Finally. Something to write about.

Today I did something different. I visited refugees.

The Social Work club goes and visits refugee families in their homes every Saturday morning at 10:30. The family we visited today was from Somalia. They had five children--four boys and one girl. The husband was working. "Every day," said the oldest boy when we asked him about his dad. He's home in the evenings... But can you imagine. Four boys growing up with their father working most of the day, every day. The pressure must be especially heavy on Noor, the oldest.

The eldest could speak VERY good english. I was impressed--they've only been there since November! Their mother spoke next to no English and sometimes he three older sons translated for us.

The little girl didn't say much, but she was a very happy, energetic child. She ran up to every one of us and stared at us with huge eyes and a smile to match. She would ask us to pick her up ("hep!") and then she'd wiggle and wiggle and get down and ask to be picked up again... Her baby brother had quite a lot of energy too. It was great to see them playing together.

After spending some time in the house, the little girl and two of her brothers wanted to go play outside, so out we went. The mother picked up the baby and joined us after putting a warm jacket on him and wrapping herself up--according to her tradition, I think.

Outside there were kids all OVER the place! Most of them were three to five years old. They were so cute... So friendly! I grew up with just one sibling, and a year younger than me, so I never spent much time around kids. But children's openness and friendliness just astonishes me every time I do get the opportunity to be around them.

It was fascinating seeing all these people of a different skin color and differently clothed walking around. They were all African (our "leader", Beth, told us she thought they tried to put people from one area together in refugee camps) but they dressed differently even from each other. The woman we were visiting dressed in a skirt and shirt and wrapped up her whole body when she went outside, but other women there wore just a one-piece robe and a head covering. There was only one man that I saw out there, which shouldn't surprise me... In many traditions still, men are the ones that do the work and the women stay home with the children.

I wondered a lot and could ask very little. I don't know any of their languages. If I saw even a few words written in the Latin letters, I could learn quickly, but I need to see words along with hearing them to figure out how to pronounce them. From there, I can go anywhere.

They don't have very much. It makes sense. They're refugees. They are lucky that they were able to bring anything back at all (she had incense and rugs that were from Somalia). I want to buy something for them... Like a book for the younger kids to learn English with, what would be REALLY great is if I could find a book for Somalis learning English--with both languages. I don't know if such a thing exists... But that's what I would like to do for them.

-Stephanie

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