Yesterday Stephen and I went to the refugees again. Next week will be our last week with them before we get married. We will continue to teach them afterward.

When we entered the apartment yesterday, Mohammad (18 yrs old) and Hussein (19 yrs old) immediately came to us with math homework. It was graphing this time, one of the things I understood the least while I was in school. Never having been much of a spatial learner, I disappointedly told Stephen, "You'll have to help them with this." I wondered what I would do in the meantime.

They had rearranged their living room yet again, having accumulated more furniture--it's neat that Lutheran Community Services gets so many donations for the refugees!--and moved the computer into the living room. Soher (20 yrs old), the girl who is so quiet, was sitting at the computer. I sat contemplating how if it would be appropriate to just sit down with her. I finally decided yes, in this circumstance, that would be fine, and went over.

Salah (15 yrs old) popped up beside us almost the minute I sat down and started asking me questions the best he could. Through a lot of gestures and Arabenglish chatter (like Spanglish? :) ), I finally got that they wanted to know why, when they clicked on Internet videos to make them go to full-screen, the video stopped but the audio kept going. Their computer is rather old, and I couldn't think how in the world to describe "old" and "new." So I just said the Internet was slow, which they understood, and that it wasn't fixable, which they refused to understand. :)

In the middle of this, their mother came out and said to me, "Miss--uh--Miss-uh--television?" pointing urgently to the back of their apartment, where their bedrooms are. So I went to investigate. Salah followed.

They explained to me that their bedroom TV only had channels 10 and 12, and wanted to know if I could fix it. Oh great. I don't know anything about fixing TVs.

I asked for the remote and tried to use that, but it didn't go to the TV they had sitting there. Salima (the mom) brought rabbit ears out, called in Said (her husband), and we tried to work with the rabbit ears, but they wouldn't connect to the spot it looked like it should. So finally Salima brought in another TV. For a second I thought it was the TV from the living room, but Salima couldn't have disconnected it all by herself in such a short time. They must have just had it lying around or in a different room.

She plugged it in. The remote worked with this TV, but it also only got channels 10 and 12, and not as good as the other TV did.

They unplugged that TV, put it to the side, and brought another TV in, still not the one from the living room, and plugged it in. The nicer remote worked with this TV. While Salah and Salima flipped through channels, I went back to the back of the TV to investigate and see if the rabbit ears worked here. Back there, I noticed that there was a cord connected to the VCR laying on the floor. I figured if they can't watch TV, at least they could watch videos, and plugged in the VCR cord. I stood up and tried to explain watching videos on this TV, but Salima, Said and Salah were saying, "No! This good!" I turned to the TV, and there were three or four other channels that they hadn't been able to get before showing on the TV, in pretty good picture.

"Good job," they said. "Tank you."

Well! Okay, then. I stood in the room and watched a bit with them, to see if there was anything good to watch. "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" was on, and I thought, Hey, that could be educational for them! It was just 5th grade knowledge. "This is a good show," I said to them emphatically. But they kept flipping channels. Salah had control of the remote and apparently wasn't satisfied with anything he was seeing.

"No! Stop!" his mom said at one of the channels that was fuzzier. Salah kept flipping until he got around to the fuzzy channel again, where his mom insisted, "STOP!" So he finally stopped.

I watched, wondering how on earth she could even see enough to know what the show was, much less be able to watch it! But the sound was clear enough and the picture was just distinguishable after a minute that I could make out what it was.

Pro wrestling?

Pro wrestling had been on the TV once before, and afterward Stephen and I had discussed our mutual dislike of it.

I glanced at Salima. She was fairly bouncing up and down on the bed. "American," she said. "American. Tank you. Good job."

I couldn't do anything but laugh to myself and shake my head in wonder. People are so interesting.

I stood only a little longer, to see if they wanted any more help, and then retreated back to the living room and to Soher. Salah followed.

I showed Soher and Salah Wikipedia. I looked up the state and city we live in, and Iraq to show them, and then they started giving me suggestions to look up. Soher wanted to see Chicago, and when I found Chicago, she excitedly called in her father. I think "Daya!" means "Come here!" Said came in and seemed impressed. "New York," he suggested, so I pulled up New York. They seem awfully fascinated with Chicago and New York, this family...I wonder if those are just the cities they hear about in Iraq?

Said left, and Salah and Soher continued throwing out suggestions. Soher even typed in her brother's name to look up. Much to my surprise, it came up with a document on a Muslim prayer that is apparently called "salah." I was really curious to see if Soher, Said, or any of their other names meant anything, but couldn't find a way to convey that, so returned to taking suggestions. We looked up Syria and London, and then Salah suddenly started asking for random Arabic words that I had NO idea how to spell. Consequently, I couldn't find any of them. I wished I could ask if they were cities or countries or prayers or what? Frustrated, Salah finally said, "Kuwait!" Kuwait I could do. LOL. I looked up Kuwait...They think Kuwait is very beautiful, and it's true--some of the pictures show some very beautiful cities in Kuwait.

Then Salah got mischievous. He asked me to look up something that sounded like "konai." I tried to type it but again, Wikipedia came up with nothing. My attention had been fully on the sounds of what Salah was saying, trying to figure out the best way to spell it, and when I gave up, I suddenly realized Soher had been saying, "No, no! Salah!"

Apparently he was having me look up some mildly crude Arabic word?

That boy is so mischievous.

I told Stephen afterward that if I were a real teacher, and I had Salah in my class, he would be the boy that I would really want out of my class because he's such a distraction, but wouldn't have the heart to kick out because he is hilarious.

Those were kind of the highlights of the evening, LOL. Toward the end, when we were about to leave, they suddenly took notice of the pictures of my family that I had brought. I happily pointed out my grandfather, grandmother, aunts, cousins, mother, sister and great-grandmother. I wished I had more time to talk about them. I love my family so much.

Stephen and I shared stories on the drive home, which, I must say, was quite fun. I had heard Stephen and Mohammad laughing hysterically at some point in the evening and asked Steve what in the world they were laughing at. "Mohammad made the most sarcastic joke!" Stephen laughed. "So Mohammad was getting the math, but Hussein wasn't as much, and Mohammad turned to him [in joking exasperation] and said, 'Arabic? No. English? No. Spanish?? No!'"

Poor Hussein. It was funny, but... "I hope he didn't feel too bad!" I said. Hussein is the one I suspect might have a learning disability. He's slower than the others, and actually reminds me of his dad. I wouldn't be surprised if it were a genetic disability that he got from his dad. I'll have to review the stuff from my "Education of the Exceptional Child" class.

I'm kind of glad I have all my education stuff still...So much of it comes into play teaching the refugees!

-Stephanie

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