Listen to Prisca Kot:
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PRISCA KOT was born towards the start of the 1983 civil war in Sudan. Soon after, her family fled to a refugee camp in Ethiopia. They returned to Sudan only to have to leave again in 1993 due to ongoing fighting.
They lived in Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya before she came to Australia with three of her siblings in 2003. She is now married with children, working part-time for a social services organisation in Blacktown and also studies welfare at a TAFE college.
The war started again in Ethiopia and then we went back to Sudan and then the war started again in Sudan so we ran to Kenya.
I don’t know if it’s the culture. … You can have three years … and you don’t know your neighbours. … Many Sudanese, they do say that “my neighbour doesn’t talk to me”. … My children kept telling [our neighbour], “Alloo! Alloo! Alloo!” She’s now greeting us too! … Now [my neighbour] accepts it … she says ”hi”.
Interview by Shar Jones, Blacktown City Council Museum Advisor
Photograph by Nicole Secomb, Historian & Heritage Consultant for Blacktown City Council