As told to Macey Shofroth | Photo by Duane Tinkey

Lalonyo AnyaCeng was born in a refugee camp in Uganda. Her parents had fled conflict in South Sudan while her mother was pregnant with her. She spent the first 16 years of her life in refugee camps. 

Her family was to come to the U.S. in 2001, but were delayed for four years after the events of 9/11. They finally arrived in New York City on a cold January day in 2005. A woman wearing a black suit and a brown coat greeted them in the airport, and Lalonyo quickly decided she would do anything she could to one day afford a brown coat and a black suit of her own. 

Lalonyo now lives in Des Moines with her four sons and owns her cleaning business, Cleaning for Hope. She shared with us what it was like to navigate being a young refugee in America and how she worked to build a life where she could buy her own black suit and brown coat.

The following story has been formatted to be entirely in her words, and has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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The first time I was fearless was when I was 9 years old. I was born in a refugee camp in Uganda. When my parents were fleeing from South Sudan, the war was really bad, bombing and gunshots everywhere. My mother inhaled a lot of the chemicals, so when I was born, I was not a healthy child. I didn’t start school until I was 11, because I always didn’t feel well. 

When I was 9, I had this cough. I went to the doctor and they couldn’t find anything. I was just laying on my bed. I had no energy. I didn’t eat anything. I couldn’t keep anything down, and I was just laying there, really dying. And I hear my mother telling my older brother to call my grandma, because she thought that I was not going to make it. She questioned God. She said, “God, if you don’t want her to live, why did you let her suffer this long?” 

I went to church at the time, but I really didn’t know much about God. But I also questioned God. As soon as I questioned Him, I see this light come over me. That built my confidence, knowing that if I call on God, I will come through it. 

As human beings, you really don’t know the power that you have. When you have evidence of something that has already happened in your life, then when hard times come, you fall back into that time. You know that if you made it through that time, you can do it again. 

I would sit under a tree and see planes in the sky. I would imagine that though I don’t know where that plane is going, I imagine it’s this beautiful world outside of the refugee camp. We didn’t know if we were going to make it to America, but we had hope.

We gave away everything when we were supposed to come to America, then everything was canceled. We had to rebuy everything. Start going back to work on the garden, collecting wood and just going back to the refugee life after you already had hope. 

The next time we learned we were coming to America, it was very surprising. We were just trying to prepare for our winter season. Then one of my brother’s friends came and found me and my sibling. He asked, “Where’s your mom?” I told him she wasn’t here and he said, “Well, your guys’ name is on the board and you guys are leaving in two weeks.” It was a very short time. We didn’t have time to say goodbye to all of our friends. We gave away everything we had prepared for the winter. 

January in Uganda is really hot. So we were wearing our shortest skirts, and here we are arriving in New York with what felt like negative 50 degrees. 

When you live in a refugee camp, your life is unknown. Your life is being decided by other people, by governments, where you’re going to move and are you allowed to stay in this country long. You build this personality of whatever happens, happens. Nothing really bothers you much because you know that anything can change at any time. 

I learned my ABCs in ninth grade. It was difficult, but I like learning. We’d spend half of the day on ESL, then the other half we’d spend in an actual regular class. I remember taking history class my first semester, and I can’t read. I don’t understand it. But she created a space where we could understand the textbook and pass the test, and I passed the class with a B. 

The first time we arrived in New York City, the person who welcomed us here was an African American woman. She was wearing a black suit and a brown coat, and she was walking toward us with a big smile. She introduced herself to say she was the caseworker and she’s going to help us get our paperwork done and then we’re going to transfer to Idaho. Just looking at her and the way she was walking, her confidence and her smile, it opened my eyes to something. I thought, “I’ve been in a refugee camp for all my life. I’ve never seen a woman in a black suit. I’ve never seen a woman walk with such a confidence.” She inspired me so much. Right there in that airport, I said, “I don’t know what it’s going to take for me to wear a suit, but when I grow up, I just want to wear a black suit and a brown coat.” 

Coming to this country, we faced difficulties. No. 1 was language. No. 2 was culture. No. 3 was that back home, we planted our own food. You built your hut. You don’t pay bills. So now my mom, with seven kids, she can’t afford to feed all of us. So school became my secondary thing. I had to find a job to support my mom, so I found a job at Walmart. I became the primary help in the family. I was the one taking my mom to work, taking everyone to their appointments, making sure all the bills have been paid and that there’s food at home. 

I became overwhelmed. I didn’t have the foundation of how to deal with the stress, so instead of finding help, I found this man. The next thing I know, on top of everything, I found myself pregnant. In my culture, if you’re pregnant, you have to marry the person. I found myself at 16 going on 17 pregnant, trying to learn my English, trying to understand the culture, everything was just all at once. 

I knew I didn’t mind being a mother, but it was not my dream. I didn’t mind being a wife, but it was not my dream to just be a wife. I always wanted to do something more. The relationship was not healthy because he was way older than me. I was struggling with all those things, and that woman’s image is stuck in my head. I don’t know what it is, but I just want to get to the place where I can wear the black suit and brown coat. 

When I had my first son, I went back and got my high school diploma. When we moved to Iowa, I started community college, but it was so much pressure at home with my ex-husband and I dropped out. We fought a lot. It was just a toxic life, but we kept having kids. Something that I wish women could be taught is that you don’t have to do that. So 10 years in that relationship, I said I’ve had enough and I’m just not going to deal with it. 

I had the courage to move out so I could figure out what to do. But some people said, “No, in America, women don’t leave the home. Men have to leave the home. So you have to go back and kick him out.” I’m not a fighter, but I listened to them. I thought, I have kids so I shouldn’t have to struggle. We talked before I moved back and he was supposed to move out. But when I moved back, in his mind, he thought I just came back home to be there. We got in a fight, and next thing I know I find myself in the Polk County Jail. When we got in a fight, he broke my phone. He called the police and made all kinds of false claims that I tried to hurt him, so they took me to jail.

I’m glad they did, because I’m a giver. If he were the one to go to jail, I probably would have found a way to get him out and bring him back. 

When I got out, I said, “I’m not gonna go through this anymore.” So that was when I left the relationship, and I had nothing. I was working at Walmart, but I knew that it was not going to be enough to help me with my four boys. So that’s when I started cleaning our church. From there, people started spreading my good work, and they started asking me if I clean houses and I started saying yes. 

I didn’t know what it would take to start a business. I didn’t know anything, but I knew that I wanted to do something great. Somebody connected me with the Iowa Center for Economic Success and I took their class. First, I registered the business under a different name, but I just kept having this vision of, “This is more than just a job.” It’s a community where we can help women who are also in my situation, because cleaning helped me to get myself my own house, pay my bills, get food on the table for my kids and very flexible hours. If this could help me, I think it could also help some other women, and that’s why I started Cleaning for Hope.

When we started, we were doing commercial and residential. When we clean your house, if you have something like furniture, clothes, shoes, whatever you would donate to Goodwill, you can donate it to us and we will pack it up and give it to the people in need. We help a lot of women. On Christmas, our clients will adopt a family and get the whole family gifts. We donate a lot of beds and a lot of clothes. 

I have nine employees right now, and I’ve had more than 30 total. When I meet people, I’m just like, “How can I help you become a better you?” We helped a woman from being homeless to owning her own place. My last assistant manager started with me part-time because she had no daycare. She found a full-time job through one of our clients, and now she bought a house with her husband in Altoona and they’re living their best life. 

When I moved to Iowa, I didn’t know where to start and what to do. I took almost all of the training in Iowa. I did Project Iowa and the Iowa Economic Center and the Des Moines Partnership and Drake accelerators. Having all of these education systems and the connections and the people to support me — I came to this country with nothing, and for people to meet me and trust me with their home and businesses, I’m so grateful. The generosity of people supporting me, it really gives me a great home. I’m just grateful for the people of Iowa.