nilima en el mundo

Here’s some more thoughts on refugees in VT, though my experience yesterday made me feel the need to travel more, while at the same time to stay here. Okay, so two friends and I took 3 Somali Bantu kids out for a day of summer fun. You’d think that we’d be fine to handle them right? The walk started out smoothly enough as my Environmental-studies-majors-friends Hayden and Karuna turned the walk downtown into a nature walk — it was quite idyllic in fact, (okay, so the 6 yr. old boy did start ripping up lillies and soon branches from all trees turned into Power Ranger swords, but still . . . So we were nearing Church Street when the 11 yr. old grabbed his brother’s hand to run from a pit bull. I had my hands full (literally) with the little sister, and since the dog was leashed, I dismissed their anxiety. The boys ran into a churchyard, and strangely so did the dog with owner — finally some barking ensued and the dogs owner called out,

“they can pat the dog, he’s friendly”

“they don’t want to , I shouted back . . . uh, they’re scared of dogs and it’s against their religion”

“it’s against their religion?” she asked incredulously. I explained they had to bathe a lot or something if a dog touched them, and that they’d seen dogs hurt people in Kenya. Okay, that was near-trauma experience #1, keep in mind througout the day there were many delightful times too(that i’m having a little difficulty recalling now. But in all seriousness I’m focussing on the scary experiences because they have overshadowed the others).

Okay, so then we’re walking down Church St. and of course it is the Pride Parade, which draws huge crowds so that in the time it takes to make one glance up and determine the cause of each float “lesbian grandmothers . . .” a child can disappear. So, Karuna and I explained the parade in terms of Diversity and acceptance, and to rest our arms we hoisted the kids on some weird flat statue statues (yes tax-dollars!) to watch, until the questions like “why is that man dressed like a woman?” and people were wearing fewer and fewer clothes made it too uncomfortable, so we continued on the the farmer’s market.

By this time the kids are tired and one of them kept shoplifting sunglasses, which led to another dog-incident and finally to two of us carrying to two little but not at all light, children. So, we finally made it and . . . I tripped on the pavement and fell. Thank God I only scrateched my elbow and the girl I was carrying was not hurt. I was too shocked and scared of what could have happened so I brushed off my swelling elbow and we proceeded to the farm stand farms.

 After a Tibetan lunch (Which the older boy made puking sounds out, becuase it looked close to his mother’s cooking, but not as good, and nothing like the yummy pizza or burritos from town) we finally made it to the waterfront where the older boy was happily playing in the water, the next moment he was flayling his arms wildly, head struggling to stay afloat. I was standing on the shore, I jumped in, suddenly forgetting the rumors of the dirty lake, or the skirt I so rarely donned. I reached the boy, who had gone too deep and reassured him, then tried to teach him the backfloat, somehow downplaying the experience. I am happy with my reaction as I have often doubted my capacities in emergencies, but wonder about the whole incident. Should we not have let him in? Though there were three of us, where did things break down? Were these normal occurances?

My plan until yesterday, was to work for a few months in India at an orphanage, but i was so exhausted yesterday maybe i should re consider. I dont think so though. My long term plans include only part time hands-on work with kids, and the other locked up in a quite, cool Final Cut Pro suite making movies. At the Children’s Project (India) I won’t have primary responsibility for the kids, nor will I be trying to , as I was with the Bantus, acclimate them to new settings. I am looking forward to delving in and pushing myself.

Meanwhile my friend Dan just got back from Ethiopia on a UVM project, so he was telling me all about those orphans etc and then I learned that in Israel we might be working with Ethiopian refugees, which got me really excited and I thought “I could stay longer and do a project with them, instead of just work on a kibbutz.” But then I thought,

“Um, there are lots of regufees in VT, why not do more with them?”

The truth is, and one reason I’m excited for India/Israel is that here Life gets in the way, somehow dog walking, cooking, friends, frisbee, laundry, grad school, etc get in the way and I only carve out small chunks and even then, I need lots of time to reflect, journal etc and to, yes think. To say, “am I balancing my life properly? Was it right to buy him the water gun” etc. I want to be immersed in a setting where I am giving fully of myself so that I don’t have time to Think about how to order my life.

Tags: ethiopia, kids, somalia, Thailand, US travel, vermont

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 9th, 2006 at 6:04 pm and is filed under US travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.