Middle of Everywhere - Mary Bray Pipher [25]
I am generations deep in family with college degrees. My grandmother graduated from Peru State Teachers College in 1907. My mother was a doctor. I'd attended half a dozen colleges myself, my husband has a Ph.D, and my kids are both college graduates. But what about newcomers working in a foreign language in a system unfamiliar to them in any language? The complexity and strangeness of the system puts up many barriers.
Shireen finally decided on the community college that was cheaper and offered both short-term degrees that led to relatively good jobs and an academic transfer program that led to a college degree. The community college had an adult education program, with a more flexible schedule for factory workers than our universities.
We had turned in her family's tax records and written the scholarship applications. Finally, we were ready to enroll. I picked Shireen up at 6:00 A.M. so that we could be first in line at the 7:00 A.M. registration. She was dressed up college-girl style, with jeans, a sweater, makeup, and big hair. She was excited and nervous, with all her papers in order, we thought.
At the college we stood in long lines. Shireen told me that she had seen the movie Quills, about the Marquis de Sade. I grimaced and said I was sorry she'd seen it. She asked what sadomasochism was. I tried to explain the word, but she couldn't quite grasp its meaning. She had never been exposed to anything like this. I said bluntly that mixing sex and violence was a terrible idea. I reflected on the irony that she was the war victim and refugee and I, the middle-class Nebraskan, was telling her about sadism.
Finally, it was our time to sign up. We found out that the classes Shireen wanted were full. A less-experienced guide would have given up, but I knew how to work the system and how to plead with a dean. Eventually Shireen was enrolled. I paid her fees. Later she would be reimbursed by her Pell Grant and could sign over the check to me. But, again, what happens to newcomers without American friends?
We bought her pencils, notebooks, and books, and she was shocked at the prices. As we walked out of the college and back to my car, Shireen said, "I am the first woman in the history of my nuclear family, in a thousand years of women, to go to college." She was beaming. Yes, I thought to myself, this paperwork and standing in lines has been worth the bother.
HOLIDAY REUNION
During the holidays my children visited and we had a holiday feast for them at the sisters' house with gifts and lots of pictures.
Zeenat met us at the door and hugged Jim and me and our kids. Meena made us chai and we sat in the small living room on the couch that used to be in my therapy office. Nasreen showed us pictures of their sister in Iraq and their home from years ago, before Hussein. Leila asked Jim husband about snow tires for her car. Then we opened gifts. We'd bought them a calendar, wind chimes, origami paper, and a cookbook. Zeenat carried them from person to person for examination. They gave me delicate gold earrings. All the gifts were much admired and appreciated.
Then Tanya and Shehla offered to paint my daughter-inlaw, Jamie, and my daughter, Sara, with henna. This took a while. They painted brown-and-gold fish on their hands. We looked at photos of our happy year together and they told my kids stories of our many trips.
Sara mentioned she had a dream the night before, and the sisters leaped in with dream interpretation. I noted with interest that Freud was not the first to develop symbol systems for dreams. Long ago, the Kurds had one all worked out. Sara had dreamed of a dog, which