Number of Days Officially Unemployed: 170
EDD Check: $250 per week (with $1,250 balance left)
Money Raised for Bhutanese Family: $595
Hours Volunteered: 2.5
The Bhutanese grandmother is out on the apartment complex's balcony when Etel and I arrive. We greet her, and Etel points to her own mouth and asks about the tooth that was causing the grandma pain. The grandmother makes a pulling motion from her mouth, as if the dentist extracted her tooth the old fashioned way, with pliers. "Much better?" Etel says. The grandma smiles.
As we walk into the apartment, we're followed by a man I assume is one of their Somalian neighbors, until I hear him speak. "I want to talk to Nari," he says with a soft voice and American accent. "I'm the manager," he tells us.
Nari, the oldest daughter, emerges from the back bedrooms. The manager says, "The owner would really like to keep you in here. He's willing to work with you on the price." This is the first we've heard about any moves. Nari tells him the apartment she's looking at is $895 a month. "Oh, well, he won't go that low. It's too bad. We really like having you around."
The manager looks at Etel and I and says, "They're probably the best tenants we've ever had. Look at this place; it's like no one ever lived here. They take their shoes off, so the carpet looks like new. But they don't need the extra bedroom since the grandpa died. He was a nice man. It was sad," he nods toward the grandma, "they used to go everywhere together. I never saw them apart." He looks at the daughter and says, "They were together, what, sixty-something years?"
"Did he die of a heart attack or something?" I ask.
"Yeah, a massive heart attack," he says. "I tried to revive him, but he never regained consciousness."
There is a minute of funeral silence. "Do you know CPR?" I ask.
He looks at me as if I've assumed a black man wouldn't know CPR. "Yeah. I was a medic in the army," he says with pride. I picture him bent over the frail, elderly Bhutanese grandpa, blowing air into his unresponsive lungs. I assume the family had no idea what this kind manager was doing to their grandfather. I can only imagine how horrific the scene was for everyone, as the grandfather's body lay still.
We move on to the lesson for the day, which includes reviewing the parts of the human body. The mother is very good at naming body parts––lips, mouth, nose, head––but both the mom and dad struggle when they're asked to write some of the words down. They also have trouble pronouncing some of the sounds they don't have in Nepali, such as the "th" sound in "teeth." I keep putting my tongue between my teeth to show them how they have to lisp the sound. It's as if their tongues won't go into that position. They begin growing a little flustered, so we ask them to tell us some body part words in Nepali in order to show them how hard it is for us to pronounce some of their sounds.
The grandmother, who normally alternates between napping on the couch in the background or sitting in a kitchen chair and staring blankly at our lessons, becomes animated when she hears the Nepali words. She points to her toes, leg, arm, mouth, and hair in rapid succession and says the words, and we try to repeat them. We all laugh. We continue on with the lesson, but grandma keeps naming body parts in the background, until the dad tells her to stop. She returns to silently sitting on the couch.
When we're done for the day, the oldest daughter comes out from the bedroom and asks us to look at an official form. It's a questionnaire for continuing their welfare benefits. I fill it out for them, and we say we'll mail it, since the deadline is tomorrow. It would be unfortunate if their payments––and, therefore, their ability to pursue happiness––were delayed do to the celebration of the Declaration of Independence.
Etel asks me to explain to the oldest daughter that we want to help her with the IOM loan repayment. I tell Nari I spoke with the IOM people, and that if she doesn't repay the loan, it will ruin her credit, and if she ever wants to buy a car or needs a school loan, they will deny her.
"Oh, no," she says, "I don't want to have bad credit." It turns out she completely understands her situation and is going to use the difference between the rent at their new apartment and this one to start paying down the entire family's debt. We explain that we've started collecting money from family and friends to help her pay the loan even faster, since she won't begin working for another year (her medical assistant training lasts two years).
"I'm sigh," she says.
"What?" we say.
"I'm sigh."
I look at Etel, who says, "Oh, you're shy. Say 'shy.'" The daughter tries, but she can't make the "sh" sound. I spell out on paper the difference between "sigh" and "shy," but the "sh" sound isn't in her range. "Don't be shy," Etel continues, "we want to help you." The daughter is very humble and thankful, and says, "I want my grandmother and I to both have good credit." We don't tell her that an 82-year-old woman doesn't need to worry so much about credit; we just act like grandma will live forever.
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