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33 pages 1 hour read

God Grew Tired of Us

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2007

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Symbols & Motifs

Cows

The Dinka are known as cattle herders, but their respect and admiration for their cows goes well beyond that title. To illustrate this idea, Dau tells a story about how God gave the Dinka a choice between cows and a mysterious gift. The Dinka fell in love with the cow and chose it, so God gave the gift—which ended up being technological advances—to the West. While many factors led to the Dinka not developing in the same way as the West, a large factor is that they were content living among their cows.

For the Dinka, cows are an essential part of society that symbolizes wealth, livelihood, and the future. Dinka children drink cow’s milk throughout the day, and cows are a vital part of their initiation into adulthood and courtship. When a young man is courting a young woman, he sings songs about the beauty of his cows. Considering the relationship between the Dinka and their cows, it’s no wonder they feel they have lost the very essence of their being when they become displaced due to the war.

Stripped of their land, possessions, and cows, many displaced Dinka boys feel hopeless about their future. Even with the food, shelter, and medicine that are provided in the refugee camps, the refugees have no sense of direction without the cows that shape various elements of their culture. Dau holds on to this belief even as he moves to America, where he is confused about how to marry Martha without any cows for the dowry.

Water

Water is symbolic of life and hope for Dau and the other Lost Boys. During their 1,000-mile journey to find refuge, a lack of water means certain death, but finding water gives them the sustenance and morale needed to continue. For example, when Dau and the other Lost Boys go four days without water, Dau thinks he will surely die. However, just as he is preparing let go, Abraham leads them to water. Drinking their fill from the swamp gives the boys a renewed sense of hope for the journey ahead.

In Sudan water is both abundant and scarce. During the rainy season water is inescapable and floods every aspect of life. But the rains eventually bring forth the abundance of the harvest, so it’s a welcome nuisance. For the Dinka, water equals life. The Turkana, the people who live near Kakuma, know all too well the dangers of too little water; they live in near constant drought, with little food or reprieve from the dehydrated, scorched earth below their feet. A lack of water equals scarcity, which engenders jealousy between the Turkana and the refugees in Kakuma, who receive water and food from the UN.

When Dau goes to America, water takes on a new meaning. While water is a luxury intimately connected to the circle of life in Sudan, it is often a commonplace element that is taken for granted in America, where water runs freely from showers, comes out of a faucet at will, and flushes away waste. Water sustains life in America, but it doesn’t bring the kind of hope Dau experiences the day he drinks from the swamp.

America

Before Dau comes to America, he and the other Lost Boys feel mixed about what the country could mean to them. Some boys have heard negative rumors about America, like how relocated refugees are forced to clean up dog excrement for a living; yet other boys heard good things, like how America is a land of opportunity. When Dau first arrives in America, he has many different ideas about what the country will mean to him, and his perspective shifts with his experiences.

While many Americans are immediately warm and welcoming toward Dau, he slowly learns that there the country also has a dark side. He experiences cultural bias when a woman yells at him to go back to his country. On another occasion, a woman gives him a dirty look for giving her son a piece of candy. Dau summarizes his thoughts when he wonders, “Which America, bright or dark, is the truer one? Will America be governed by its principles of loving and helping one another, or by its moments of suspicion and cynicism?” (230).

Although Dau has a conflicting view of America’s meaning, by the end of the book he decides that despite America’s flaws, to him it represents a land of opportunity. He acknowledges how many gifts America has given him, and how his successes wouldn’t have been possible without his new country’s generosity. Some Americans he talks to view America as a land in need of public reform, but for Dau, America symbolizes the means through which he can achieve his goal of helping the Southern Sudanese.

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