The good: I met two Iranian brothers today who had to get an ID from the DMV. It took a while and there were all sorts of classic paperwork snafus-- "you need to fill out the yellow form, not the grey one," "The department of homeland security doesn't have his birthday in the system," "why does his last name have two parts to it?" etc.--but while we were waiting one of the brothers, through much miming, was able to tell me about how he was a photo-journalist and a political cartoonist in Iran (which is why he is now a refugee--not a safe or prosperous profession in those parts). He even showed me some of his political artwork including a pencil drawing of a Persian woman with haunting eyes mutely pleading for help from behind an Iran-shaped crack in a wall. I never thought I would say this about a trip to the DMV, but I had a really great time.
The bad: Speaking of Iranians, this one Iranian girl keeps calling me with these really surreal questions. She called me once last week because she missed a meeting with her job coach and was worried that he would be mad at her and wanted to know if everything would be okay (if only she knew how much of our lives was filled with missed meetings). She then called me last week and said "my job coach found a position for me at 7-eleven but I heard that if I work there I will get shot because people rob 7-eleven stores." I like to think of it as a spiritual exercise when I have to exert every iota of my will to keep a straight face and consider her question seriously. I think it will be excellent practice for being a primary care doc in the future ("yes, it is possible that you have a flesh-eating bacteria but statistically-speaking I am going to guess that it is just a splinter"). The bad part is that she has gotten my cell phone number and has started texting me these ridiculous questions on the weekend--I am going to have a serious talk with her about boundaries.
The ugly: I was chatting with a friend-of a friend-of a friend over the weekend about his new job as a corporate "summit" consultant. He plans conferences for CFOs of fortune-1000 companies. The people with whom he communicates are such big-whigs that he is not allowed to send an email to anyone yet without running it by two coworkers for content and grammar first. I was struck by this and suddenly remembered a form I recently filled out--the end of which consisted of a single question "Do you recomend that this child is safe in his or her home?" and I had to circle "yes" or "no." No one checked over my work on that form. The priorities in this world terrify me--I have not yet gotten over that deeply disturbing comparison.
The ending-on-a-happy-note part: The sudanese mom I have been working with has made it into income-based housing! She now pays $14/mo in rent and will be able to afford toilet paper for her kids again! She ahd to move with very little notice, however, so there was no time to contact the schools in advance. Instead, her kids just walked up to each of their teachers and said "I won't be here tomorrow" and then left. (I had to field a lot of confused phone calls after that)
Monday, January 23, 2012
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Cross-cultural education moments
Three learning moments with one somali family:
1) I helped the aunt in the family (who is only 2 yrs older than I am) to open a bank account so that she could pay the rent by check. We went to the same bank where the JVs go since I knew they were free ("the world's greatest bank"--not fact, just a slogan). It didn't seem like it would be hard--she had the right ID, she spoke english, and she had money to put into the account--but we ended up staying 30 minutes past closing for one thing: the security questions for online banking. I have created security questions for literally dozens of online accounts and I never realized how culturally-specific they are. There was a list of 20 questions and she just had to answer 5 of them but we couldn't do it. She grew up in a refugee camp where she had few if any posessions, did not go to high school, and is from a culture with a different naming convention. With that in mind, imagine trying to answer any of these questions: "highschool mascot name?" "most inspiring highschool teacher's name?" "favorite author?" favorite painter?" "favorite musician?" "first instrument you played?" "mother's maiden name? (somali's don't change their names when they marry)" "name of the street you grew up on? (no streets in Kakuma)" "favorite sport's team?" "City where your closest sibling lives? (they all died in the war)." My favorite moment was when the manager kept asking her the name of any pet she had growing up. It took a lot of effort for me not to look at him and say "look, dumbass, no one keeps pets in a camp where children are chronically malnourished." In the end I invented answers for her, wrote them down and told her not to lose the paper. (much like how the US government gives the Somali's birthdays)
2) As a thank you for helping her with the bank account, this woman and her sister taught me how to make sambusas (somalian samosas). I learned how to cook them the somali way (with bare hands on a hot plate--the trick is to keep your hands moving quickly so they don't burn as you make the wrappers--the sister teased me about having soft hands--it's called a functioning nervous system!). see here for description: http://www.mysomalifood.com/appetizers/somali-sambusa/ I learned some real gems of somali wisdom while cooking with them--e.g. if you cry a lot while cutting onions it means that you will be a jealous wife. Also, when somalis make "chips" (aka fries--thank you british imperialism) one of the necessary ingredients is the color yellow. Not even kidding--they added food dye to the potatoes before frying them. I looked at the additive, determined that it was just dye with no flavor, and when I asked why they added it they just said "because they should be yellow." I have no clue what historical/marketing quirk is behind that one but I would love to know. Unfortunately the cooking lesson took 3 hours longer than I anticipated/had checked out the car for (originally I was just going to social security with her husband) so I am now on the permanent shit-list of the secretary at my office. Worth it though, those things are delicious.
3) after the cooking lesson, while we were eating the delicious sambusas, the three of us chatted about men and the appropriate way one should pursue a husband (pretty predictable: get parental approval, make sure he doesn't do drugs, make sure he is respectful to his mother, don't sleep with him before marriage or "he will think you are cheap" is what they advised). But as the sister was advising me on this she started out by saying "when you are seducing a man....." I stopped, asked her to repeat herself, and confirmed that she indeed said "seducing a man." As she is a devout somali woman who wears a hijab and a full abiyat (traditional ankle and wrist-covering dress) I assumed that wasn't what she meant. I explained what that meant/the connotations of that word (really awkwardly, I waved vaguely into space as I said "it means you plan to do something..um...maybe before marriage" like I was a 1960s dad talking to a teenager). When it clicked what I meant she turned red, gasped, and said "oh no! I would never do that!" and after much discussion we decided that the word she was looking for was "courting."
This post has gone on much too long, and it is all about the somali. So, I will just leave you with one or two more gems I have learned about the Nepali/bhutanese:
1) Nepali families love to do things together. So when I went to pick up a family of four to get clothes I ended up taking 11 people to a store where they ultimately sat in a circle on the floor and loudly sorted through a mound of clothes before choosing a wardrobe by committee.
2) Nepali families like to feed guests--which is great--but they also often prefer the guest to eat first....alone....while they all stand in a semi-circle around you and watch--I have never been so uncomfortable with such wonderful food.
1) I helped the aunt in the family (who is only 2 yrs older than I am) to open a bank account so that she could pay the rent by check. We went to the same bank where the JVs go since I knew they were free ("the world's greatest bank"--not fact, just a slogan). It didn't seem like it would be hard--she had the right ID, she spoke english, and she had money to put into the account--but we ended up staying 30 minutes past closing for one thing: the security questions for online banking. I have created security questions for literally dozens of online accounts and I never realized how culturally-specific they are. There was a list of 20 questions and she just had to answer 5 of them but we couldn't do it. She grew up in a refugee camp where she had few if any posessions, did not go to high school, and is from a culture with a different naming convention. With that in mind, imagine trying to answer any of these questions: "highschool mascot name?" "most inspiring highschool teacher's name?" "favorite author?" favorite painter?" "favorite musician?" "first instrument you played?" "mother's maiden name? (somali's don't change their names when they marry)" "name of the street you grew up on? (no streets in Kakuma)" "favorite sport's team?" "City where your closest sibling lives? (they all died in the war)." My favorite moment was when the manager kept asking her the name of any pet she had growing up. It took a lot of effort for me not to look at him and say "look, dumbass, no one keeps pets in a camp where children are chronically malnourished." In the end I invented answers for her, wrote them down and told her not to lose the paper. (much like how the US government gives the Somali's birthdays)
2) As a thank you for helping her with the bank account, this woman and her sister taught me how to make sambusas (somalian samosas). I learned how to cook them the somali way (with bare hands on a hot plate--the trick is to keep your hands moving quickly so they don't burn as you make the wrappers--the sister teased me about having soft hands--it's called a functioning nervous system!). see here for description: http://www.mysomalifood.com/appetizers/somali-sambusa/ I learned some real gems of somali wisdom while cooking with them--e.g. if you cry a lot while cutting onions it means that you will be a jealous wife. Also, when somalis make "chips" (aka fries--thank you british imperialism) one of the necessary ingredients is the color yellow. Not even kidding--they added food dye to the potatoes before frying them. I looked at the additive, determined that it was just dye with no flavor, and when I asked why they added it they just said "because they should be yellow." I have no clue what historical/marketing quirk is behind that one but I would love to know. Unfortunately the cooking lesson took 3 hours longer than I anticipated/had checked out the car for (originally I was just going to social security with her husband) so I am now on the permanent shit-list of the secretary at my office. Worth it though, those things are delicious.
3) after the cooking lesson, while we were eating the delicious sambusas, the three of us chatted about men and the appropriate way one should pursue a husband (pretty predictable: get parental approval, make sure he doesn't do drugs, make sure he is respectful to his mother, don't sleep with him before marriage or "he will think you are cheap" is what they advised). But as the sister was advising me on this she started out by saying "when you are seducing a man....." I stopped, asked her to repeat herself, and confirmed that she indeed said "seducing a man." As she is a devout somali woman who wears a hijab and a full abiyat (traditional ankle and wrist-covering dress) I assumed that wasn't what she meant. I explained what that meant/the connotations of that word (really awkwardly, I waved vaguely into space as I said "it means you plan to do something..um...maybe before marriage" like I was a 1960s dad talking to a teenager). When it clicked what I meant she turned red, gasped, and said "oh no! I would never do that!" and after much discussion we decided that the word she was looking for was "courting."
This post has gone on much too long, and it is all about the somali. So, I will just leave you with one or two more gems I have learned about the Nepali/bhutanese:
1) Nepali families love to do things together. So when I went to pick up a family of four to get clothes I ended up taking 11 people to a store where they ultimately sat in a circle on the floor and loudly sorted through a mound of clothes before choosing a wardrobe by committee.
2) Nepali families like to feed guests--which is great--but they also often prefer the guest to eat first....alone....while they all stand in a semi-circle around you and watch--I have never been so uncomfortable with such wonderful food.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
New Year!......same weird stories
Sorry about the long interval between posts- it turns out that even for JVs december is really busy. Our house got a christmas tree and celebrated the season of "greshlahem" together one night. We each made gifts for everyone else on a budget of $5 or less TOTAL! It was hard but the gifts were really meaningful. They included pretty poems or quotes written in calligraphy on nice paper, hand-made notebooks, earrings, and "memory jars" which we will fill up through the rest of the year. Sniffle...it was magical.
January 2nd I was back to work and it looks like 2012 is shaping up to be similar to 2011 in that there are lots of quirky refugees and little time to speak of them. My most significant accomplishment this week was learning to drive a 12 passenger van! In rush-hour! I had to pick up two big burmese families to take them to get clothes (at a Deseret Industries store which agreed to partner with us to provide needed clothing for families--2 points to the mormons!). There were 11 people I was supposed to pick up so I had to take the van. I was terrified but I made it to their apartment--where only 3 people got into the car. I could have taken the honda! We went to DI and I told them/mimed that they each had $100 dollars for clothing for their families. Mom from one family was right on target and got shoes, jackets, socks, etc. for her kids but Dad and son from the other family struggled a bit more. In the end they bought some good clothes but also a spiderman costume and rollrblades (clothing necessity? I said yes). I think mom was going to be upset when they got home, this is why maybe Dad shouldn't do the shopping.... The clothing voucher system is working great though and I am stoked to take more families next week, even if it does mean using the passenger van.
January 2nd I was back to work and it looks like 2012 is shaping up to be similar to 2011 in that there are lots of quirky refugees and little time to speak of them. My most significant accomplishment this week was learning to drive a 12 passenger van! In rush-hour! I had to pick up two big burmese families to take them to get clothes (at a Deseret Industries store which agreed to partner with us to provide needed clothing for families--2 points to the mormons!). There were 11 people I was supposed to pick up so I had to take the van. I was terrified but I made it to their apartment--where only 3 people got into the car. I could have taken the honda! We went to DI and I told them/mimed that they each had $100 dollars for clothing for their families. Mom from one family was right on target and got shoes, jackets, socks, etc. for her kids but Dad and son from the other family struggled a bit more. In the end they bought some good clothes but also a spiderman costume and rollrblades (clothing necessity? I said yes). I think mom was going to be upset when they got home, this is why maybe Dad shouldn't do the shopping.... The clothing voucher system is working great though and I am stoked to take more families next week, even if it does mean using the passenger van.
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