Outcasts United

by Warren St. John

  “Well I thought we were moving to a totally different country!” he said.

  For weeks after Generose told her boys that they were moving to Indiana, Ive had believed that he would have to learn a new language and new customs when he got there, as he had when he moved to America in the first place. But in Indiana, people spoke English. They ate pizza. You could watch The Simpsons on TV. Ive was relieved.

  Generose works as a cleaning attendant at a hospital in Fort Wayne. The boys are doing well in school, and of course playing soccer. Bien broke his middle school scoring record his first year in Indiana, with nineteen goals. Like many of the boys who’ve come and gone through the Fugees, they stay in touch with their old coach, and even took a Greyhound bus to Georgia one summer to spend a week at Luma’s house.

  To cope with the difficulty of these separations, Luma has learned to turn her attention to other kids in need in Clarkston. A steady flow of refugees into town—most recently, Burundians and Karen, a persecuted ethnic group from Burma—has meant that there has been no shortage of boys who want to try out for the Fugees.

  “The minute some kid leaves our team you have five more kids who want to take his place,” Luma said. “And they’re all just as beautiful and innocent or messed up as the kid before them. So you can’t stop.”

  AS FOR CLARKSTON, the town has continued to change and, haltingly, to adapt. From time to time incidents occur that underscore the challenges the town continues to face. In March 2007, for example, a National Guardsman named Craig Perkins, just back from a tour of duty in Iraq, got into an argument with two Middle Eastern men in the parking lot of the Kristopher Woods apartment complex, where Perkins had gone to visit his girlfriend. Perkins said the men insulted him for serving in the military. But the men, Tareq Ali Bualsafared, a twenty-six-year-old immigrant from the United Arab Emirates, and Saleh Ali, a seventeen-year-old refugee from Iraq, claimed to police that Perkins had accosted them because they were Arab. Whatever the cause of the argument, it escalated, and ended when Perkins pulled out a .45 caliber automatic and shot Bualsafared in the leg. Bualsafared survived and denied to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he or his friend had insulted Perkins for his military service—pointing out that neither man knew Perkins was a soldier since he wasn’t in uniform. And for his part, Perkins denied that he shot the men because they were Arab. He wasn’t prejudiced, he said: his girlfriend was white and though he appeared African American, he had white and Native American ancestors.

  In Clarkston, even your basic parking-lot fight was super-diverse.

  In November 2008, there was another ugly incident in town, one that confirmed Luma’s suspicions about the crowd of young men who hung out around the basketball court next to the Fugees’ old practice field at Indian Creek Elementary. Angry over a foul committed during a pickup game there, a group of mostly American players vented their rage on the perceived offender, a twenty-three-year-old Somali refugee named Yusuf Heri. They attacked Heri on the court and literally beat him to death. As of this writing, five suspects, all of them locals, had been arrested in connection with the killing. Police were searching for at least two others.

  And there was still more tragedy in the fall of 2008. A few days before Thanksgiving, one of Luma’s former players, a Liberian tenth grader, was playing with a gun in a bedroom of his family’s apartment in Clarkston when the weapon discharged. The bullet struck and killed a seventeen-year-old Burundian refugee named Gerali Kagwa, one of his best friends. Police, who arrested the former player and charged him with murder, said that photographs on the walls of his bedroom suggested membership in a gang. There’s no way of knowing how the young man’s fate—or Gerali’s life—might have turned out differently if the alleged shooter had stayed with the Fugees, but the incident was a painful reminder of what was at stake in Clarkston each day.

  IN JANUARY 2007, The New York Times ran a front-page story I’d written about the Fugees, one of three articles about Clarkston that I wrote for the paper while working on this book. The article, which detailed Mayor Swaney’s soccer ban in the town park, prompted an unexpected and somewhat overwhelming response. Mayor Swaney was deluged with angry phone calls and e-mails from Times readers who were appalled that he had kicked the Fugees out of the town park after Christmas. The mayor protested his treatment in the article, claiming he had banned soccer in the park only for adults, not kids, and that I had confused the town baseball field—on which no soccer was allowed—with the town’s general-use field. A taped interview with the mayor contradicted the first claim. As for confusing fields: there was only one field in question—the one on which both the Fugees and the Lost Boys soccer team had played and from which both teams had been ejected. The mayor also gave shifting explanations for that holiday fax he’d sent notifying the Fugees that they were no longer welcome. He was making way for a youth sports program, he’d said at first—a falsehood—before arguing that the real reason for the move was that he’d seen refugee men playing soccer on the field and had assumed they were affiliated with the Fugees. Never mind of course that as the mayor knew, there were no grown men on the Fugees.

  As the mayor scrambled to explain and re-explain himself in the wake of the public outcry, the City Council of Clarkston took up the matter once again, and reaffirmed the Fugees’ right to use the field through the spring.

  The Times article about the Fugees changed things for the team in other ways. The newspaper’s readers donated to the Fugees in amounts large and small, and a deal was made for film rights to the Fugees’ story. The donations—which included a bus—allowed Luma to end her relationship with the YMCA. Nike stepped in to provide equipment and uniforms. Since then Luma has been free to run her program the way she sees fit, and to fund-raise toward her real ambition: building a tutoring center and soccer facility within walking distance of Clarkston.

  Already, Luma hired two teachers to work with her players. Twelve members of the team now attend classes full-time at the Fugees Academy.

  The media attention had other implications. At the tournament in Savannah that the Fugees had raked leaves to attend, for example, locals who’d read about the team came to watch them play and to cheer them on. To his surprise and utter delight, Qendrim was asked to give his first autograph—to a young boy who’d turned out to see the Fugees play. Volunteers have reached out to the program; the Fugees currently have seven interns who help with logistics. The extra help has freed Luma to focus her energies on her real love, coaching.

  Relations between the City of Clarkston and the Fugees, for the most part, have improved. There was some resentment about the media attention the Fugees received and over the reports of the movie money; during a discussion of a police department budget shortfall at one city council meeting Luma attended, for example, someone in the gallery proposed that the Fugees pick up the tab. But the city council stuck by the team. Periodically, Luma has had to go back to ask to extend the team’s use of the field in Milam Park, and so far, the council has always agreed. Luma has even become friendly with Emanuel Ransom, the town curmudgeon, bonding over their shared admiration of Hillary Clinton. As for Mayor Swaney, his term ends in 2009. He recently announced he would not seek reelection.

  LUMA INSISTS THAT she hasn’t changed since the 2006 season, but to an observer she seems calmer, more relaxed. Running the program herself, she says, has eliminated the frustration that can come from relying on others, and volunteers have eased some pressure. She still gives fiery halftime speeches, and admits she had a hard time controlling herself when one of her teams recently blew a 5–1 second-half lead. In the months after the Times story about the Fugees, Luma frequently found herself approached by teachers, parents, coaches, and volunteers who wanted her advice on how to handle various situations involving difficult children or kids who were struggling with their circumstances. Luma was reluctant to give advice. She doesn’t believe in any single method for dealing with struggling kids, and freely admits that the Fugees hasn’t worked
for everyone. Failure and mistakes, she believes, are unavoidable.

  “You’re not going to be able to do everything for all the kids,” she said. “There’s not a perfect system. There’s nothing wrong with another way of doing it.”

  Like some of those who reached out to Luma for advice, I would sometimes press her to explain her philosophy, to attach words and maxims to the deeds in order to provide a framework for others who hoped to replicate the kind of program she’d created. Luma always resisted, perhaps because there was no great secret to what made the Fugees work, just as there was no great secret to the success of those other clusters of hope and connection within Clarkston. They were powered by simple but enduring ideas: a sense of fairness, love, forgiveness, and, most of all, a willingness to work—to engage in the process of turning these simple notions into actions that could affect others.

  I once asked Tracy Ediger, the Fugees’ team manager and all-around helper to the players and their families, what she thought people most misunderstood about Luma and the Fugees program. She didn’t hesitate with her response: it was the tendency of people to ascribe mystery or some saintly qualities to the simple work they did.

  “Putting Luma on a pedestal is counterproductive,” she wrote me once in an e-mail. “Luma is really a normal person doing what she can for the people around her. If people can look at her and see that, that she’s human, not a saint or a super-hero, and that she doesn’t—can’t—do everything or effect miracles, then maybe they can say to themselves, ‘I need to look around myself and see my neighborhood, and what is going on here and five streets over, and what I can do in terms of investing myself and my time, to be present for the people around me, and to do something positive for change in my community.’

  “No one person can do everything,” she said. “But we can all do something.”

  THE FUGEES ARE going strong. In the fall of 2008, Luma coached four teams, from ages twelve to nineteen. On a warm Saturday afternoon in early November, the Under 14 Fugees took the field to play the second best team in their division, from the Rockdale Youth Soccer Association in Conyers, Georgia. The best team in the league was none other than the Fugees themselves, who were undefeated in five games and who had delivered a 9–0 drubbing to one of their hapless rivals a few weeks before. The Fugees had a cheering section. Some of the older players, including Josiah, Mafoday, and Idwar, had come out to see the younger team play, and especially to root on Robin and Santino, their much younger former teammates who were now playing in their proper age division. Luma’s father, Hassan, was on the sideline, in the middle of a long visit from Jordan, most of which he’d spent either watching soccer or cooking traditional Jordanian meals, which he served heaped on steaming platters to Luma and her players. Tracy too was on the sideline, taking photographs, and volunteers who worked with the Fugees came and went and added to the voices of support.

  On the field, Robin, once quiet and shy, was now running the defense with confidence and authority—calling out to his teammates in unaccented English, urging them to move up the field and to mark their men. The stars of the Under 14 offense were a small, agile Eritrean refugee named Ashora, who had been referred to Luma after repeatedly acting out at school, and a tall, muscular center forward from Liberia named Luckie, who had a habit of commenting on the games from the field, in real time, in the manner of an excited television play-by-play announcer. Since joining the Fugees, Ashora had become practically docile at school—Luma had run him into submission—and Luckie had emerged as a good student and a team leader who oversaw calisthenics at practices and held the respect of his teammates the way Kanue once did.

  It took the Fugees only a couple of minutes to score their first goal, on a quick attack by Luckie, who, perhaps out of modesty, declined to offer the play-by-play for his own score and instead quietly jogged upfield as his teammates celebrated around him.

  The Fugees kept the heat on the Rockdale defense, scoring one, then another, then another. Late in the game, tiny Ashora carved his way through the Rockdale defenders at a downhill pace, arms whirling as he dribbled cleanly past one player then another. Once in the clear, he took a shot. The ball sailed upward, well out of the reach of the Rockdale keeper and into the top of the net: score. The older boys on the sideline shouted in delight, and Ashora’s teammates swarmed him on the field. On the Fugees’ bench, Luma was impassive, as usual, pausing only to look at her watch to check the remaining time. The Fugees were ahead 5–1, their unbeaten streak alive. The boys jogged toward their side of the halfway line to get set for the final minutes of play. In the peaceful lull that followed, Luckie leaned his head back and offered his commentary on Ashora’s goal into the blue sky overhead.

  “Beautiful!” he called out, his voice echoing across the complex’s terraced array of green fields. “Beautiful! Beautiful! Beautiful!”

  Author’s Note

  This book could not have been reported, much less written, without the support, wisdom, and patience of many people.

  I am especially grateful to Coach Luma Mufleh and team manager Tracy Ediger, both of whom agreed to let a stranger into the fragile and complex world of the Fugees, and who, for this act of openness and generosity, were rewarded with a hovering presence and a seemingly never-ending torrent of annoying questions. Even so, both served as generous liaisons to the players’ families and sources of invaluable perspective on their community, as well as inspirations, in their tireless advocacy of refugee families.

  I am thankful to Spencer Hall, who, after reading my first book and my work for the Times, rightly surmised I’d be interested in the story of Clarkston and the Fugees and made a point of saying so. He initially put me in touch with Luma and kept me company when I more or less moved to Atlanta, and has since become a close and valued friend.

  I benefited from the support of many editors and staff members at The New York Times, who granted me the months necessary for the sort of immersive reporting I needed to do in order to grasp the outlines of the Fugees story, first for three lengthy features for the paper, and then for this book. Glenn Kramon, my editor, added insight and genuine zeal, and also indulged my quirks as a writer, which include a pathological inability to let go of copy. Trip Gabriel, my editor at the Sunday Styles section, granted me the freedom to embark on this reporting, despite the considerable headache it caused for him and his deputies. Susan Edgerley worked behind the scenes to get institutional backing for this project, which was enthusiastically offered by Bill Keller, Jill Abramson, and Bill Schmidt. I am very grateful for their support.

  Through the Times, I was also very fortunate to get to work with the gifted photographer Nicole Bengiveno and the videographer Kassie Bracken, whose beautiful and sometimes haunting images, as selected by photo editor Meaghan Looram, illuminated life in Clarkston for Times readers around the world. Marty Gottlieb added nuance on deadline, and copy editors Mona Houck, Jack Kadden, and Kyle Massey saved Times readers from having to wade through countless mangled phrases. Kyle, a noted headline wizard, also gets thanks for offering the title of this book, which appeared first as a headline in the paper. Times bylines usually carry only one or two names, a convention that hardly does justice to the true tally of people who contribute to each story. I’m very lucky to have been able to work with those mentioned above.

  I owe a special debt of gratitude to Lindsay Crouse, my researcher, who proofread, transcribed, and fact-checked with gusto, and whose eye for detail is reflected on nearly every page of this book.

  When I arrived in Clarkston, I thought I knew the South, and even Atlanta, pretty well, having grown up in Birmingham and having made the two-and-a-half-hour trip to Atlanta more times than I could remember. But Clarkston, I quickly learned, was not like Atlanta, or perhaps any other place. Many people offered their time to show me around and to try to educate me about the complexities of the town and the process of resettlement that had transformed it. I’m thankful to Susan and Kevin Gordon; Barbara Thompson and Sister Pat
ty Caraher of the International Community School; Ellen Beattie of the International Rescue Committee; Paedia Mixon of RRISA; Dennis Harkins, the Provost of Georgia Perimeter College; Rev. Phil Kitchin of the International Bible Church; Salahadin Wazir at the Al-Momineen mosque; Bill Mehlinger and Hong Diep Vo from Thriftown; Rev. William B. G. K. Harris; David Faryen; Chris Holliday; Jeremy Cole of Refugee Family Services; Ardell Saleem of Indian Creek Elementary; Clarkston Police Chief Tony J. Scipio; Emanuel Ransom; Mayor Lee Swaney; restaurant owners Phuong Thu Chu and Fesseha Sebhatu; and Nathaniel Nyok, the founder of the Lost Boys Soccer Team.

  Thanks also to Rick Skirvin at the Georgia State Soccer Association; to David Anderson of the Athens United Gold Valiants; to Nancy Daffner of the Concorde Fire; to Jorge Pinzon, the Fire’s young star; and to numerous parents who were happy to share insights about youth soccer from the sidelines as their sons played the game.

  I’m also grateful to Hassan, Sawsan, and Inam al-Mufleh for speaking with me about their family.

  At Spiegel & Grau and Random House, I’ve been lucky to get to work once again with Christopher Jackson, a thoughtful, curious, and enthusiastic editor and friend who instantly understood my interest in the Fugees and who provided much-needed encouragement and wisdom along the way. I’m grateful for the support and hard work of Cindy Spiegel and Julie Grau, Gretchen Koss, Meghan Walker, Todd Doughty, Anne Waters, and Mya Spalter, a publishing dream team; Elyse Cheney and Nicole Steen at Cheney Literary; Howard Sanders; Julian Alexander, Nicki Kennedy, and Sam Edenborough in London; and Nicholas Pearson at Fourth Estate.

  Many friends and family members provided support and comments on my rough pages, including Robert Fox, David Fox, Jane Welna, Natalie Robbins, Susanna Davis, and Chris Knutsen. Irma St. John, Mary Claire St. John Butler, Scott Davis, and Edward Butler provided moral support, as did my late father, initially no soccer fan, who called regularly for updates on Fugees’ scores during my reporting and who, as much as anyone, would have wanted to know how things turned out in the epilogue.