Photo Update

 I have been remiss in my visual updates. Here are a few pictures of what we did during the weekends:

Almost the whole house at the Gum wall (near Pike place market in Seattle)

The Rose Test Garden in NW Portland (Late August) with some of the gals from my house.

Prepping our Halloween Costumes

Our official Halloween costumes--Space Jam (these are our "planet faces." If you cannot tell, I am earth)

Joe and I found a book called "Balancing sport and acrobatics" on the giveaway shelf at the library. We decided to learn some of the moves--this is our best one so far (And I DID NOT fall! We can hold that pose for ~15 seconds! And I can flip out of it)

A quick catch-up on the last few weeks

Hey y'all, I apologize for my uncharacteristic silence. Things have been busy in the refugee world (and in the medical school application world). Allow me to give you a shortened list of highlights (I don't have time for the long one since I must catch a bus)

I was accepted to Emory!!! I don't know if that is where I will end up going but it is nice to know that someone will take me. By this time next year I will be in medical school (probably drowning my sorrows at a dive bar after a horrendous anatomy exam). I was also invited to interview at a few more schools (Tulane, Duke and the U of U). I will keep you all posted as the decision-making progresses

I was able to compile a good list of the shocking, the predictable, and the shockingly predictable:
     The predictable: One of the somali guys has decided that he wants an American girlfriend. As I am the only girl he has met in the United States he decided to ask me. (His english isn't very good so I just pretended that I didn't understand and started pointing out bus routes on the way back from the clinic). When I dropped him off at his apartment he thanked me by kissing my arm (I think he was aiming for my hand but I was surprised and moved--plus he was nervous). His english is not good enough for me to explain the concept of boundaries to him (though if he gets too forward I suppose a slap is a pretty international signal). So I have mostly been avoiding the problem by avoiding him. It has mostly worked. Although the other day I was supposed to pick up this guy and his three roommates. When I arrived the three roommates were gone and he invited me to wait with him until they returned.....I declined and instead went to the library to kill time.

     The shocking: We received a huge clothing donation from a children's clothing store that went out of business. We don't have anywhere to store clothing so I took the 16 trash bags of clothes to another charity. Unfortunately, one of the other caseworkers found out the next day and was extremely upset because she needed clothes for one of her client's kids. So, I had to go back to the charity and take advantage of a new volunteer who was naive enough to leave me and another intern in the storage room to "pick out a few outfits." We frantically started stuffing clothes into trash bags and managed to bring back two bags of kids' clothing with no one the wiser. (what did you do today sarah? 'oh, nothing, just stole back my donations from a charity').

     The shockingly predictable: The US refugee resettlement program is really messed up. It is almost perfectly designed to fail. Also, since it is under the umbrella of TANF (temporary assistance to needy families) it is a part of the welfare block of "discretionary spending" that congress is talking about slashing. The benefits that families get only last for 8 months---in 8 months a refugee family is supposed to be economically independent (with a full-time job in this economy), speaking english, and adjusted to life in the US! It used to be 3 years of support but "budgetary concerns" during the early 2000s cut it down to less than a year. So yeah, that sucks.

On a lighter note, I just came back from the social security office where I took an adorable Burmese couple. I was speaking to the husband (who knows english) and asked him what he wanted to do in the US. He replied that he wanted to get a job where he could learn how to make coffee drinks--particularly how to make cool pictures in cappuccino foam. He fled his village in Myanmar and survived three years in a refugee camp in malaysia and now he has come to the United States and wants to be a barrista--if that isn't the american dream then I don't know what is!

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

So there is this Sudanese family with whom I have been working that is in somewhat dire straits. The mom has been desperately looking for a job for the last 10 months but has had no luck on account of her poor English. Meanwhile she is on public assistance which is enough to pay rent and have $60/month left over—which does not cover utilities. I have spent countless hours trying to find utilities assistance, convincing companies to let her pay off past-due bills in installments, etc. There were a few significant developments last week while I worked on this. I have broken them down into “the good, the bad and the ugly”:

The good: This mom had an account with Comcast which, with refugee benefits, was easily paid for. Unfortunately, right as her refugee benefits ended so did the “promotional” price that Comcast had started her with and suddenly this mom was charged $90/month and had no way to pay it. There are no non-profits that will pay for phone bills so she was left facing a collections agency for the balance of the bill. Luckily, one of the case managers in my office had started a refugee-interest group at his church and they had some money left over from a bake sale. They agreed to pay off the phone bill and I helped the mom switch to a phone service that charged only $13/month.

The bad: I was trying to figure out how much this mom owed for water (she cannot read English and so bills sent to her house are frequently lost). I called the apartment manager (who sends out the water bills) and asked for a ballpark figure each month. The apartment manager was surprised to report that it was very high (around $70/mo) and asked me how many people were living there—I explained that the Sudanese mother has 7 children. Turns out that 8 people in a 3 bedroom apartment violates occupancy laws and that this woman’s case manager had told the apartment manager that only 4 people were living there. The apartment manager was not happy and insisted on inspecting the apartment by the end of the month. I may have inadvertently gotten this family evicted—I still don’t know what will happen.

The ugly: Naturally, I wanted to know who lied to the apartment manager (catholic charities has a strict honesty policy—otherwise shit like this happens). Turns out that this Sudanese mother’s case was not handled by catholic charities but by another volunteer agency called Kurdish Human Right’s Watch. They were only a resettlement agency for one year and have since been shut down by the state for improperly resettling refugees (exhibit one: Sudanese mother with 7 children in a 3 bedroom apartment). I managed to track down the now-unemployed case manager from KHRW and asked him about the apartment. He said yes, he did tell the apartment manager that there were only 3 children and told the mother to just keep the other kids out  of sight until she got into section 8 housing (for which, might I add, there is a 3 year waiting list). THAT was his plan? WTF? I was really angry and started venting to a coworker who then told me some of the other, crazier stories involving this case worker. Apparently he is well-known in the Somali community for misusing resettlement funds and not bringing families what they needed. His reputation was so bad that it got back to the Somalis in the refugee camps and, according to my coworker, one Somali family saw him waiting for them as they were walking out of airport security and they turned and started running the other way (where they thought they were going I do not know).

The REALLY ugly: this guy. According to my supervisor he looks like a child and has no fashion sense (dresses in over-sized suits--Which isn’t helping the childish look). My supervisor apparently has a sassy side.

Hopefully the oldest daughter in this family, who speaks english, will be able to get a job soon. I am left praying fervently for them.

What we really did for our AmeriCorps hours.....

My house's submission to the jesuit volunteer publication "Out of Focus":

 

What We Really Did For Our Americorps Hours

By The Gresham Haus

We all know that Americorps is obsessed with numbers and stats. JVC Northwest asks us to record exactly how many people we served and the number of direct and indirect service hours, down to the quarter hour. As we all meticulously struggle to remember, "Did I spend 4.25 or 4.5 hours running stats on that excel sheet?" we all know that we do some other ridiculous work at our placements. Truthfully, some of our supervisors think that just because we are JVs, they can give us the lame jobs (which is true). These are some things that we counted into our Americorps hours, but didn't include in the service report:

·         Returned a Whole Foods shopping cart found on our property (4.25 hours)

·         Consolidated 18 bottles of conditioner into a more easily accessible pump conditioner
 bottle (1.25 hours [training])

·         Refilled 2,304 dog bones into our free dog treat container (.75 hours)

·         Searched dry food cupboards for moth's nests (3 hours)

·         Searched for rogue rats within our office walls because they won’t stop eating our cat and dog food after hours (3.5 hours)

·         Practiced company fire drills (0.5 hours)

·         Searched wildly, and conspicuously, for any company or store that would be willing to donate condoms to our organization (7.75 hours)

·         Made ghost decorations for Halloween (2.5 hours)

·         Played Battleship (aka relationship building) (0.75 hours)

·         Cleaned poop out of bathroom scrub brushes because someone thought it was a good idea to use them as plungers instead of using plungers as plungers (1 hour)

·         Forced awkward youth group middle school students to play stupid ice breakers (6 hours)

·         Volunteered at other organizations (6.25 hours)

·         Made greeting cards with collages of floating cat heads because a professional cat photographer comes to our organization every Tuesday to host an art class (2.75 hours)

·         Got haircuts because students from the beauty school donated their time to our organization, but none of the guests wanted haircuts, so we didn’t want to waste the beauty school student’s volunteered time (.75 hours)

·         Attempted to make a perfectly sized pinback button template, down to the millimeter, by shrinking and expanding an unusable button template with those God-forsaken things called copy machines. (3.75 hours)

·         Chased a client around Portland, when she was, in fact, not in Portland.  (2.25 hours)

·         Copied roughly 1,000 pieces of paper (9.5 hours...and counting)

·         Taped pictures of traffic lights to popsicle sticks (0.5 hours)

·         Took pictures of traffic lights off popsicle sticks only to attach to different popsicle sticks. (0.75 hours)

·         Tried to find breakdancing lessons for a client (1.25 hours) 

·         Tried to fix that cheap-ass office chair that I broke because I leaned back too far (.5 hours)

·         Argued with irate people on the phone about the lack of funding for energy or utility assistance only to be met with cries, swearing, and threats to the organization. Of these phone calls, approximately 18% of the time was spent attempting an explanation as to why our organization cannot give them any assistance, 68% of the time was spent listening to their stories and trying to be present while knowing exactly what our answers are going to be, 4.5% of the time was spent chewing on the end of my pen, 7.5% of the time was spent in awkward silence, 2% of the time was spent trying to figure out how to either transfer or hang-up calls on these complicated phones (60.25 hours)

·         Donated baby clothes to another non-profit, then asked for the donations back because we accidentally donated all of our baby clothes (0.75 hours)

·         Played heads or tails with a kid at the social security office (1.5 hours)

·         Gossiped about coworkers (8.75 hours)

·         Wrote this bulleted list (1.25 hours)

Sarah-in-Dallas

[Once again, I am in another city taking a short break from solidarity with the huddled masses for a med school interview. UT Southwestern if anyone cares. I did not meet the son of a foreign diplomat on my way from the airport but I am seeing some of the family, which rocks]

On tuesday I finally felt like I had gotten back my equilibrium (it was short-lived. I lost it again today while trying to prepare for a few days in Texas but never mind that) in other words, I managed to catch up on all of the random things that I had to do in the office and got all of my kiddos registered for after school programs (including a break dancing club. That's right-I got a refugee kid into a breakdancing class, what did you do today?). I partially credit the fact that I was served three cups of coffee by different refugee clients (two of which were turkish coffee double shots). I was literally bouncing off of my flimsy cubicle walls. I sprinted up the four flights of stairs back to work after lunch and I started blitzing through case notes. I was practically vibrating with energy at my desk (I think I scared my coworkers a little--I may have been talking fast). The first cup of coffee came from a Nepali family who asked me if I wanted tea before we left to get clothes for their kids (we need to work on English food vocabulary). The second two cups came from an Eritrean mother who prepared the coffee in the traditional way on a little stove plugged into the wall (in violation of her rental agreement) and with a burning pile of herbal incense (also in violation of her rental agreement). Neither the Nepali family nor the eritrean mom had enough english for me to politely decline. But on the bright side all of my case notes are up to date (no mean feat).

Speaking of Nepali families--I had to take a family to DHS for one of the other case managers. Unfortunately the car was checked out so I had to borrow a car from a case manager. My coworker handed me his keys and said "the car's name is rufus--ignore the noises." Rufus is a 1987 volvo stationwagon with no AC, a broken speedometer, and nonfunctional locks (but who in their right mind would steal it). So on our way to DHS I am trying to merge onto the freeway with no idea how fast I'm going, I have all of the windows open (it is hotter'n hell), my GPS is trying to give me directions and this Nepali father decides to start asking me all of the questions that have perplexed him concerning christianity. At that moment he asked "so there are two types of christians, right? catholics and protestants--what is the difference?" As I tried not to kill us and mentally cursed out my coworker I abruptly responded "ummm....there is no difference....they are the same" And with that, the Reformation is solved. (to be fair, how would you explain the difference to a hindu? "well, there is this guy with a cool hat and red prada shoes.....")

Heart-tugger of the day/week-- There is this adorable little sudanese 12yr old boy who really wanted to play soccer for the school team. He missed the tryouts but when I called the school they agreed that he could go to make-up tryouts that day--they would let him know. I arranged a ride home for him and made sure he know, but he didn't show up for the tryouts. The next day the activities coordinator asked him why he didn't go and discovered that he was too embarassed by his lack of cleats. (he had also told me earlier that he is embarassed by his name because everyone says it wrong--poor kiddo!). I was so bummed out for this boy and I didn't know what to do for him. But the activities coordinator called me later that day and told me that she spoke to the coach and in the end the school is going to buy the kid a pair of cleats and they are automatically accepting him onto the team (after they cut 20 other boys). Hooray! (Now I just need to arrange rides for him to and from the games and somehow find $30 for his registration fee (details, details)).

Defining the relationship: what exactly am I supposed to do again?

[This stream of consciousness was prompted by an evaluation my area director sent out. It asked "What is your job/what are your duties at work? does it match your expectations for the year? Does the job description match the reality?]

I have a really hard time answering the question "what do you do at Catholic Charities again?" I still am really unsure. I think if I made it my job to officially re-staple all I-94 documents exactly in the upper left-hand corner with a golden ratio of margins then it would take a few months for someone to notice and ask me what the hell I was doing. What I mean to say is that there are so many things that I could be doing that this job is exactly what I make of it week to week. And there is no one tracking what I choose to do. Last week I did parent-teacher conferences, helped kids start their school years, assembled backpacks and filled out after school registration forms (I was a mom-- I would now like to offer a shoutout to all parents out there who had to do this for me and my friends growing up, it is a pain). Next week I am driving refugee families to clothing closets to help them get winter clothes, I am networking with the health department to get carseats and I am filling out 20 student progress questionnares for all of my cases. The week after that I might do an airport pickup or attend a health screening with a nepali family. Right now I am sitting in a library after spending the afternoon helping an iranian girl write a resume. I really felt useful and I think it has been very helpful but it is not something that I probably should be spending my work hours doing (though it is a saturday, so I am technically not working, but I am, so really I just need to get a life outside of the office-or the refugee apartment-or whatever.) I cannot spend an afternoon with every refugee (though I wish I could) that is really more the role of a volunteer. But at the same time I am not a case manager so I have the freedom to do whatever project I wish. The end result is that I just feel a bit confused and I have this constant anxiety that I am not doing what I am supposed to do or that I am not doing enough. But I think that this is par for the course for refugee resettlement--frankly, there is not enough time or money to do the necessities so I figure that anything I may choose to do will help. (okay, maybe not re-stapling the I-94s). What I do know is that I am pretty happy in my work, and pretty damn busy (which are alarmingly synonymous things for me). So I shall continue on in the same haphazard fashion and hopefully do something right for somebody.

Sarah-in-Atlanta

I temporarily renamed my blog to more accurately reflect my location. I am, in fact, in Atlanta taking a short break from simple living in order to interview for medical school at Emory. The trip has, so far, been absolutely fabulous. I was worried that my nerves would spoil everything but so far I have been having a blast. Last night I arrived at the courtyard marriot where I was given a room with two double beds so I naturally ate cookies and crackers in one of them while watching TV and surfing the internet and then slept in the other one after showering in a large, clean shower that had a massage setting on the shower head. It was SO nice to just revel in the little modern luxuries. But I didn't totally take a break from my jesuit volunteer-ness-- I still let yellow mellow in the bathroom until I left in the morning to save water :)

The trip has also been wonderful because I met the COOLEST shuttle driver ever last night. While the plane was pulling up the gate I got a phone call from an unknown number-- on the other end was a heavily-accented man named Sayeed asking for me. I assumed it was one of the refugees who needed something (oops....to be fair I get those calls a lot) but it was actually my shuttle driver letting me know where he would pick me up. When I got in the car I naturally asked him where he was from and it turns out that he was Somali! That launched a conversation about the Somali people I knew and then he started to tell me about his family. Turns out that this guy's dad was the somali ambassador to Germany from the 60s through the 80s! He was also invited to the United States as a part of the new African delegation to begin integrating African political leaders into world politics (while in the US he told the US ambassador that his country needed to work on civil rights). And, in the 70s, he negotiated the rescue of hostages from a hijacked plane from Monaco that was being held in somalia and he was subsequently honored at the German parliament--only the second foreigner to be so honored (first was JFK, third was Nelson Mandela)! How awesome is that! I told this Sayeed guy that he should write a book about his dad and that he has a really awesome family. Sayeed went on to tell me about the political history of Somalia and gave his opinion about international intervention efforts. At the end of the shuttle ride he refused to accept a tip and wished me luck on my interview.

In another instance of strange yet fruitful meetings, the woman next to me on the plane was extremely chatty and told me her whole life story. She then asked about what I was doing and when I mentioned the refugees she said "Oh my gosh! If you ever need clothes or blankets you need to contact this person from the American Sewing Guild (which (a) exists apparently and (b) she is a member of) and they will make you anything that you need!" She also gave me the name and contact info for another woman who does traditional hand embroidery who could help out the sudanese mother I may have mentioned before (7 children, limited english, does elaborate emroidery). I feel like Grandma Dupont would have been proud of the entire evening-- networking with strangers chance encounters, the Dupont way.

My interview is tomorrow and I am feeling great about it. I feel like this trip has been very auspicious so far. I have a few more stories from my week in the refugee world that I will have to tell you about later (my time on the lobby computer is about to be up) but quick preview: CPS, negotiating with a teenager to get her to help her dad pay rent, parent-teacher night with the congolese, public health department meeting about infectious disease in the refugee community (NOT a fantasy--actually happened!!!) and another CPS encounter. until then, stay well, insh'allah!

Portlandia

My housemates and I have been embracing our Portland citizenship with super "bourgey" (as in bourgeois) activities. It started when two of my housemates went to this super organic/local/portlandia store yesterday afternoon and priced Diva cups on their iphones while chatting with a lesbian couple doing the same. From there we all took the bus downtown and went to see the swifts at Chapman elementary. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy5oN7fv8aw ) This is a phenomenon that happens every september as these birds (swifts) migrate south. Thousands of them roost in the chimney of this elementary school every evening and at dusk they all fly in a spiral pattern around it and then, when some hidden cue is broadcasted, they all swoop down and dive into the chimney. It was really neat! We brought a picnic and watched it with about 1,000 other spectators. We then went to a local brewery and took the max home. This morning, while it was pouring rain, we trekked to the community garden and worked on our plot as a house activity. We harvested potatoes and planted kale and spinach. I am now sitting in a coffee shop mooching free internet while drinking tea out of a ceramic mug and wearing a knitted purple hat. Did I mention that two of my housemates are also out getting new piercings? As I said, embracing portland.

Work was great this week--I took a few more kids to their first days of school! I also got to go to a kindergarten orientation with a burmese child and her Dad. I want to go back to kindergarten! I also ran into an interesting problem at the social security office. One of our clients hadn't received her social security card and when I asked why they explained that their records said that she had already applied. Or rather, a woman with her name and birthdate had already applied. The problem is that every somali who does not have a birth certificate (which is anyone not born in the refugee camp, aka over the age of 20) is automatically given the birthday of 01/01/year they guess they were born. Somalis also have a few names that are REALLY common (Mohhamed, for example). So it is not surprising that two women with the same name who are roughly the same age are assigned the same birthdate and apply for social security cards. It's a problem.... not sure how it will work out.

I am getting some serious glares about the internet mooching--gotta run. Until next time!

Speaking of Refugees.....

Working with refugees leads to bizarre phone conversations. I sometimes find myself talking to Americans on the phone without any articles and only in the present tense because of habits I picked up at work (Friday we go coffee?). But sometimes I get to overhear some real gems from my coworkers: “We have an appointment tomorrow.... what? You moved to Alaska?” “No—Paw is her first name, Paw is his last name, and I don’t know who that third child named Paw is.” “There are three people in Kenya with the names..(x y z)..who say they know you and want to live with you when they arrive—do you know who these people are?” “Yes, I would like to rent an apartment for four single men from Somalia” (that last one has to raise a red flag for some agency somewhere I feel). And finally, the most sketchy-“Yes, she is not coming because she is being detained because of that fake bomb” (NO idea what that last one was about).

Speaking of Somalis—I made a trip to the clinic yesterday with a Somali mom, her kids, and an Iranian guy. They all had appointments around the same time so I decided to carpool and pick them both up for the clinic. Somehow the Iranian ended up in the back with the two kids but they both smiled and it seemed fine. Suddenly there was yelling in Somali and frantic movement from the mom and while I’m trying to keep the car on the road I turn around in time to see the mom do an impressive swooping maneuver and thrust a plastic bag in front of a puking kid. Everyone is talking rapidly and I am trying to pull over (into the clinic parking lot, conveniently enough) all the while the Iranian guy, looking deathly pale, is saying “Sarah! Sarah! Sarah!” with a tinge of panic while pointing at the puke-filled bag. I finally pull into a handicap parking spot, jump out, grab the kid and his bag, run him to the bathroom, toss the bag, find the rest of the crew and shoo them inside so that I can park (though it was complicated by the little girl who really wanted to help so kept taking my keys out of the car and shutting my door, not understanding that I had to move the car). The Iranian guy ran to the bathroom also (I suspect sympathy puker) and I am left to try to check in a very green-looking bunch of patients. I felt like a mom. 

Speaking of puking—I cannot remember if I mentioned before but when you are eating with the Nepali the way that you complement the chef is by eating very quickly. The logic is that the better the food tastes, the faster you will eat it. I was with a Nepali family today (specifically took that assignment hoping I might be fed) and I was invited to eat after the IRCO appointment. The appointment went long, however, so I was running late and so in an attempt to both complement the cook and get back in time I shoveled food in my mouth at a prodigious rate. It was spicy deliciousness and I nearly choked on it—I wonder what Nepali culture says about throwing up on your food as a guest?

Speaking of IRCO (Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization)—I felt pretty cool this morning when I walked into IRCO with a young Eritrean mother (with the CUTEST damn baby I have ever seen and contemplated stealing) and I was greeted by at least four refugees in the waiting room. I am becoming known in the refugee world.

Speaking of this Eritrean Mom—I dropped this girl (really young—like Deborah’s age with a baby) off at IRCO at 9am. I was told she didn’t need a ride home. The same person who told me that then asked me, around noon, when I was planning to pick her up. I scrambled for a bit and the caseworker called IRCO to let the girl know we were coming—but she had disappeared. There was literally nothing we could do at that point so I uneasily put it from my mind. When I returned to IRCO around 2:30 for another client, the Eritrean girl came walking out of a room at IRCO with her baby and said “finished” (the only thing she can say in English beyond hello). I gaped at her, tried to figure out how to ask her in tigrian where she had been for the last five hours, gave up and just drove her home.

Speaking of questionable parenting—there is this Burmese kid who is supposed to arrive at the end of the month to live with his Dad. He is travelling alone and I have been asked to do a home assessment (basically making sure the kid has a place to live, will go to school, and won’t be trafficked as a child slave—I should not be trusted with this). Unfortunately, when we called the number for the father in the US we are informed that the father is living in Kansas to work right now—either for 2 weeks or 1 year (not sure which). But the Dad apparently insists that the kid can live with his friend/cousin/God knows because every Burmese refugee is someone’s cousin. We have had to call the national office in Washington and are scrambling to figure out what to do with this kid who is now officially an “unaccompanied minor” and may have been abandoned by both of his parents.

Cute little Kidlets & Social Security--Gangsta' style

This week has been a shmorgasboard (sp?) of cheap volunteering gratification--in other words, I have been taking adorable little kids to their first days of school. I walked each kid to his or her bus stop and watched them board the bus, then I raced ahead to the school and tried to meet the bus before the kid disembarked and then I would hold their hand and walk them to their classrooms. These kids are CUTE--we are talking like "Save the Children" advertisement cute, like I could make Ghaddaffi interrupt a rant and say "awwww!!!!!" And they are so terrified! Most of them do not speak any english and are overwhelmed by the masses of other children. For their sakes (and my love of cuteness) I am so glad that I could walk them through the process on their first day. Other little kids were not so lucky--I passed on crying burmese 3rd grader and another little boy who did not speak english and was too terrified to respond to any questions in any of the variety of languages the counselor was trying. My heart just went out to every one of these sweethearts (sorry to gush, but OMG precious!) and I wish I could have sat next to them all day.

My kids all got on and off the buses okay the first day but today (the second day) I got a frantic phone call from one girl's little sister reporting that the older sister had missed the bus and was stuck at school (a good 4 miles away). I drove to the school (45 minute drive during rush hour for me) and when I pulled up there were three ESL kids, counting my student, who had all been confused and missed the bus. A school administrator was near them and she said "oh my god, are you Sarah?!" like she couldn't believe I was a real person. Apparently the kids couldn't explain where they lived or how they were getting home but my kid kept repeating "Sarah is coming" and the administrator was left to pray I existed. It struck me then how bizarre my role is in these kids' lives--they don't know who I am, who I work for, or why exactly I am helping them but they have this inexhaustable supply of trust that I will be there when they need help. I ended up taking the lot of the kids home. One of them was a plucky turkmeni kid who spoke english pretty well and was a hilarious conversationalist the whole drive home (he at first refused to tell me that he was from turkmenistan because he was tired of people not knowing that it was a country in Asia--I liked this kid, he had moxy).

Today I also was supposed to take a Somali to the Social Security Administration to get a social security card. I picked him up from a friend's apartment (who had been resettled in 1996!) and headed out. I blame the fact that I was driving a 30 yr old Somali man wearing baggy jeans, a popped collar and a sideways hat (which he changed into from a button-up shirt and slacks just to go to the SSA office for--someone needs to talk to this guy about american stereotypes) for the fact that I forgot to check whether he had brought any documents with him. Apparently the SSA wants some form of ID and verification that you are a legal resident before they will give you a social security card......oops. I told the guy I'd have to take him back tomorrow.

Final story-- I have discovered that I love the Nepali. All of the families I have met are adorable and really really hospitable. I drove one family to a clinic and the one english-speaking family member talked my ear off the whole way there. He told me about how he loves to play music, how his favorite thing in the world is to see a group of children in matching uniforms heading off to school, how since "we are educated people" (meaning he and I) we know that there is only one God and that man created the fight over religion so he as a Hindu was still a brother to me, a Christian. The same guy also nearly passed out later when he had to have his blood drawn and spent several minutes explaining to me how much he hates needles (hey mom, you should be friends). I was just tickled pink by this family. In a few minutes I am going to the airport to pick up another Nepali family with my coworker. Said coworker told me that we have to take the 15 passenger van because every singly other Nepali in the city wants to go meet this family at the airport--that is the Nepali way. We will pick 12 of them to go with us and help get this new family settled tonight. I am really excited--I'll let y'all know how it goes!