Meeting some of the refugees

These past couple of weeks have been a bit eye-opening for me. I was impressed by everyone during the orientation a week ago and I am honored to be working with so many compassionate and self-giving people. I can't wait to observe and to participate in every intricate part of building a relationship with the refugees. Meeting the refugees for the first time yesterday, was a bit challenging for me because I felt like I didn't really have a middle ground with which to communicate. I don't know the language and I know very little about the cultural customs even though I've been doing a bit of research on it so that this isn't so foreign to me. When my group met with a Bhutanese girl and her aunt, I had so many questions running through my head but as my group was firing away with their own questions, my questions began to shrink and dissipate. I observed and took notes more than anything because I was getting more that way. As I watched the girl and her aunt express their concerns to us, I felt their frustration. It is a bit frustrating when one has so little resources to live on daily and has such a difficult time expressing those concerns. There are so many barriers, with transportation, communication, lack of computer skills, job search, medical care, etc. that it almost seems that one's hands are tied behind their back with no where to turn. But thanks to SEWA International, their hands can be set free and a clear path can be set before them to live more peaceful lives. In spite of my ignorance of the language and culture, I felt that I understood a little bit of what the girl was experiencing with my own background, immigrating from Nigeria as a 7-year old girl. My family's situation was a bit similar to hers. We didn't come as refugees but when we got here, assimilating into the culture was slightly difficult, specifically because most of our family were still in Nigeria. We were on our own here, with few friends of whom my parents knew. Immigrating to another country, for whatever the reason, is always a challenge because one must always find a middle ground between conserving their own culture while integrating into the culture of the community around them. (By culture, I mean the language, traditions, and so forth). As these weeks go by, I pray that I am able to forego my own insecurity of "not knowing enough" and simply be a helping hand for these women. And as Hiba mentioned, it's vital to understand that these refugees are all individuals and to avoid putting them into one category as "Bhutanese refugees." I do want to form a friendship with the women so that each face has a name and a personality by which to remember. This will allow me to learn so much more than I could ever learn doing research on my own about the culture.

Agatha