In the Little America break room all the other workers are speaking Vietnamese. Eftin sits by himself, a quiet, serious young man waiting for his 6 a.m. shift to begin. Later, after work, he will take TRAX back to where he then bicycles to home.

Eftin turns 19 in July. But like many refugees from Africa, who arrived without birth certificates, he left his actual age behind when he was relocated to America. Like them, Eftin was randomly assigned the same new date of birth: Jan. 1. Because they rarely have calendars, says Aden Batar, a Somali who is director of immigrant and refugee settlement at Catholic Community Services, the Bantus often will mark their birthday by a season. "It was rainy and hot," a Bantu might say.

By the end of the year, estimates Batar, the Salt Lake Valley will have a total of 225 Somali Bantus.

Eftin learned to read and write in the refugee camps, and before moving to Utah had actually become a teacher himself in the Kakuma Camp in Kenya. Most of the refugees have no jobs in the camps, so the idea of steady work is also something to get used to in America. Eftin's father, Abdullahi Kulo, works at Farmland Industries, one of many sub-Saharans working in the frigid rooms of the meatpacking plant. Like all Somali Bantus, Eftin took the last name of his father's father.

Eftin says he would like to become a doctor some day. In his free time he studies for his high school equivalency exam and, more recently, for his driver's exam. Catholic Community Services is helping him get a car.

"Here is better than Somalia in all the ways," Eftin says about his new life.

E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com