One African woman's story from pain, sorrow and survival to a home in Chattanooga

Senga Lucie, standing in front of her new home in Alton Park, took a harrowing journey from her home in the Congo to a disease-ridden refugee camp in Tanzania before being sent to Chattanooga.

It's a beautiful, though unseasonably warm, mid-October day and, even from two blocks away inside the Villages at Alton Park, Senga Lucie cuts a striking figure.

She is beautifully dressed in a brightly-colored pagne, the flowing wrap traditionally worn in her native Congo, and a matching headscarf, but it's her confident gait that catches the eye. The symbolism of her walk speaks loudly on many levels, in part because of where she is coming from and in part because of what she is walking toward.

Behind her is not only the apartment where she has been living, but far in the distance is the Congo and Tanzania and death and war and illness. But today, as she rounds the corner of a row of new homes, she strides along the sidewalk towards a brand-new house.

Her house. A home. The first house she can say is hers.

"I have been so blessed and I thank God," she says in a heavy West African accent.

It is a brand new, three-bedroom, two-bath, single-story, brick-and-cement number provided for her and her niece, Uwimana Mukanakusi, by Habitat for Humanity of Greater Chattanooga Area, the faith-based nonprofit that provides affordable homes for low-income individuals and families.

How Lucie, 30, made it from the Africa to Chattanooga is a story of pain, sorrow and survival. She was born and raised in the Congo, living there with her family until 1996, when war claimed the lives of her father and two brothers.

The rest of the family relocated to Tanzania and, while there, Lucie lived in an overcrowded, disease-infested refugee camp where catching a fatal disease like malaria was a daily threat. It would claim the life of her sister. Lucie did all she could to survive and to remain as positive about life as she could; she even got married while in a refugee camp.

In 2007, as the Tanzanian government began closing the camps, the United Nations moved Lucie and her husband to Chattanooga, though she had no idea she was coming here - or even to the United States, for that matter. She thought she was being sent to Uganda.

"A lot of people died from malaria," Lucie says. "People died because there was no food and no medicine. The water was dirty. If you got sick, you died."

Once arriving here, she learned of the Bridge Refugee Services, which helped her with things like clothes, a place to live and a job. She currently works at Pilgrims Pride.

While she found friends and a new life, she still faced ups and downs. Her marriage failed and she divorced, but three years ago she learned that her niece, who had grown up in an orphanage in Africa, had turned 18 and, with the help of the American Red Cross, she was reunited with Lucie in Chattanooga.

Faced with caring for her niece, she learned of Habitat for Humanity and began the process of qualifying for a new home. Habitat has a list of requirements, including steady income and the ability to financially manage the home. Candidates also must work as a volunteer for Habitat, display a willingness to live in the neighborhood where Habitat is building and attend workshops on successful home ownership.

"We have worked with several African refugee families," says Habitat volunteer coordinator Cheryl Marsh.

Lucie's home is surrounded by eight other Habitat houses; most are three- or four-bedroom homes for families, she says.

The home was funded by the state Department of Economic & Community Development, the City of Chattanooga, Habitat for Humanity of Tennessee and the Tennessee Housing Development Agency.

Lucie, who became a U.S. citizen in 2015, has high praise for Bridge Refugee Services and Habitat.

"I thank God, but I thank people, too," she says. "I have met a lot of nice people. The problem I have is language sometimes."

Before her home was built, she was able to pick out the flooring and paint colors; she's now looking forward to hosting guests in her extra bedroom and cooking, something she does every day, in her new kitchen.

"I will cook fufu [a dough-liked dish that is dipped into a beefy broth]," she says. "It is eaten with the fingers."

Lucie is matter of fact when describing what it takes to have lived through everything she has and still be so positive.

"You have to have confidence and you have to trust people. You have to be strong and believe in God and know that everything is possible, and you have to be safe. Don't drink or put yourself in dangerous places.

"It is easy to trust people. If someone says, 'Let's go have a drink,' that is someone to not go with. You make your own way."

Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.