March 7, 2007
Alright ya’ll. We got word that our Birthmom wants to talk with us tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed! Here’s hoping it will happen this time…..
In other news, we met our Refugee family the other night. Mike was mortified because I started rummaging through their bills and refrigerator within 10 minutes of meeting them (as you get to know me, you will find that this is normal behavior). Our cute refugee couple was standing there taking mental notes thinking this is probably normal when guests in America come over and Mike was all “Don’t you think you are being a little too FORWARD?” (translation: you are freaking them out, stop it) But, as usual, my craziness paid off and we discovered that their refrigerator was appalling and their bills were a mess. Let me go into some detail:
Their refrigerator contained 5 gallons of milk, a 6 month supply of eggs in bulk containers, 3 bowls of dried out sardines and 4 jars of peanut butter. That’s it. I motioned Mike over and looked at him with a face that was all “Am I still being too forward? Would you rather we deal with this later AFTER they eat 20 more meals of sardines and peanut butter?” Mike starts asking them if they have any bread. This takes 20 minutes. They don’t have any bread. We remove all the peanut butter from the fridge and make mental notes to take them grocery shopping and teach them about saran wrap.
Moving on.
Their bills.
We found a Geico advertisement mailing that you could tell had been opened and re-opened about 100 times. It had been carefully creased and set in a special spot of “we can’t read English and don’t know what to do with this” paperwork. We take the envelope, and because we know they can’t drive and don’t have a car, we explain that it is garbage and go to throw it away. They are very hesitant about us discarding the important looking papers with a gecko on them. They are nodding and nodding thinking “gecko paperwork is very bad”. We discard more ads they have been holding on to and make mental notes to go over their budget and make sure they know how to pay bills.
Overall, we really really love our Fugees. They are incredibly sweet, hard working and driven. We asked if they still had family in Africa and they made hand gestures and sounds that resembled machine guns while shaking their heads no. We were incredibly humbled.
We have a lot of work to do with them and I hope to have more interesting stories/perspectives to share as we teach them about America. Like the fact that girls where pink and boys where blue in America. I know it is such a minute and minuscule thought to be concerned about but their 2 year old son wears a pink coat. I know I should be more concerned about their food, bills and English but I can’t stop thinking about that stupid pink coat. They are thinking “our son has a warm coat” and I am thinking “your son needs a BLUE coat” - how stupid is that? But I am still going to get him a blue coat though.
One of my best friends Erica is going to help me translate. She speaks French. This is Erica:
Erica is fabulous. She drives a fabulous car, wearing fabulous clothes with her fabulous hair and nails. She has a fabulous job and encourages all of us girls to free our inner fabulousness. She is fabulously fun. But don’t be fooled. All the fabulousness flies out the door when she gets down in the trenches and mud and goes to battle to fiercely protect and support her friends. More on that some other time. Thanks to Erica for dropping everything to help me with my Fugees.
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March 7th, 2007 at 1:54 pm, Justin Says:
You forgot to mention her fabulous husband…she is way excited to translate and was studying her old French books the other night.
March 7th, 2007 at 2:16 pm, justin Says:
btw…your blog is awesome and funny…good work!
March 7th, 2007 at 5:08 pm, dcrmom Says:
Wow. That really is amazing. How neat for you to volunteer your time this way! Oh, and good luck with teh phone call. I hope she follows thru.
March 8th, 2007 at 1:44 pm, JJ Says:
Justin - oh ya…you. I suppose you qualify as fabulous as well. Thanks for the compliment on the blog.
word,
Jamie
DCRmom,
Hello! The phone call was cancelled….again. I’ll blog about it some other time. But thanks for the good thoughts.
Jamie