Bull riders, cotton candy delight Sudanese refugees

By Tom Shaw, World-Herald Staff Writer

In the Ak-Sar-Ben Coliseum Thursday night, a group of Sudanese refugees pointed, laughed and clapped as they watched cowboys flying off bulls, riders bouncing bareback on horses and children clinging to speedy sheep.

The River City Toundup rodeo was a world away from the civil war and refugee camps the men -- some of the Lost Boys of Sudan -- endured in their African homeland.

They now live in Omaha and Bellevue and are assisted by mentor families. They were given free rodeo ticiets that were provided by UPS.

Share Teixeira of Thanksgiving Lutheran Church said the rodeo is a good way to show refugees another part of American life and to help them develop their English skills.

Several of the men ate cotton candy for the first time. When pieces were pulled from the wrapping, some of the men thought it was real cotton. Gabriel Alier, 19, found that the blue fluff was a sweet-tasting treat.

Sitting next to Alier was Charles Makuei, 22. From the way Makuei was clapping, it would be difficult to tell that he had been shot in the left arm in 1991 while trying to cross a river.

Thursday night, the men saw animals used for entertainment. In Sudan, explained Majok Angok, 23, meat and milk from cattle were needed to survival.

"We don't use them the same way as America," he said, watching the bull-riding competition. "If you get on the cow (in Sudan), people will laugh at you."

Alier and the others enjoyed watching children trying to hold onto sheep during the mutton-bu7sting contest.

"America is full of funny," Alier said.