Last month Muhozi Aimable, a cross country and track athlete at the University of Georgia, listened quietly, just like his classmates, in a geography class as his professor discussed refugee crises.
For him, the topic was not academic but personal. One text message or phone call can disrupt Aimable’s routine life as a student and remind him of his childhood, which began in a refugee camp, or of his maternal grandparents, who still live in Rwanda.
“Muhozi, say something,” read a text that teammate Jon Moses sent him during the class.
The conversation moved on before Aimable could provide insight and at the time, he was unsure if he felt comfortable mentioning his first-hand experience in that setting. But with the recent debate regarding the acceptance of Syrian refugees into the United States, his perspective has changed.
“Look,” Aimable said, “I represent UGA. I go to school. I haven’t done anything bad.”
He knows what’s at stake for the refugees and said the United States has the resources to give them a safe place to live.
“They have to get out,” Aimable said. “Being denied is like someone holding you at gunpoint because it’s literally a life-or-death situation.”
Aimable was born in a Tanzanian refugee camp after the 1994 Rwandan genocide displaced his parents. He has spent the past five years adjusting to the American lifestyle and is a UGA sophomore majoring in finance and consumer economics.
Still, his childhood experiences impact his daily life, influencing the priority he places on his education and the fear that lingers.
He was too young to remember the genocidal slaughter that killed, according to the United Human Rights Council, about 800,000 people. One of those who died was Aimable’s paternal grandmother.
Now, over 20 years after the genocide was at its height, Aimable will run in his first competitions this spring as a distance runner for the UGA track team.
When Aimable walked on to Georgia’s team this year, the complexities of obtaining NCAA eligibility kept him from competing in cross country.
“It’s not like calling up Clarke Central (High School in Athens) and saying, ‘Do you have that transcript?’” Georgia cross country coach Patrick Cunniff said.
Now, he’s cleared to compete, and Cunniff said that next fall Aimable could help fill the void left by top runners Zack Sims and Steven Spevacek, who are graduating this year.
Aimable had never raced competitively before moving to Clarkston before his freshman year of high school. Aimable’s brother, Pacifique, has cerebral palsy, which gave the family priority for relocation to the United States.
“I started telling my friends, ‘I’m going to America.’ And they were like, ‘What? You’re lying,’” Aimable said.
At his school in Malawi, where he lived for eight years, Aimable was known as “the bell guy.” In between classes in seventh and eighth grade, he ran around his school’s campus ringing a bell to signify the changing of classes.
“I would ring it for as much as I wanted, as long as I also got to my class,” Aimable said. “They always picked guys who were good in school.”
Aimable joined the Clarkston High School cross country team his junior year to get in shape for soccer. A year later, he set the school record in the 1,600-meter run and placed 24th overall at the state cross country championships.
“You can take any soccer player and put him into any sport and they’re going to do well in it just because of the athleticism they own,” Clarkston cross country coach Wesley Etienne said.
Back in Malawi, Aimable kept track of the money and inventory coming in and out of his father’s grocery store. While that influenced his major at UGA, once Aimable moved to Clarkston with his parents and four younger siblings, his primary duty changed.
“In America, my job as a child is to go to school,” Aimable said.
Aimable’s mother, Gahongayire Vestine, stays at home to care for his brother, while his father, Mihigo Wilson, works for Masonite, a door manufacturing company. Aimable said part of the allure of attending Georgia was remaining close to home.
Clarkston is a hotbed for refugees because of its low-cost housing and public transportation.
“If you have people who are here and went through the same thing that you did, welcoming you and helping you ease into the new countries, that makes a world of a difference,” said Prisca Kim, who works for City Hope Community, an organization that serves refugees resettling in the area.
Aimable knew little English when he arrived. Once Etienne told Aimable to be “a beast” and he wasn’t sure what it meant. He said he originally wondered if his new sport entailed running across countries.
“The great thing about sports is that it doesn’t matter what language you speak,” Etienne said.
Etienne said refugees consistently make up 90 percent of Clarkston’s cross country teams.
Aimable graduated third in his Clarkston class of about 200 students and earned the Gates Millennium Scholarship.
Concern for his grandparents, who still live among the conflict, remains an unchanging component of Aimable’s life. But he said “living in fear that one day we might get a phone call that my grandparents passed away” has become normal, another piece of his history blending with his routine life today.
“You get used to it,” he said.
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