SaturdaysChild

Center of People
2003-12-22 04:17:32 (UTC)

Happy Christmas to the refugees

Wow. It's the 21st of December, and things are looking up.
Except for the whole snow thing...
My dad is doing an internship for this place that helps
refugees get on their feet. Today I went and met a couple
of families from Liberia. They were forced to flee from
their homes, towns, and lifestyles because a war was
rapidly approaching their area. Some of the stories are
horrible. One family didn't have time to grab anything,
they just had to run and hide in the jungle. Family
members were separated from each other, and some haven't
been heard from since. They all just kind of scattered.
They came to America, and I would think it would be a
pretty tough transition. They got new homes, new clothes,
and they are currently learning how to speak English. So I
can call them by name, they are Mary, Grace, Abraham,
Joyce, Da-li, Ziore, and Doretha. Mary is Grace's
grandmother. She is very old, and we found out today that
the only shoes she has is a pair of worn out flip-flops.
Grace looks young, but she is wiser than her years and all
this fleeing from the government has obviously worn her
out. Her mother is still somewhere in Liberia. Da-li also
looks very young. She has very good humour and she smiles
a lot. The "immigration" was confusing for the kids too,
but they're all very cute. Both of these families come
from a native African tribe called the Krahn, and since
it's a jungle kind of area, the kids are used to running
around with their clothes off, simply because it's part of
their culture. Then they came to the US, but for some
reason the neighbors weren't very supportive of the
running around naked thing. Hard to imagine why.
Seeing these war-torn refugees was a fulfilling
experience. We get pissed off about the smallest things,
and here they are with nothing, yet they never lose their
hope or optimism.




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