English students bare souls at film festival

LYNN – For many, Lynn is a sprawling city of urban unrest, but for Kadhim Al Khazaali, it’s a city of peace.”I finally feel safe and that is the major difference between my life here in the U.S. and my life in Iraq,” he said. “I don’t have to look over my shoulder to see if I’m being followed and I enjoy the quiet of the streets.”Al Khazaali was one of 11 students who bared their souls and told their stories Tuesday about being caught between two cultures during Lynn English High School’s second annual Living in Two Worlds Film Festival.Funded through a five-year grant from the Cummings Foundation, the students created short films that talked about the differences between life here and life in their native land.Administrative Coordinator Ginny Keenan said it was a diverse group of students this year and she couldn’t be prouder of the final product.Kingsley Agbedun, who immigrated from Nigeria in 2010, found common ground on the soccer field. Tania Haque, dressed in an emerald green sari with gold trim, admitted she was nervous but excited about showing her film before a crowd of about 100 family, friends and school administrators.In her film Haque said there was great poverty in her village in Bangladesh, no running water and very limited electricity.”You might have (electricity) for an hour then it would shut off so someone else could have it,” she said. “It’s not like here in the United States where it’s unlimited.”Haque said her family raised sugar cane and rice and kept cows, goats and hens for food. If your crop failed, you went hungry, and it was hard to watch neighbors starve, she said.She was shocked when she arrived in the U.S. and saw women driving cars and wearing clothes other than saris.Walter DeLeon spent three days walking through the desert with strangers and with no food or water to get to America and his mother, who had left their native Guatemala nine years earlier.”I was only 15 years old,” he said in his film. “I missed my mom, I was cold and I was hungry and I was so scared.”DeLeon said he made it across the border but four days later was picked up by immigration officials in Texas before he could reach his mother. He said he knows exactly how lucky he is, and he is taking advantage of his life here, getting good grades, striving for college “and working hard on my goals to find a better life in America.”Ikianosen “Ose” Ukhuedoba said her life in Nigeria was very black and white. Rules were followed, respect was demanded, punishments were harsh, parents picked your career and if you were gay, you went to jail for 14 years.”In the U.S. it’s not so clear cut,” she said. “Here I can explore. I feel such independence when I imagine that anything is possible.”Grace Ng’ang’a talked about how the energy and the noise of the hallways at English was overwhelming when she first arrived.”I was dreading the next three years,” she said. “I expected them to be the worst experience of my life.”After joining the Living in Two Worlds project, however, Ng’ang’a said she found a home.”When I first got here I didn’t think I would make it,” she said. “Living in Two Worlds changed that for me.”