The good: I got a call from Emory School of Medicine's dean of admissions who told me that I am a finalist for a full-tuition scholarship to the school! The school is flying me out to Atlanta next week for another round of interviews. (for perspective: 12 finalists, 4 scholarships) WOOOOOT!!!!!!
The bad: I nicknamed an iraqi family "sketchy mcsketchers" last week when i found out that they are in the process of arranging for a russian bride for their son over the internet. Sketchy....
The supernatural: I was officially cursed by a Somali elder on Friday-or rather, I and the medical establishment were cursed. This was during a palliative care team meeting which I was invited to sit in on while we talked with one of our Somali family's about Dad's end-stage cancer (Dad is 80+). They had only arrived a week earlier and I started out very upset that we brought a man to the US just to die in a foreign land. It turns out that it is not quite a foreign land--he has friends in Minnesota and he wants to see them before he dies so that they can bury his body correctly. When the doctor tried to explain that he wouldn't survive a trip to Minnesota, the wife got very agitated and the translator had to awkwardly explain that we were being cursed for not following the wishes of an elder. I have discovered that I really am a romantic--I am totally on the family's side and believe that there is something sacred about a man's dying wish. I am also pretty sure that they will get him there--it might involve kidnapping him out of hospice and pulling a 'little miss sunshine' in the back of a VW van. But seriously, they will get him there--if an 80 yr old guy could survive a two day trip from the other side of the world with metastatic tumors, they will find a way to get him to Minnesota. (I might slip them a train schedule on the sly to help).
Monday, March 19, 2012
Friday, March 2, 2012
Different Perspectives
Funny story--I got really sick. Like really sick, and I had to miss nearly two weeks of work in favor of lying in bed and resenting the outside world that I could not join. Since I am a part of a Luddite-loving organization, I do not have internet access at home so I was unable to complain about feeling sick in blog form. After some intense western medicine, however, I am significantly improved and have (thank God) returned to work. And thus resume my de-contextualized stories of the refugee-in-Portland world. I have two stories today that I can sort of label "different perspectives"
1) There is this Burmese family that was being cheated in a major way by their ex-landlord who wanted close to $2,000 for "extreme damages" to their old apartment (minus the security deposit that still meant the family owed about $900). This family has 7 kids and only government assistance for an income so when they came to us I was ready to "go to bat" for them in a major way. I researched tenant/landlord laws, spoke to renters rights hotlines, contacted friends in law offices, etc.--I didn't want the family paying anything extra. After we had drafted one letter, the landlord and the case manager spoke and the landlord agreed to knock off $200 in charges. Legal action really wasn't an option for the family so the case manger just sent them the revised bill. I was not thrilled. But the family came in to see us later that day and they were ecstatic. They were so excited, mom kept shaking our hands saying "thank you" and the teenage boy (the only english speaker) asked us to look over the check he wrote to make sure it was correct. They even brought an envelope and a stamp and asked us to write out the landlord's address. They didn't even know what they were paying for--in their eyes they were just asked for a large sum of money, they came to us for help and they saw a concrete result from our advocacy. They were so happy that someone cared enough to help them. Despite my frustrations I decided it was a success story--even though I still think the land lord is a crook--because in the end what matters is that we made someone feel like they mattered enough to be helped.
2) I have made friends with this really sweet Ethiopian lady who is about to have her first baby (thousands of miles away from any relatives--and she is only a year older than me). She has been translating for us (for free) and I stopped by her apartment the other day to say thank you and to give her a baby blanket I made. She and her neighbor were sharing coffee and invited me to join them. It turns out that the two of them watch Jerry Springer together every afternoon (they asked me if the people were real.....I wasn't sure how to answer). This episode had this crazy lady (as per usual) who was in a fight with her boss--both of them happened to be African American. We were chatting about the show and I discovered that the two women thought that all black people in the US must be like this and consequently they were afraid of Portland's African American community. I spent some time trying to explain "stereotypes," "non-representative samples" and the general problems with reality TV but I don't know if I made any difference. So thank you Jerry Springer--you have successfully made Africans afraid of African Americans.
1) There is this Burmese family that was being cheated in a major way by their ex-landlord who wanted close to $2,000 for "extreme damages" to their old apartment (minus the security deposit that still meant the family owed about $900). This family has 7 kids and only government assistance for an income so when they came to us I was ready to "go to bat" for them in a major way. I researched tenant/landlord laws, spoke to renters rights hotlines, contacted friends in law offices, etc.--I didn't want the family paying anything extra. After we had drafted one letter, the landlord and the case manager spoke and the landlord agreed to knock off $200 in charges. Legal action really wasn't an option for the family so the case manger just sent them the revised bill. I was not thrilled. But the family came in to see us later that day and they were ecstatic. They were so excited, mom kept shaking our hands saying "thank you" and the teenage boy (the only english speaker) asked us to look over the check he wrote to make sure it was correct. They even brought an envelope and a stamp and asked us to write out the landlord's address. They didn't even know what they were paying for--in their eyes they were just asked for a large sum of money, they came to us for help and they saw a concrete result from our advocacy. They were so happy that someone cared enough to help them. Despite my frustrations I decided it was a success story--even though I still think the land lord is a crook--because in the end what matters is that we made someone feel like they mattered enough to be helped.
2) I have made friends with this really sweet Ethiopian lady who is about to have her first baby (thousands of miles away from any relatives--and she is only a year older than me). She has been translating for us (for free) and I stopped by her apartment the other day to say thank you and to give her a baby blanket I made. She and her neighbor were sharing coffee and invited me to join them. It turns out that the two of them watch Jerry Springer together every afternoon (they asked me if the people were real.....I wasn't sure how to answer). This episode had this crazy lady (as per usual) who was in a fight with her boss--both of them happened to be African American. We were chatting about the show and I discovered that the two women thought that all black people in the US must be like this and consequently they were afraid of Portland's African American community. I spent some time trying to explain "stereotypes," "non-representative samples" and the general problems with reality TV but I don't know if I made any difference. So thank you Jerry Springer--you have successfully made Africans afraid of African Americans.
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