Number of Days Officially Unemployed: 121
Hours Volunteered: 3
EDD Check: $250 per week
For today's lesson, we decide we'll walk the Bhutanese refugee family to their local store and name food items for them in English. But before that, while we're waiting for the son to get home from his Christian church, we decide we'll go around and ask each other questions in English. Etel and I begin with basic questions, such as "how are you today" and "how was your week," to which the father answers "good" but sounds like "goot." We tell the youngest daughter to ask her father a question in English, and she blows our minds by asking, "How much chicken do you want?" Her father, going along with the role playing, his daughter being the butcher, says he wants two pounds of chicken.
This leads to a discussion about meat, and the parents say they don't eat chicken, only goat, sometimes. "But I saw chicken in your freezer," I say. They tell us it's for the kids, that they like chicken, but that none of them will eat beef because it's sacred in Hinduism. The daughter begins an explanation, which is as frenetic and enjoyable as a Jimmy Hendrix guitar solo, of their religious beliefs. (Sorry, I'm listening to Hendrix while I write this.) She runs to the bedroom and returns with metal figures of gods and their goddess spouses, shouting out their names, which I can't follow. Her descriptions are so quick and confusing, we think cows are god, or a representation of god, and people are born of dots on their foreheads or through their belly buttons. The parents don't know enough English to clarify what the daughter is saying, but they keep nodding their heads in agreement with her descriptions, anyway. This we know: married women wear a dot on their hairline. I think.
The son returns from church and, after some discussion, decides he'll come with us and the parents while the little sister stays home with the grandma. As we walk down the street, I point to things and say the words, which the parents repeat: cars, sidewalk, fence, etc. Once we're in the small, cramped store, I point to items, and the parents easily identify them: oranges, tomatoes, lemons, bananas, and even avocados, which they say they have in Bhutan. The mom knows "milk" but shrugs when I show her a rectangular block of packaged cheese. I soon realize I'm blocking the aisles for the local customers, who are mostly Somalis, and bumming the Middle Eastern store owner out by touching everything for our lesson. While we're naming items, the son picks out three small bags of spicy potato chips (flaming Cheetos and "fire" chips are their favorite) and the dad picks out a large bottle of apple juice, which he says his mother loves, and six, 35-cent packs of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum. We tell the son that chips are bad for him, and he says his teacher tells him the same thing. He buys them anyway.
Lesson failed.
When we get outside, I ask the dad, who is holding the receipt, how much everything was. The son puts his hand on the receipt and says, "Two hundred and thirty-eight dollars left." I lean in and realize the receipt is a balance of some kind, possibly of their monthly welfare account. I tell the son that corner stores like that are more expensive than grocery stores, which is a revelation to him. "We go there because it's close." I said I know, that's why they call them convenience stores, but they charge for the convenience.
Back at the house, we're all seated on the quilt overlaying the floor, and we talk more about food. The mother says, "I'm sorry, Teacher, but I don't like shopping." She describes, in her broken but understandable English, that she prefers the old way of picking and gathering crops as opposed to going to stores and buying it in packages. (Turns out, she knows what cheese is––she used to make it herself––but it was completely unidentifiable in rectangular plastic.) "We don't have stores," she says. I announce that I hate shopping too, but must admit I'd be lost without them. The parents tell us about all the animals they had in Bhutan, and how the father sometimes traveled to India to work on farms.
"You're a farmer," I say. The dad nods, and everyone smiles. Then what the hell are they doing in San Diego, we think, landlocked in urban hell? Etel and I can't help but think they would have been better off settling in Nepal, somehow. Last week, it came out that they have another daughter who ran off and married in the refugee camp without their permission. She now lives with her husband in Denmark, and I assume they'll never see her again. (When we ask them how many children they have as part of our lessons, they always say three, not four.) It will be tough enough getting reunited with the mother's sister out in New York, where the mother's parents are arriving soon from Nepal.
We talk about possible jobs in the future, and the mom says she wants to care for children, to be a nanny. I think about possible connections in San Diego for nanny work, but everyone I know lives up north near me, which is 24 miles and hours of bus rides away from City Heights, where the Bhutanese family lives. I appreciate our country's attempt to help these families, it even makes me a little proud, but this whole situation is crazy and screwed up, the transition nearly impossible. When they get cut off from welfare, the mom will have to single-handedly earn enough money to support five people, because the dad's going to stay at home and care for his ailing mother. Even living in the poor part of San Diego, paying rent and eating would be impossible for a nanny who speaks limited English.
When Etel and I put our shoes on and get ready to leave, they say, "Wait, Teacher," then bring out a plate of pea and potato samosas, some fried flatbread, curry vegetable paste made of tomatoes and cauliflower, and coffee for Etel and tea for me––"since you don't drink coffee, Teacher." We watch an Indian movie, partly in English, partly in Hindi, while enjoying the food and drinks. Of course, Etel and I feel terrible for eating their food, since we assume they have so little. But this is what makes their culture great: they share what little they have. They even pack a plastic bag from the 99 cent store with the leftovers and add more from the kitchen before we leave. We protest, but they insist.
When I get home, keeping in the spirit of the gesture, I share the leftovers with my brother, my roommate, and the neighbors while we watch hockey on T.V. They all agree the food is pretty damn good, even cold. I feel like I've been transported out of time and space, into this different reality where I live, twenty-four miles from City Heights. It's discombobulating, but my memories from today, the mutual compassion we shared, and the food smells filling my house are what keep us connected. Namaste.
No comments:
Post a Comment