Grateful To Be Back:

Abu Datta’s return to Lexington highlights universality of the Church

Linda Harvey

Abu Datta first came to Lexington when he was a freshman in high school. He had escaped the devastating civil war in his village of Sander in Sierra Leone in West Africa. Having polio and other injuries, he needed to get specialized medical treatment. After staying in five different homes of people who provided a haven for him, he graduated Lafayette High School in 2005.

Datta left Lexington for Washington, D.C., following graduation to live with his adoptive parents and received four medical operations. He eventually went to Minnesota for three years and returned to Lexington in February, seeking a warmer climate because the colder weather penetrated his injured body.

Now 35, he has reconnected with old friends and the local Church. He obtained a studio apartment and a job that lasted for two weeks, ending due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Presently, he is looking for a job and hopes his talents and ability to speak French, Swahili and Creole will help him find fulfilling work.

TRAUMATIC JOURNEY

Datta never thought he would live past childhood. He contracted polio at age 5, and at 10 he watched his mother, father, sister, aunt and others in his village killed by the child soldiers of the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) of Sierra Leone. He was able to bury some of his family and still has nightmares of this horrible event.

Sierra Leone was embroiled in a civil war from 1991 to 2001, when tens of thousands of people were killed and an estimated 1 million people were forced from their homes and villages. The war destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure, leaving 320,000 orphan children and many children dying before age 5.

“I was an orphan who wandered from town to town with polio, not being able to walk well, no food or place to live until about age 13. During this time, I stayed with the Franciscans in their compound until the government forced them to leave. It was my stay with the Franciscans that introduced me into the Catholic faith,” Datta recalls. “There were orphanages but they remained full, and having enough food was always a problem. Sometimes I would sleep outside.”

He then walked with unstable crutches for several weeks to Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. There his most serious injuries occurred. One was when he rescued a little girl who was hiding from the rebels and the government in a ditch; Datta was shot in his left foot. The second was when a grenade blew up a building, and the shrapnel hit his right ankle. The third happened when a soldier thrust the butt of his gun into Datta’s left hip, already ravaged by polio.

“I could hardly walk and got to the Doctors Without Borders hospital with the Red Cross’ assistance. They operated on my right ankle with the shrapnel, but the hospital was full inside, so I recovered somewhat outside the hospital for two weeks until the rebels shot the nurses and staff,” he describes. “I had to hide and my operated ankle became gangrened. The only relief I could get was putting my leg and foot in the salt water at a beach area.”

Datta was rescued by Gary Walker with the nonprofit Fund for African Relief and Education (FARE). He found Abu living with other orphans in a shack by the beach and got him to Senegal. “Abu lived with 20 other refugees in a house for two years. I was a volunteer with FARE and coordinated the home where Abu was so nurturing with the little children there,” says Katherine Fraser, who later adopted Abu when he was 19 with her former husband, Chris Datta, in Washington, D.C.

KENTUCKY HOME

Andy Gilboy with FARE made the arrangements to get Abu to Lexington, and Fraser was able to obtain a medical visa, then a green card for five years and finally political asylum citizenship. In 2002, Abu Datta was baptized and confirmed at St. Paul’s in Lexington; his godparents were Beth and Frank Ettensohn, who provided his first home in Kentucky and gave him further instruction in the Catholic faith.

Datta has had five operations, four of them while he lived with his adoptive parents. “They were extremely painful experiences that involved leg lengthening, alignment of hip and leg, nerve release and nerve implant in my leg, artificial kneecap and toes being aligned,” he describes. “Now I can stand up, wear normal shoes and be more mobile with crutches and a brace. I am so happy to be back in Lexington that I can now call home and so grateful for being here!”

Since returning to Lexington, the friends Datta has reconnected with include Lin Whitley, who met him during her lengthy time as an English and art history teacher at Lafayette High School. She and her husband, Barry, were empty nesters and felt called to provide a home for Abu during his senior year. She worked with him on reading, writing and how to cook.

“It was humbling for us to have so much and have a young man with a past that haunts him who makes the best of every day,” says Whitley. “People are drawn to him like a magnet for his warmth, big smile, ability to interact and compassion. Though some may be uncomfortable when they first meet him with his crutches and brace, they end up loving him back which contributes to giving him more confidence.”

Datta has also reunited with his parish of St. Peter Claver in Lexington, where he has sung and played the bongo drums, guitar and piano. Father Norman Fischer, parish priest of St. Peter Claver, praised him: “Abu has a bright smile and personality that means more than anyone can know. He survived so much as a child refugee and his escape from tragedy as a refugee is both heroic and harrowing! Grace is following him, I know, and lifting him up each day.”