earnest labor that keeps his mind off of wondering about his mother and thinking about his dead relatives. The farm becomes a place where Kek belongs.

“Ganwar puts his head

against Gol’s neck.

You’re lucky to have found this job.

But you made the luck happen.”

Ganwar comments on his young cousin’s aptitude for making things happen. While Ganwar has hidden in his mother’s apartment, Kek has made decisions and acted in a way to make his dreams come true. In this regard, Ganwar admires Kek even more because that drive is not a quality that he has retained.

“But for a moment,

as Ganwar and I hum

one of the old songs,

we are where we belong

in the world.”

With Ganwar working by his side on Lou’s farm, Kek can finally relax and think of the farm as a surrogate Sudan. He and his cousin hum the songs from their childhood, and surrounded by a field and one old cow, they have finally found a place that they can call their own.

“The other kids complain,

but I am used to lines.

One day in the refugee camp

I stood in line for nine hours

to get a handful of corn.”

When his ESL class visits the zoo, Kek notices how antsy the students are while waiting in line. He thinks of a time when, at a refugee camp, he had to wait hours for a small amount of corn. Waiting in a line for entertainment is nothing in comparison to the harsh reality that Kek faced and survived.

“Why should I have a desk

and a pair of fine jeans

and a soft place for my head to rest?

Why should I have the freedom to hope

while my brother and father

sleep in bloodied earth?” 

Despite his eagerness to be part of American culture, Kek experiences severe pangs of grief and shame thinking of the family members who did not survive and won’t have the chances he does. He doesn’t understand why he was the one to escape and come to America while his father and brother are dead. This quote reflects the survivor’s guilt that Kek carries with him in the novel.

“It’s just too much sometimes, isn’t it?

When you had almost nothing.

And when you know that many people

still have so little.” 

Ms. Hernandez says this to Kek when his class is visiting the school library. He confesses his survivor’s guilt to her: that he doesn’t think he deserves to be this lucky. She agrees and candidly tells him that it is a large burden to carry.

“I feel happy about the dishes

and bad about the angry boys.

It’s hard to feel two things at once

so I try not to feel anything.” 

Kek is proud to have purchased new dishes for his aunt with his hard-earned money, but he also feels angry about the incident with the boys outside the apartment complex, who treated him with racist contempt. The divergence of two different feelings is too much for him to process, so he tries to block it all out by watching television with Ganwar.

“The candle glows

in the green lady’s hand,

and I don’t understand all the words,

but somehow I know

they’re strong and fine.

I wonder if someday it will feel

like they are meant for me, too.”

The last day of ESL class is spent in celebration with a large cake of the Statue of Liberty. Ms. Hernandez reads the famous words from the base of the statue, and as Kek listens to them, he hopes that those words will apply to him and his future in America.

“Thank you for your helping, Dave, I say,

but what I’m thinking

is that a man knows when he’s defeated.”

One of the rare moments in the book where Kek seems to lose hope is when Dave shares with him that Kek’s mother has not been found in any of the refugee camps. Dave encourages Kek to not give up, but Kek thinks it is time to face the reality that he will never see his mother again.