Here is a random collection of stories I have accumulated over the last few weeks that are united by the humor that I found in each situation. (My laughter was accompanied by a forehead slap and a groan)
I picked up a somali guy at the airport last night (as per the state department's request) and took him to stay with a few of our other Somali guys for a couple of days. While he was catching his breath (by drinking sugary tea in true somali fashion) I watched TV with another guy (who I will call Faisel). We were watching a documentary about Pirates of the Caribbean and I turned to him and asked "do you know what this is about? Pirates? Do you know the word Pirate?" He looked confused and apologized for "little English." For some reason it suddenly seemed very important to me to explain what the word pirate meant--I started with "ocean", got to "boat" and mimed taking money. My gestures were getting more and more elaborate when suddenly Faisel's face lit up and said "oh! Pirates--Somalia!" I awkwardly said "yeah...pirates in somalia" he then pointed to the TV and asked "this is about pirates?" and when I said yes he yelled to his roommates "hey, come see, somalia is on the news!" LOL
I was waiting for this Somali guy at the airport with another Somali (my interpreter who taught me the somali phrase for "welcome to America!"). I told my interpreter the name of the guy we were waiting for and he immediately flipped open his phone and made a call in the Somali language. When he was done he turned to me and said "this guy we are looking for, he is short and fat--like four men but very small." I asked him how on earth he knew that and he told me "I called my friend in Michigan who came today and he was on the plane from Tunisia with him." Literally 2 minutes with just a name and the Somali network in the US was able to give me more personal details about this guy than the state department bio I was given! We picked him up without a hitch--he was short and a bit rotund--but not that fat. Really, he will fit into American society just fine. But the Somalis who meet him keep commenting on how fat he is. One lady patted his stomach and said "how could you survive Libya and Tunisia and still be this big!?" It's like they can accept that Americans are fat but they consider it open for public comment when one of their own is (I'm starting to suspect that Somalis may think Americans are a different species...)
The congolese family of nine I mentioned in the last post has been a joy to work with....mostly. I took them to go get clothes last week and, as per usual, I gave them a rough guideline of how much to spend. The problem with taking people to get clothing is that people vary dramatically in how much they think they need, how much they are willing to take, how well they can add prices in their heads, and how much they know about Portland weather. Different groups need different guidelines--with some wild generalizations this is what I have observed: somali guys won't really take anything beyond a shirt and maybe a pair of shoes, nepali families really like buying fake flowers, burmese families need encouragement to take more clothes for their kids, and most middle-eastern families are kind of grossed-out by the idea of used clothes. I didn't know what to expect with the congolese family so I just told them to "get what you need." Oops! six shopping carts and $1500 later we nearly cleaned out the store and significantly depleted our community grant. The problem was that this family didn't speak English at all so I couldn't figure out how to gently say "oh my god! Stop!!" I chalked it up to a learning experience and decided that in the future, for big families it was better to just tell them how many carts they could use.
On a different note.....Our summer program for elementary school-aged refugee kids starts in two weeks! I have been working on this for months and it looks like it is going to be a big success. We are working on a curriculum with two ESL teachers and I am busy planning field trips and fun activities. Those "fun activities" include a tae kwon do class that I will be teaching (with minimal english?) and messy science experiments! I'm gonna make gak and gooey slime!!! (needless to say, I am stoked!) I will try to get pictures to share with y'all during the course of the program...stay tuned!
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