Part II Day 163: August 1, 2010 (saying what you have and what you are, before saying goodbye)

Position: Volunteer

EDD Check: $250 per week ($250 left in award balance)

Hours Volunteered: 3

Money Raised for Bhutanese Family: $1,300

I knew saying goodbye would be difficult before we arrived here, but I had no idea how difficult. I've accepted a part-time teaching position at the University of Alabama for fall, and I must move to Tuscaloosa by the end of this week.

When we enter the Bhutanese family's apartment, the familiar quilt is laid out on the floor, grandma sits in her place on the couch, and the mom squats between the kitchen and dinner table, peeling potatoes over a bowl on the floor. The father disappears into the back room and returns with his note pad, ready for the lesson.

In my absence, Etel has been teaching them the verbs "to have" and "to be." Etel and I run them through the items they have: "I have four children"; "I have a sofa"; "I have a table," etc. After we cover most of the items and people in the room––"I have a husband"––we move on to the expansive verb, "to be." We start with physical descriptions, which, because of our lack of preparation, leads to awkward and funny moments. It's easy to describe the father: "You are tall," followed by, "You are thin." The kids translate the meaning of thin, and we all agree that the dad is tall and thin.

When we turn to the mom, we can only describe her as short. "I am short," she says. The body type for her is a little more difficult. Etel turns to me and says, "What's the word for being between thin and fat?"

I stumble and say, "Normal?"

The mom already knows the opposite of thin, and she announces, "I am short and fat." We all laugh, including the kids, but it sounds awful. "No, no," Etel says, "you are thin," which isn't quite true either. The mom has an average body for a short Bhutanese woman, neither thin nor fat, but she's definitely roundish. The mom laughs and repeats that she's short and fat, and Etel, unlike Cosmopolitan Magazine, assures her she's thin.

We move on to conditional forms of "to be," such as "I am hungry" and "I am warm," which they quickly understand. They struggle for a minute with the negative use, adding in "not," before finally getting it: "I am not cold"; "I am not hungry." The oldest daughter has been in the kitchen this whole time cooking, and I, personally, am very hungry.

When we finish the lesson, we move to the couch and the mom folds and puts away the quilt. The daughter serves us fry bread and samosas and tomato curry paste with cups of water, since we've said we prefer not to have coffee and tea today. Etel, as usual, barely eats anything while I chow down, and the family takes notice. "You don't eat," the mother says.

"I'm not that hungry," Etel says and points to her stomach. The mother tells Etel that she is thin, and then grandma speaks up from across the room. She says something in Nepali, and then points at her belly. We don't understand, so in order to be more demonstrative she lifts her shirt and sagging breasts to reveal her bare, flabby stomach. The kids translate: "She says she is fat and you are thin." We love the grandmother's sense of humor, even though we can't understand her, and we're just glad she didn't expose her breasts.

Etel reminds the oldest daughter again how we've collected money to help her pay the relocation loan. She looks "sigh" again, but is very thankful. Etel hands her an envelope with $100 and says, "This is to make your first payment."

The kids ask Etel if she can help them with the new apartment they're trying to move the family into, because they don't understand what's going on. Etel calls the new landlord and sets up an appointment for the next day. When she's done, I broach the subject of my move. The family looks confused, so I explain I received a teaching job. "But you already have a job with the IRC," the son says. We explain that we are volunteers, that we don't get paid, and he's incredulous. "I thought you got paid by the IRC," he says. "We have volunteers at school, so I know what that is."

I manage to say, "I'm very sad," but can't hold back the emotions. I walk over to the door, sit on the floor and slip on my shoes while staring at the wall, and then walk outside to the end of the apartment walkway. I watch the kids soccer game across the street and try to compose myself, but I can't. A Somali girl bends down at the small BBQ next to me and lifts the lid. Unrecognizable cuts of meat cover the grill. She jams a large knife past the meat and stirs the coals. "What kind of meat is that?" I ask. Beef.

When I get myself together, I return to the apartment. While I was gone, the youngest daughter brought out a map and asked Etel to show her where I'm moving. "It's far," she said when Etel pointed to Alabama on the map. I sit back down on the couch, and the mom stares at me with pain in her eyes. I'm trying hard to hold it together. "It's very sad," the son says.

"Yes, I'm very sad," I say.

When we go to leave, I shake the son's hand, bow to grandma and say "Namaste," shake hands with the youngest daughter, and then hug the mom and oldest daughter, before I head for the door. Damn, this is hard. They make me promise to call and e-mail them, and I say I will.

Tomorrow, Etel will return and take them to the new apartment, where they won't understand why they can't leave their old apartment without a 30-day notice and why the new landlord––who greeted them by saying, "Does anyone speak English here?"––won't hold the apartment until the end of the month for them. It's all so confusing to the Bhutanese family, and the old landlord won't budge. "30-days is California law," he'll say, "and I'm tired of them saying they're moving out, they're staying, they're moving."

What he may or may not know is that the landlord at other apartment they had lined up for $895, changed the price on them at the last minute, saying it was now $1,200, the same amount they're paying. I've never really understood what slum lords are, but now I know. They overcharge for crappy apartments in crappy parts of town and take advantage of people like the Bhutanese and their confusion.

After their failed attempt to set up a new apartment, Etel will drive them back to their old apartment, and the mom will turn to her and say, "I am sad Eric go. I learned so much from him." And that breaks my heart.

Part II Day 135: July 4, 2010 (the caring manager, downsizing apartments, grandpa's departure, and unpronounceable sounds of good credit)

Position: Volunteer

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.