I am seeking to raise $10,000 to help a good and loving person, a new citizen of America, a refugee from horror,  pay back a mistaken loan that is crippling her son’s education and pressuring her own life in many ways. We have raised more than $4,000 so far, nearly half.

It’s hard for me to get it out my head when I see Devota – I met with her again yesterday afternoon at RISSE in Albany. Under the new laws proposed by our government, she would not be eligible to come to  America today.

She did not speak English when she came here after walking nearly 3,000 miles across Africa with  her daughter on her back to escape the Rwandan genocide. And she had no money or any other possessions.

She is an American citizen now, but since she had no resources or measurable skills when she finally got to a refugee camp in 1995, she would no longer qualify for admission to the United States.

Yesterday, she showed me a photograph taken of her walking barefoot out of Rwanda with tens of thousands of fellow refugees and victims. Devota said it was a death march, soldiers and militiamen lined the route of the march, gunning down thousands of innocent people in the slaughter, which took 800,000 lives.

Eight of the people she walked with were killed by poison darts fired by guards and farmers when they foraged for food on farms along their route. They hid in forests during the day, foraged for food at night.

She told me yesterday that she never understood what happiness was until she came to America. She said had never been happy a single day in  her life.

It took Devota a year to walk to safety with no spare clothes shelter, food or shoes. She carried her young daughter – then three months old – all of the way.  She got her to the camp alive, tens of thousands of children were abandoned by their parents during this time and left to die on the roads of exposure and starvation.

On her journey walking and in the camps, Devota was raped four times. She was threatened with death each time if she did not submit. The assaults resulted in four children, all of whom she chose to keep and adopt and who she brought to America and is raising by herself. She intends to get every one of them through college.

One of her children, her oldest son,  was recently accepted at Buffalo State University, Devota, confused by the loan system (it happens to refugees and many young Americans all of the time) applied for what she thought was a financial aid package but was actually a $10,000 loan.

She intends to pay back every pay.

Her payments – $125 a month – forced her  moved to a smaller apartment with her children, and her son, who is studying to be an engineer,  left school for a cheaper community college and is working to help repay his own loan.

Devota is working day and night at two jobs, seven days a week – one with disabled people at Catholic Charities, and every night, as a house cleaner at the Albany Medical Center. I asked for a photo of her at work, and she sent me the one above.

Yesterday, I asked her if she needed any of the money we had raised now – my plan is to wait and see if we could raise the entire $10,000. She smiled and said nothing, and I was reminded again that the refugees – especially those from Africa and parts of Asia – will never ask for money, they believe it is unseemly and rude.

They will sometimes accept it if is simply given to them, and if the need is great.

So I wrote her a check for $1,000 and agreed to meet her again next week in Albany, where she lives and works.

She is, I am told, a hard worker and a devoted mother. She plans to get herself through college as well, once her children finish their education. This is desperately important to her, an old refugee and immigrant story, the heart of the American experience.

So I wrote out a check for $1,000 and handed it to her. Brother Francis, the director of RISSE, (the refugee and immigrant center based in Albany) and the man who introduced me to Devota, said I could not possibly imagine the difference that $1,000 would mean to Devota and her family now.

I could see it in her face, I think. She has a beautiful smile.

In Rwanda, she said, neither she nor her children could ever have gone to school. For all of her struggles, she sees our country as a land of opportunity and hope. She never talks about her long march across Africa, and when asked, says as little as possible. When asked about the political struggles raging around immigration, she only smiles and says: “When the elephants fight, the grasses below suffer.”

She told me yesterday “I don’t want to keep anger inside of me, all that emotion will eat me up.”

If you wish to donate to help pay Devota’s loan, you can send a check to me, Jon Katz, P.O.  Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y. 12816, or donate through Paypal, [email protected].  Please note it is for “Devota.” This morning, I received $870 dollars in small donations in my post office bos, they add up and will help change a life.

I will keep updating this project as it evolves, I will see her again next week, and she has invited me to her apartment for dinner.