Middle of Everywhere - Mary Bray Pipher [76]
Next Velida introduced herself. She said, "I am from the Ukraine. I live here with my parents, cousins, aunt, and uncle." She said her family was happy to be in Nebraska. They had a little house with a garden. Her parents had jobs. She said cheerfully, "How surprising are God's pathways. He blessed me with his wonderful blessings."
She had bandages all over her head from a recent surgery for a brain tumor. Now she was taking chemotherapy. The doctors were hopeful. Velida refused to be defined by her illness or her past trauma.
Although Velida had seen her home burned and her family scattered across the globe, her belief in God kept her positive. Velida called her mother "mamochka" and spoke glowingly of her family. She said, "We have many of life's problems yet we love each other and are blessed."
During the year I knew her, Velida missed school often, but the only time I saw her unhappy was when she had talked on the phone to her family in the Ukraine. She told me, "They were crying. They were so hungry they were going into the fields and eating grass." She paused, then repeated in disbelief, "My relatives were eating grass."
Mrs. Kaye whispered to me, "Thanks to globalization we can now talk on cell phones to people who are starving to death."
I could tell Velida was much loved by Mrs. Kaye and the other students, Even Cahn and Khoi listened respectfully when she spoke. She was tenderhearted, the kind of person who would cry at the death of a cricket. It was simple really: she loved people and they loved her back.
Tharaya, Velida's closest friend, seemed very unlike her. While Velida was a plain country girl, Tharaya was a true beauty, with strawberry-blond hair, porcelain skin, and stylish American outfits. But as Velida put it, "We are friends of the spirit." Tharaya said of their relationship, "When we met, sparkles of friendship flew between us."
Tharaya is the name of the brightest star in the Pleiades and means "she who illuminates the world." This was the perfect name for this idealistic young woman. What Tharaya and Velida had in common was core gentleness. Tharaya worked at Old Country Buffet and was horrified by all the food people threw away. She had lobbied her boss to save leftover food for the city mission, and she formed a club to help hungry people in Lincoin. From their own hard experiences, Tharaya and Velida had learned the importance of kindness. I never saw either one of them treat another person badly. They were even kind to Anton when he was frenetic and difficult.
Next to Tharaya sat Faisal, a handsome Kurdish kid who wore his hair in a spiky Statue of Liberty style. Faisal's grades weren't good, but he was a survivor. He had street smarts—what I've heard called Mafia smarts. Once Mrs. Kaye told me, "Kurdish boys can get rowdy, but they have experienced everything." She said, "If I were stranded on an island or lost in a desert, I would want a Kurdish boy to help me survive." Faisal struck me as fitting those remarks perfectly. He was a terrible reader, but he knew what was happening in the halls of school.
Faisal was born in Iraq. Before the Gulf War, his father had grown cotton, rice, and grapes. After the war, his family hid in the mountains where they witnessed many deaths. They lived in a tent and almost froze. In 1991 the Americans brought food and allowed the Kurds to go home. Eventually, Faisal's family flew to Guam and later to Nebraska. Faisal's father was disabled by the war. His mother now worked as a cook's helper for the university's food service.
Faisal was a big flirt. He liked both Tharaya and Patti and he competed with Anton for their attention. But he was barely polite to me, a middle-aged woman. He simply told me his name and that he was from Baghdad, here because of the Gulf War.
Beside him, Anton was young and brash. He seemed frenetic and haunted, someone in fresh pain. Anton had a punk haircut, nice clothes, and good English, and he should have been more popular