USD Magazine Summer 2006

AROUND THE PARK

Ambitious from the start, Daniel Akech James initally planned to study three majors at USD: theology and religious studies, math, and philosophy. He ultimately dropped philosophy.

[ r o a d w a r r i o r ]

HE’S GOT A LICENSE TO DRIVE Lo s t Boy ge t s beh i nd t he whe e l , t r i umph s ove r t r agedy on ce aga i n

by Krystn Shrieve

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postponed graduation so he could take a few more advanced math classes and better his chances of getting into graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley. “I never went to high school,” says Daniel. “What matters to me is learning, not just earning the degree.” This month Daniel will start searching for a summer job. He doesn’t care where he works, he

just needs to earn enough to pay for the $2,000 plane ticket to the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, to visit friends and family. So what are his plans for the future? To begin with, graduate school and a stint teaching math at the college level. But he has his sights set on something even big- ger.“I want to get a job with the United Nations,”he says.“I want to work there and help to change the world in whatever way I can.”

USD Magazine (Fall 2005), he’s most excited about getting his driver’s license on Jan. 6, 2006. “I did a good job,”says Daniel. “The instructor said I was very cautious. I don’t drive regularly yet, but I’ll run errands for my friends. It’s good practice.” These days Daniel enjoys jogging from Alcalá Park to SeaWorld and back two or three times a week. He initially planned to graduate this month, but

aniel Akech James has been living his life in fast- forward mode since arriv-

ing in the United States in 2001. He got a job and earned his GED within the first week. He powered his way through community col- lege and was admitted to the University of San Diego in 2003. After conquering all that, Daniel decided to learn how to drive. But it was in the fast lane that Daniel was forced to slow down. On June 6, 2004, an acquain- tance offered to teach Daniel the rules of the road. While navigating the sometimes crazy interchange between Interstates 5 and 8, the Explorer he was driving flipped three, four, five times. His left hand was crushed. The medical term was that it was “de-gloved”— the entire top portion of his hand, skin and all, had been ripped back. “I was only worried about the woman,” Daniel recalls. “But the paramedics told me not to worry about her, and that I was the one who was dying.” Doctors would have amputated his hand, but his USD math pro- fessor, Cameron Parker, and Judy Bernstein from the International Rescue Committee, an organiza- tion that sponsors about 100 Lost Boys living in San Diego, stepped in and found an orthopedic sur- geon who conducted the numer- ous, delicate surgeries for free. While a lot has happened to the one-time Lost Boy of Sudan since a story about his life’s jour- ney, “Finding Daniel,” first ran in

10 USD MAGAZINE