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War refugee's journey leads to Chatham College
Tuesday, August 24, 1999 By Bill Schackner, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
The day before NATO began bombing, Arbana Dermaku fled her increasingly dangerous homeland in Kosovo, carrying a backpack stuffed with clothing and a wish that things would be better somewhere else.
Yesterday, five months and several thousand miles later, the blue bag was still beside the teen-ager as a white van shuttled her up Fifth Avenue and onto the leafy campus of Chatham College. It was the latest and, in some respects, the most uncertain step yet in this young refugee's journey.
Dermaku, just days past her 19th birthday, is part of an unusual migration of college freshmen this fall. She and nearly 40 other refugees from the war in Kosovo are soon expected to leave their American host families and arrive at 23 campuses, most of which, like Chatham, have agreed to pay nearly all of their expenses.
Chatham will welcome a second refugee later this week.
Many were spirited out of their homeland by relatives with help from groups such as Catholic Charities. They have slept on living room floors or in kitchens in a part of the world where they never imagined they would visit, much less live.
Now, with what limited English they know, students like Dermaku are hoping they can turn their personal sorrow into a new start.
"Come on, you're going to do fine," said Lou Biundo, 70, who along with his wife, Gloria, drove Dermaku from the suburban Philadelphia home of her host family and did what they could to smooth the language barrier.
Occasionally, they stepped in with a hug or a joke when exhilaration at the new surroundings turned to tears.
"You're my sweetheart," Gloria Biundo said. "I love you."
In white running shoes, shorts and a blue striped top, Dermaku seemed like a typical college recruit being flooded with information about her new home. She listened attentively during a walking tour of campus, signed the necessary paperwork and got the keys to her new quarters in Fickes Hall, where many first-year students live.
She also got some familiar advice.
"The first three years, we told her, 'No boys,' " Gloria Biundo joked.
For the latest updates from the Balkans, visit PG Online's Kosovo Index page.
Dermaku, seeming at times embarrassed by all the attention she was getting from college staff, said in halting English that she was ready, thanks to bags full of belongings donated by her host family and others.
"Everything I need, I have," she said.
The initiative began in June with Carol Detweiler and her husband, Richard, who is president of Hartwick College in upstate New York. Both are former Peace Corps volunteers and wondered if small private colleges could do something for refugees that were streaming into Fort Dix, N.J.
Richard Detweiler raised the idea at a meeting of private colleges. Those that have since offered to take at least one refugee include, in Pennsylvania, Allegheny College, Juniata College and College Misericordia.
Chatham expects that for both refugees it will pay about 90 percent of the $23,000 yearly cost. That will amount to about $160,000 over four years, but the principle at stake was greater than money, college President Esther Barazzone said.
"How can you say no to a situation like this?" she asked. "We decided that we would take a second student because we felt they would provide companionship and support for each other."
Barazzone said the college wanted both students to "feel they have a place, that people care about [them] and that there are people who are going to help [them] succeed."
The second student, Teuta Doko, 19, will arrive Thursday or Friday from Metamora, Ill., near Peoria. She plans to study computer science.
To help smooth the transition for both students, staff and students at the small women's college with 500 undergraduates have been preparing for days. Admissions staff, who only learned that she was coming a few weeks ago, yesterday took the unusual step of accepting Dermaku's college application upon her arrival.
The college will have staff available to help both students with English as needed and other studies. It also has a counseling center should more serious problems arise with their adjustment.
Dermaku arrived a day in advance of orientation for the 40 or so other international students on campus.
"I'm both nervous and excited," said Shaik Ismail, assistant vice president for international programs at Chatham.
"I'm excited because my college, a small college, is taking part in this humanitarian project," he said. "I'm also nervous because I don't know how the devastation in their country will manifest itself in their behavior on campus, their approach to schooling and simply campus life."
The college said Dermaku finished high school despite the war, attending classes in the afternoon and early evenings to avoid hostility on the streets directed at ethnic Albanians by Serbs in Kosovo. She wants to study international affairs and has an affinity for literature, psychology, art and table tennis.
Dermaku is the second oldest of three children who lived in Kamenica, Kosovo. Her parents and her younger sister arrived on a flight to the United States. Her older brother is still in Kosovo.
Some details of their escape are lost in translation. But Dermaku reached the Macedonian border by bus, was turned back once but allowed to cross the second time. After three months in that country, she flew to New York and Philadelphia as part of a relative's effort to get 14 family members out of Kosovo.
She stayed with a host family in Harleysville, Ellen and Jan Valeriano, and got help from a second couple, Mike and Linda Nelson, also of Harleysville.
With donations, her parents were able to move to an apartment this week in Lansdale, another Philadelphia suburb. It was from there early yesterday that Dermaku left for the six-hour ride to Chatham.
Gloria Biundo watched the girl's father say goodbye just before 8 a.m.
"He was very emotional. His eyes teared up. He said, 'Not to worry,"' Biundo recalled.
He tapped his heart several times, a gesture he uses to suggest joy. "He was saying, 'I'm happy for you.'"
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