Middle of Everywhere - Mary Bray Pipher [107]
I often didn't quite know how to treat the family. They didn't know many things that Americans know and they seemed vulnerable in many ways. On the other hand, Joseph and Abraham were men who had lived through much more than most Americans do in an entire lifetime. They had survived years of dangerous situations. I would trust them with my life. I struggled to find the right tone with them. I wanted to be respectful but direct. They clearly needed guidance, but they didn't need to be patronized. Sometimes I wasn't sure exactly where the line was between the two. I said to Joseph, "If I were in Kenya or Sudan, I would ask your advice. Here, please ask my advice."
Especially the first few weeks, they were exhausted and spaced-out. They were fearful of making mistakes or getting in trouble. Once when I called to say that library books were overdue, I scared them and I had to say, "It will be okay. No one goes to jail for this problem." Another time when a clerk called Joseph to ask questions about social security numbers and various dates, he grew so frustrated that he hung up on her.
However, they remained a heroic family, deeply loyal and loving. Nobody ever complained about anything. The younger ones obeyed the older ones immediately. But Joseph and Abraham were not bullies and, in fact, made sure that Martha and Paul got the best of everything. I was amazed that a family without parents who had spent years hungry and running could be this well-adjusted. I had tremendous respect for their loyalty to one another and their ability to survive. Their saga was a reverse Lord of the Flies saga, and it spoke well for the human race.
Of course, they had up and down days. The day we visited the city library for a tour, they seemed overwhelmed. The librarian was kind, but the place was too strange for them—bright and filled with white people and machines they didn't understand. They had never seen computers or audiovisual equipment. They looked somber and scared.
We did have some good moments at the library. Martha and Paul liked the books about African animals. Joseph found the books of Chinua Achebe, the great Nigerian writer. Later, when he checked out an Achebe book, Things Fall Apart, the librarian told him she had read it. Joseph beamed.
Burger King saved that day. We went there afterward and bought everyone hamburgers and fries. The french fries were a hit. The family all knew how to eat them with ketchup, apparently a universal skill. I thought of Pico Iyer's line about "french fries, the universal language."
Sometimes I was anxious and frustrated when the family didn't bring up problems or ask for help. They didn't admit to negative feelings or fears. They had a way of stuffing all their papers into a desk drawer and I had a feeling that is what they did with issues and problems. I worried about what wasn't getting discussed. I knew they should be asking more questions.
Keeping quiet and waiting had kept the family alive in Kakuma, but here silence and passivity were not so adaptive. We couldn't help them if we didn't know their problems. We couldn't teach them if we didn't know what they needed to learn. But I had to slow myself down or I would become one of the people stressing them out. I had to remind myself that we couldn't be responsible for everything, that their problems had taken years and many wars in several countries to create and we wouldn't solve them quickly.
Things got better. The Kakuma refugees were smart, resilient, and hardworking. The warm Sudanese community took them in. They soon had the routines of church, school, and work. Martha began to laugh and smile. Paul discovered basketball, and Abraham quickly became a leader of his peers. Joseph got a job at a nearby