For the most part the family that Sarah and I are working with understand a fair amount of English.  The four of the family members who are college aged are the ones that speak the most with us; while the mother, father, and grandmother do not know English… or so it seems.

As Sarah and I spoke with the children of the family the the two eldest ones seemed to converse the most while the two younger sisters smiled, listened, and nodded.  This was true too in terms of the grandmother and mother.  We had confirmed already that the father knows no English.

In observing I came to an understanding that maybe as a whole they knew more English than I had thought, and they were just too shy to practice conversing.  This is when I began to simply ask them what certain things were in their apartment and eventually I began to find how much English they really did know when they would respond although with very strong accents.  Later they informed me of English they had learned while in the refugee camps; however, it was very differently pronounced from how Sarah and I spoke.

I’ve come to realize that these individuals are very intelligent people but just like me they are shy and all it takes is patience, encouragement, and friendship to get them to open up to the possibilities that await them.

Since we changed families, we’ve met our new family twice. Both times we had the same experience as Margaret and Jason, in which everyone in the family would stop what they were doing and gather around, even if we were just helping the young kids with homework. Last time, though, some of the men in our family started playing a guitar while they watched. We’re going back tomorrow and we’re going to bring some instruments – a guitar, a tambourine – and see if after the ELL/homework, they want to play with us. Only two of the women in our family speak English, and both times they’ve mostly been preoccupied with things that needed immediate attention, like having us help fill out job application forms for their family and neighbors, so we weren’t able to talk much about music. We hope that it’ll interest the whole family, since no one needs English to enjoy music. Also, the young boys in our family showed us lots of pictures of comic book heroes and villains that they like. We were thinking of printing out coloring book pages of Ninja Turtles and helping them fill out the speech bubbles, as a way of making ELL fun for them.

When Jason and I last visited our family, we tried to do something different. We had been helping our family with ELL because they asked for our help, but it seemed that whenever we arrived everyone felt like they had to stop whatever they were doing and come sit at attention to learn. I think it started to make ELL seem like a chore to them, a sort of tense activity, instead of something that could be done in a casual, fun way. Jason and I also realized that we weren’t learning much more than what we had initially learned aabout our family just by going and teaching ELL. So we decided to share information about ourselves with them. I had just been home that weekend to celebrate my mom’s birthday so I brought them some things that we had had at the party and explained to them that it was my mom’s birthday. I showed them some pictures of my family and they were really eager to see them and to guess who was who. Right away the room just felt more relaxed and they realized we could do other things than just focus on ELL. Jason and I also brought along an oxford picture dictionary and just talked about how winter was coming up and it would get really cold, and whether they had seen snow before. We were wondering if they knew what to expect! Then the mom made coffee and popcorn and we watched some Ethiopian music videos. It was definitely a nice break from ELL.

As Katherine mentioned in her last blog, taking our family outside was a great idea and turned out to be a successful way to teach English.  The two females in our family have very basic English speaking skills and Katherine and I felt as if they were hesitant to learn more.  However, when we started our evening walk along the lake their eyes grew big, curious of the names of things surrounding them, and started asking questions.  We also began to learn that they knew a little more than we thought they did.  Going on this walk aloud all of us to become closer with one another and not be shy about speaking this new language.  The male in our family knows English very well and so I went ahead with him on our walk, while Katherine taught the females more.  I learned that he really wanted to continue his education.  No one in the family had started classes through the agency and I really wanted them to take advantage of what the ECAC and Truman College had to offer.  I was frustrated because they didn’t know much about the courses. The next morning, the father and I went to the ECAC only to find out that no one could start classes until they went to the clinics.  And they couldn’t go the clinic until they had been here for over a month.  Finding this out was very frustrating and disappointing to my father because his family would have to continue to wait…

Our first meeting with our family was the most awkward experience in my life…and I completely lost faith in my social skills. However, slowly things started picking up. We started working on English and trigonometry!!!!!! Slowly we are starting to have more fun as well as getting to know other family members. As a thank you gift for inviting us to their festival we decided to share a bit of our culture with them and we brought our family food from my country. At first they were just a bit confused scared of the way my food looked but we managed to convince them that it’s really good. We had a feast with Bhutanese and Polish food and to their surprised they said they really liked it, or at least they were good at pretending. We also managed to come up with a good method for them to teach us about their culture. We are using youtube videos of different songs from Bhutan and Nepal and between them they explain to us what is happening in the video and what things mean. It is a good practice for English and very fun way for us to learn more about them.  As the semester progresses a question comes to mind, what will happen next semester? I hope that despite our class coming to an end in december many of us will plan on continuing visiting our families. I really would like to continue because we are developing a lovely friendship with our family.

My partner and I, like other groups, decided that instead of learning endless lists of vocabulary words through a series of sh-raids and looking up every word in the dictionary the funniest, fastest, and easiest way to learn English was to go on field trips to other places so our family can see the things we were trying to talk about. Our first trip was planned for Monday 28 to the beach. Unfortunately, mother nature had other plans, namely in 25mph winds and a chilling temperature. Luckily, we had a plan B. I tested out my proto-lesson plan on seasons of the year and descriptive words for the weather as well as going over the beach vocab worksheet we were going to do at the beach. The lesson worksheets seemed like a hit. My refugee family now has a reference in which they could keep track of their vocabulary words and they had fun learning them.
What I’m worried about is the young mother in my family. She can’t speak any English and she currently is not allowing my partner and I to help her because she is embarrassed. She is the only woman in the family and, on top of that, she is pregnant. With a due date approaching fast I’m concern she wouldn’t learn the basic me will need to go to doctor’s appointment for her baby. I don’t know how to talk to her about giving birth to a baby in America or how to describe the options of a mid-wife or hospital birth. She has a 3 year old already, but things are different here. Next visit, we are all going to the zoo to learn the animals’ names and how to read a map. I hope the mother comes with us. I think it might be a safer environment to ask question and it interact with her. I guess I will see. Later.

Last time Caitlin and I visited our new family we brought them milk and cookies. We wanted to take a break from ESL because none of the family members are eligible for ESL lessons yet. We took this time to talk and get to know our family. I think that was very beneficial. However, after the milk and cookies our family was eager to learn! We went over a few basic household items but the women in our family seemed lost and frustrated. Caitlin and I did not want to discourage them from learning English so we decided to go for a walk. As we walked out of their apartment and down the street to the lake the questions started flowing. What’s this? Who’s that? What are these? It started out as a simple walk to get away from English and just talk with one another. However it turned into a two hour English lesson. We found that our family asked more questions, seemed less frustrated and more eager to learn when we were outside. We talked about in class how many of these cultures love the outdoors and how they love to walk. Incorporating what they love with learning really helped them. With the winter months approaching fast, I now feel a stronger need to get our family winter clothes so we can do more learning outdoors!

The family seems to have opened up much more since last week. As soon as George and I walked in we were greeted with a big ole’ smile from the Mother, and she laughed at all of the mis-communications and confused glances that were being exchanged between us all. The 6-year old daughter also allowed me to help her with her homework while George assisted the Father in some forms to enroll the daughter in English-speaking classes. I think helping the daughter with her homework was the most satisfying for me, because, as corny as this sounds, I managed to get her to laugh and smile–some of her laughing had to with my mispronunciation of her name, but I feel that just emphasizes that many things are just as foreign and confusing to us as things are to them–we can feel just as misplaced in our own country when we’re taken out of its comfort level.
Before we left they were very grateful that we had come, and it seemed as though they were looking foward to our next visit. The gratitude coming from them was so rewarding. Its almost as if there is an underlying language, ones where words don’t necessarily need to be understood or said; they know that we are trying to help them, even though we can’t always catch on to what the other is saying…and with that mutual understanding, the appreciation on their side is identified, and the intentions on our side is perceived.

After weeks of anticipation, I finally met my Refugee family. My partner and I walked up to an apartment building feeling anxious and excited at the same time. A woman with a welcoming smile opened the door for us. Their apartment felt very homey. She didn’t know any English, so at first, we just smiled at each other. I was pretty relieved when her English speaking daughter came into the room.
After about ten minutes, the woman cut up some oranges, made some popcorn in a pot and served us orange juice shortly before she made us two rounds of coffee. I had never before felt more welcomed in a home than I had after ten minutes in this stranger’s home.
My partner and I tried to help the daughter with her math homework. Shortly after, I found that knowing math and explaining math are two completely different things. Unfortunately, we had to leave before her homework was finished. I immediately knew what Dr. Amick meant when he said that you feel like you can’t help enough.
When we said our goodbyes, the woman handed us a small black purse. The daughter explained that her mother had made it for us. I was the lucky one to keep the purse, and I felt very grateful for it.
Both the mother and daughter were so kind to us. My partner and I left chatting about everything that had just happened and making plans for our future visits. I can’t wait to go back this week!!

I am really upset because it just deleted my last post I had typed, but oh well…

There was some confusion, but my partner Julissa and I finally got to meet our refugee family last week. They are two women, A middle aged mother and her 12 (or so) year old daughter. Accompanied by Alex we made our way over to their apartment, located right next to some very loud el tracks. All the same, the mother had been taking a nap and couldn’t hear us when we shouted at the window to come in. Thankfully, a nice Bhutanese woman let us into the building; it seems to be home to several different refugee families of various nationalities.

Upon entering the apartment we were (and apparently Alex also was) surprised at the amount of furniture the family had acquired. Apparently someone from the ECAC came and gave them two small couches and a coffee table since the last time Alex had been in the apartment. They have not been in Chicago very long, and Alex saw them less than two weeks prior to our visit. They are truly very resourceful!

The first thing that happened (which was amazing) was a traditional coffee ceremony that the mother preformed for us. She and the daughter gave us snacks, too, of popcorn and fresh oranges, and the mother continually reminded us to eat. Julissa brought them brownies, but they were hesitant to eat them; finally we convinced the daughter to eat one, provided we did at the same time.

The daughter is very energetic and bright; her English skills are strong because she is in school, and we did all of our communication through her. The mother’s English skills are poor, but I think that she knows more than she lets on. For example, when her daughter left the room while we were helping her with her homework, the mother came and read one of her math problems aloud to us. She said she can read and write, but not speak. I have yet to see her write anything, but I really want to try to get her to the literacy center so I will have materials to work with and further assess what levels she may be at. This should be a challenge, however, because when I explained the literacy center to her daughter, she told me that her mom cannot go because she doesn’t know how to go ANYWHERE. She doesn’t leave their apartment all day long; she would be lost trying to get down the street. I explained what a map was (she wasn’t sure) and told her I would bring it next week so her mother would know where to go. When her mother heard she could learn some English, she seemed intrigued and promptly gave us her telephone number.

We helped her daughter with homework and I asked her to save some History or English work for next time (she gave us math problems, and as students with liberal degrees, we were lost ourselves at some points…ha). I want to have her read and write something for me so I can get a better feel for her skills. She said very confidently that she can read and write, no problem, and that speaking was her weakest point. It is important to see her English skills in action, however, so I can know what I need to do to help her.  I will be bringing a map over and some materials to work with the mother. But even still, it is a bit daunting, as I don’t know who would watch her daughter even if she knew how to get there. I will keep you posted!
Until next week,
Kate

Last Thursday was our second visit with our Burmese family and I think I was more nervous than on our first visit. Lack of communication was my biggest fear considering this time we would not have the benefit of a translator. Basically I just hoped they remembered who we were, why we were there and that Erin and I could somehow communicate. This seemed like a lot to ask for and I hoped overwhelming awkwardness would not make our visit unpleasant.
Looking back I consider all those fears to be a little silly because our second visit was amazing! Our Burmese family seemed much more cheerful then during our last visit and there was plenty of laughter and smiles despite limited communication. We brought ESL picture books along to begin teaching them a few words in English. To my surprise the wife had already picked up a few words like, “cat”, “desk” and “open” and our surprise at her knowledge made her smile with pride. By the time we left the wife new the name of almost every object in their apartment. The husband was a little less vocal with his English but he did understand and pronounce a lot of the words his wife had some trouble with like “pillow” and “mirror”.
The one problem with our visit though was simply that I think we may have overwhelmed them a bit with English. Which was not our intention but because we could not speak with them we did not know what else to do but teach. To solve this problem Erin and I thought we would bring a game or a craft to teach them. We could do this as sort of a break between English lessons and hopefully it will allow for better bonding between us and our family.

The second meeting with our refugee family went much more smoothly with the first, with a slew of fresh new faces waiting to meet us as we walked in the door. In addition to the two small children were their parents, Sebastian and Galaga (Using letters isn’t going to work like I did in the first post, there are too many repeats to keep straight.) as well as Galaga and Gabrielle’s (G’s) mother.

Gabrielle’s two other sisters, Natasha and Patricia, pulled up two chairs against the bed and had my partner and I help them with their English and physics homework. I’m not sure how helpful either myself or my partner were with the physics homework.

While we helped them the rest of the family moved in and out of the room. The youngest boy, the son of Sebastian and Galaga, (much more awake than the last time), rode his tricycle around the room and played games on the macintosh computer.

Eventually my partner and I showed the family pictures we brought of our own families, which they asked to keep. Sebastian then told us about how his family came to America, that they had lived in bamboo shelters in Nepal until they had caught fire. Thirteen hundred of the fifteen hundred huts burned to the ground– their family had lost everything. To make matters worse they had to live in the jungle outside of the camp for a month until they could find new shelter, the only thing the UN had been able to provide was a large plastic covering they had tried to make a tent out of. It didn’t last long, however, as it was town apart by hail.

The last thing he said to us I will never forget. He talked about how he was upset and angry; hurt by the whole experience, then he said, “But there was nothing else we could do, so we laughed a lot.” I don’t know why, but I really appreciated that last line he said.

Not much later we all shook hands and left, my partner and I completely re-energized about the whole experience.

The wife of our refugee family is very lonely.

On weekdays, after she returns from ESL classes, she sits in our family’s studio apartment by herself until she goes to sleep. She has no friends or family here and has little to occupy her time with besides studying for English or doing housework. She told us a few times that staying home alone is “no good” and that she thinks about Africa and how much she wants a journalism job again when she is left alone.

On our last visit we learned that the relationship she has with her husband’s sister, who also lives in Chicago, is very bad. In describing how the sister-in-law treats her, our wife had trouble thinking of the right word to say in English. She kept repeating it in French so we looked it up and it meant “insult.” Because of this bad relationship our wife said she no longer goes to chuch because she wants to avoid the sister-in-law and as a result she must pray only from home. She seemed pretty upset about all of this so I researched churches that the couple could attend together and I found one in Evanston, within walking distance of an el stop, with a large Conoglese congregation! I am very excited to take them there so they can see if they like it or not.

I feel that one of my top goals now, besides teaching the wife English, is to help the couple network so they have a group of friends in Chicago that they can go to for company and for support. Getting them involved with a church community I believe will be very helpful, along with introducing them, hopefully right after fall break, to some other student’s Congolese families.

After visiting our family a third time, a pattern has started to emerge and things are starting to fall into place. As usual, the husband was at work, so we spent all of our time with the wife. She served us a drink, as always, and pulled out some chairs for us to sit on. We brought her the latest edition of the Phoenix for her to practice her reading and pronunciation and to get her to talk about her previous career in journalism. She really misses working and wants to learn English quickly so she can have a good job. She was asking us if it would be possible for her to teach French in a school. As usual, we answered that you have to know English and have a specific degree. I can see she is definitely frustrated with sitting around the apartment and not being fluent in English.

We had brought her fruit, so we spent a solid hour and a half going over fruit vocabulary and pronunciation. The process takes a lot of patience, but she is so personable and eager that it takes no effort at all to have all the patience in the world with her. We talked a lot about holidays in Benin and the US, and also religion and family. It is always interesting to hear about Benin and her views about America. Although she has to speak slow and gets frustrated, I can see her English is rapidly improving.  

Our second trip back to the family was a lot less stressful. “Karan” and “Kareena” were happy to see us and this time their kids were awake and playful. After asking about each others week we handed them a Red Eye, I know it’s not the best publication to learn from, but it was something. We went though translating words from Hindi back to English and I feel that it really helped them. “Karan” took notes the whole time and we can really tell he’s trying to learn. It was interesting to define slang words like “dish” as in gossip since it just kind of comes naturally to us, and I now know to watch how I speak and I’m trying  to keep things simple at first.

I can really tell that the kids are getting sick of being in the apartment. We hope to take them to the library today and hopefully find some books that can help them. They kept asking about other cities and if there are more jobs in other places, all I could do was reassure them of better times to come and not to lose hope.

It’s really hard to see them at a loss of hope. Since their children are still so young it’s hard for them to adjust. I feel that if someone was in the school system they would be more connected with the Amercian culture and with current events in general.

I was very anxious to meet our family after trying last week and finding them not home.  I was put at ease when I was so warmly welcomed.  After talking for a while and hearing about their life I found myself thinking how silly it was for me to be nervous.  I usually pride myself with my ability to empathize with people in difficult situations, but listening to their stories and pain was something very difficult to even put emotion to. Talking with them was very surreal and it was only after I left and started coming back home that I was overcome with an overwhelming amount of sadness for them and a sense of helplessness on my part.  I felt a little anger towards myself thinking about how I thought I was sometimes lost in the shuffle when they are constantly fighting against being made invisible. Talking with them reaffirmed my belief in the power of listening and the beautiful simplicity of forming human connections. 

I enjoyed a nice convergence of refugee issues over the weekend. As usual, there is far more to say about it than possible here – the richness of these human experiences is just incredible. Thursday I visited our community partner to continue the development of our activities with the needs of the agency – I always enjoy my time there. Friday began with a workshop on “Engaged Scholarship” which was inspiring but daunting in its scope as I contemplate how to integrate my teaching, research, and service. While there I met Joyce Epolito, a great new friend with experience in refugee work and a very talented graphic designer who assisted development of orientation materials for Karen refugees (Chicago Welcomes You).

Afterwards, I went with Paige and Sam to visit their Iraqi family. We were concerned because a mattress in their apartment was infested with bedbugs; the wife was suffering terribly with bites and the family was afraid to return to the apartment. Fortunately, they were able to stay with relatives and we could assist the resettlement agency in buying a new mattress using funds raised last spring by students in Loyola Refugee Outreach. The family and the resettlement agency were incredibly grateful for this assistance. Sam and Paige and I were immediately welcomed with a fine meal of curried catfish on rice, Iraqi tea, and dates; we were given travel gifts they brought from Egypt; and enjoyed hours of engaging conversation about the cultural and personal history of this family. Family and new friends were coming and going throughout our visit but all were welcomed and well taken care of by mama, the family matriarch. The usual desperation about finding employment and paying the bills seemed to be weighing heavily on the father who is the main breadwinner in the family. We listened with open hearts and tried to learn and share our concern about these problems. Time passed quickly during our visit and we felt warmly welcomed by the family.

Saturday, my wife and I attended a training session by Julie Carlson Garrett from Exodus World Service, an organization that supports refugee resettlement. I feel very fortunate that I met Julie and I look forward to gaining her assistance as we develop our refugee volunteer efforts on campus. She has a great heart and much valuable experience and perspective on refugee assistance that she can share with us.

Last week I didn’t mention the make up of my refugee family, and that might help some folks. So, my family has a mother, father, a 4ish year, a baby on the way, and I think at least one other child, but we haven’t yet been able to sort everyone out.

Meanwhile, this past week, my partner and I went to visit the family, but we did not have a translator to attend with us, and our family doesn’t speak any English. It made me really nervous, and also made me think how essential language is to us. Obviously it is possible to survive without it, but I think it was a little overwhelming at first to think how much we wouldn’t be able to communicate.

The mother and father seemed to recognize us when we knocked on the door which was our first success of the afternoon. Essentially, the four of us sat on the floor and dove right into ESL training. My partner and I picked out a few pictures from the Oxford Picture Dictionaries and went over common words. In all, we probably went through about 30 words in an hour. By the end of the session, it was exciting when the couple would see something and react quickly. It’s a really neat sense of accomplishment to see someone progress so soon. I can imagine how exhausted they were mentally by the end, similar to how I felt when I took Spanish and we had tons of vocab to go over.

Another thing I noticed was that the family has the most difficulty pronoucing the ‘sh,’ ‘th,’ and ‘c’ sounds. After a little while, I realized that as children learning English, these are the same sounds that we have trouble with. Think of trying to say ‘tooth’ as a 5 year old. Most people have a bit of trouble.
Realizing the exhausting nature of our visit made my partner and I decide to come up with more ‘brainless’ activities to break up the session. Maybe we can walk around their neighborhood and get them outside a bit. I look forward to spending more time with them, despite the language barrier.

So I just want to start this blog by saying how lucky I got with my partner– Abby is amazing and I couldn’t ask for anyone as adaptive and honest and gracious. Ok that’s enough gushing… We went to visit the family on Friday for the third time with plans to meet up with some other students and the family they are working with. When we first showed up there were many people in the room, which I was really excited about. I love the community they have formed and just observing that interaction is incredibly interesting to me. However a minute or two after we sat down, the crowd dispersed and we were left in the room alone with the father of the family. We get the feeling that he feels incredibly uncomfortable around us and he actually walked out of the room for a few minutes– we found out later it was to get the kids– and we were alone in the apartment. After an awkward minute or two the daughters– in eighth grade and second grade– came in with their homework and plopped it down in front of us. The father left pretty soon after that. After working with the older girl on reading for a little while, I realized that I was unfortunately running late for work. I felt awful getting up from the homework table and not being able to explain to the girl the reason I was walking out. She seemed confused for a few seconds but understood “I’ll see you later” and went back to reading out loud. She caught on to words like “lieutenant” pretty quickly and I was sad I couldn’t be there with her to finish the worksheet.
One thing that I hope is that Abby and I are able to find a way to communicate with the parents and establish some kind of relationship with them.

Karrah and I first met our family about three weeks ago. We’ve made an effort to go see them twice a week, usually on Monday and Friday. Of course at first we had to spend a little bit of time letting them get comfortable with us but because we’ve tried to go more than once a week I feel this “introduction” period is long over. The time we’ve spent with our family has been incredibly enjoyable. Time flies while we are over there. We have been helping them with homework, their English speaking skills, resumes, and spending a lot of time simply conversing. We have a lot of other things planned so I will write more on specifics next week. For now, Karrah and I have been having a great time with our family and I’m happy that they have also taken a liking to us. The more time I spend with them, the more I see how incredibly interesting and intelligent all six of them really are.