Refugees in June

Stephen and I have been working with a refugee family in the area for almost a year now. We go once a week and teach them English or math, whatever they need help with. Usually half the family is there, sometimes only a couple of them. Yesterday it was only Soher, the 21-year-old girl. The rest of her family was at a soccer game. Soher doesn't speak much English, so communication was pretty much nil the whole time.

At one point Soher did try and talk to us, and she explained through her broken English and hand gestures that she and her siblings that are older than 18 have no medical or dental insurance here. She talked about how one of her teeth is broken and how it would cost $1300 to fix it. :S "Big--big money!" she said. "Thirteen one hundreds. In Syria, $100, $200...Here, no. Big money." That really bothered me. Having had thousands of dollars of dental work done on my own teeth, I understand how important it is to have insurance. I told her in the best way I could that I would see if there was some way we could get her dental insurance.

At 9:00 the rest of her family came home along with a few of their friends. Stephen and I usually leave at 9:00, but I really didn't want to go now that everybody was home. We hung around for another hour. Their friends that they had brought home were fun to talk to. They have been in America for about 4 years and speak and understand English just fine.

Soher explained in Arabic to one of them what I had said about trying to find her some dental insurance. He turned to me and translated in English. "She says you're going to find her dental insurance?"

Oh great.

I explained very slowly and thoughtfully that I would sure try. I didn't know if I'd be able to find it or not, but I would sure see what I could do.

Never promise refugees anything you can't follow up on. LOL.

So as if June isn't crazy enough--with one weekend trip back to my hometown (this weekend), a day trip to the beach with our small group and one week-long trip to New Jersey for a family reunion--now I'm the personal assistant for the refugees! But I feel like this is really important. It IS really important. Got to get that girl some health care!

The best part of the night was at the end, when Samira, the 17-year-old girl, stopped us in the door with a troubled look. "Next week? Wednesday, Thursday, Friday - no more school." She looked really bothered, which I thought was sweet. Then she suddenly resolved it in her own mind. "You come visit," she said with a big smile. Yay! They want us to keep coming! We just grinned back at her and said, "We'll come visit."

I am kind of glad that Soher was the only one there tonight for that whole first hour. It forced her to try and communicate with us, and she met with a lot of frustration at not being able to communicate properly. I think it will push her to learn English, which will do her a world of good.

Well, here I go to do research for the refugees!