January 25, 2008

Well I don’t know much about our new Mama Fugee, but I know this, I am going to like her really really a lot. I can tell. She has spunk. pizzaz. sass. Key elements in a long lasting and enjoyable relationship of mine.

One of the clues in which I am basing my opinion on is the fact that she has artistic decorational flare. We arrived at the Fugee apartment the other day and were greeted with a small red present bow taped to their door. I thought this was incredibly charming and figured that someone must have given them a Christmas present and in true Fugee form, not ever throwing ANYTHING away, they decided to hang the bow as a welcome gesture on their door. This made me smile.

I then remembered their first day in America and how when we knocked on their door, they did nothing. Knowing they were inside and likely scared out of their minds, I did what makes my husband incredibly uncomfortable and that was to put on my “aggressive and borderline obnoxious hat” and I opened the door and let myself in. As I’d imagined, Mama Fugee was standing on the other side wrapped in a blanket, slightly concerned and exhausted beyond belief. Mike then saw my logic. He just sometimes can’t believe how IMPOLITE I can be. Which is SO impolite to let myself in and turn up their heat being that they had just arrived from AFRICA and were now living in the arctic conditions of Boise Idaho. The nerve.

Knocking on their door this time was an entirely different experience altogether. Mama Fugee quickly opened the door, gave us that warm welcoming smile that starts in her eyes and then stepped out to greet us by cautiously trying to give us a traditional Burundian welcome which I think was to hug us and kiss us on the cheek maybe (?) but we were too inbred in our freaky American ways to realize what was happening and ended up stiffly twitching and rotating in circles in what probably looked like a do-see-do on crack.

Upon entering the apartment, we were blown away. We couldn’t help but to immediately freeze where we were standing and start to conditionally ooooh and aaaah at the sight of her TOTALLY AMAZING AND UTTERLY UNBELIEVABLE transformation of the house. You could tell she was insanely proud, practically beaming actually, which made us up our shocked excitement level even more. We walked wide-eyed around the apartment taking in the HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of assorted and multi-colored present bows taped to EVERY SINGLE surface and fixture within their teeny, tiny apartment. It must have been a logistical nightmare. But the affect was incredible. Bows on each blind, bows on each door frame, bows on the tv, bows on strings dangling from the ceiling, bows bows bows bows bows. If you weren’t instantaneously filled with elation upon entering their home, you were broken. There would be no hope for you. Because this place. This place, was psychedelic.

And at that point, I knew I would like her. Because what woman doesn’t want to plaster every inch of her home with present bows but refrains from doing so? Mama Fugee refrains not. And I love that. Plus, intermixed with some family pictures taped to the wall was this picture:

Why? We know not.

Driving around town in an attempt to get her an ID card was relatively simple (mostly because we have BLUE STEEL, the best minivan on the planet) but things started to get progressively worse on the second leg of our journey. Littlest baby Fugee started crying (right at the time that Mike started playing the Greatful Dead, coincidence? I think not) and it became one of those scenarios in which there are too many Chiefs. Everyone in the car thought they knew how to make the baby stop crying. Baby Fugee’s older sister kept trying to reach back and pat his head, Delaney kept telling him “nope nope nope!” while Mike was obsessively changing songs over and over again on the radio. I passed back a snack pack of crackers with cheese to Mama and that worked for about 3.3 minutes before Baby was just too pissed to take this horrible life any longer. Everyone was starting to get on edge and the scary strappy cage things that we forced her kids into were not only questionable in her mind, but were downright annoying. Mike tried to ask her if she’d like another snack pack to give Baby to which she replied no. And since I automatically assume that since Fugees don’t know English, they must not understand anything ever at all, I then offered again but used a VISUAL of a snack pack this time. She not only said no to us again, she basically DEMANDED in her tone that we die. SHE GOT IT THE FIRST TIME AND THE ANSWER WAS STILL NO, THANKYOUVERYMUCH. Geez, frickin nincapoops.

See what I mean? Spunk. I like it.

By this time, we had pulled up to the DMV and Mike had to take Mama Fugee inside to get her ID. She questioningly looked at me and I gestured for her to go inside and I’ll watch all three kiddos in the car, including the wee screaming banshee. I then had one of the freeze frame moments in time wherein I was frantically caught up in the moment only to stop and realize “Holy Crap, this is what it’s going to be like!” It was like a glimpse into the future, a future with Delaney and 2 more kids, African kids at that. A little surreal.

I am happy to report that I got the baby to stop crying and managed to entertain older sister. Everyone was happy until Mama Fugee showed back up and baby started crying again at the sight of her. Without one SECOND’S hesitation, she picked him up and threw him on her boob, outright refusing to place him in the strappy cage. Which is probably exactly what I would do in the reverse situation. I couldn’t help but respect her for taking control and telling us to piss off. She’s already doing better in America than she thinks.

December 15, 2007

We got new Fugees. More on that later. But they are wonderful. Young couple with 2 young kids. From Burundi, Africa.

Americans for 2 DAYS now.

Holy crap.

Jamie

July 10, 2007

Delaney, as I’m putting her to bed while we were visiting Mike’s family in Utah over the 4th: “I love Grandma J’s toys”

Me: Ya, Grandma J has some great toys.

Delaney: We don’t have ANY good toys.

(Me laughing)

Delaney: We just have a bunch of Earwigs all over our house.

Thanks, everyone, for your support during our Plague of the Earwig. Your words of encouragement, thoughts and prayers during our most difficult time truly made a difference. I thank you. And I offer sincere apologies to those that had acid flashbacks and nightmares for nights upon nights after reading my disturbing account of the happenings within my own home, within my own sanctuary. I certainly didn’t want all of you to have to suffer as I have suffered. I did not wish to inflict my own misery upon you, my dear readers. I would rather bear the entire brunt of this and suffer alone.

They were in my shower and were on my toilet seat as I was taking a pee.

But thank you again and please go in peace, do not suffer any longer.

They were in our Cheezits and in our shoes.

I love you dear readers. Do not bear my burden even one second longer.

Go. Just go.

It has been an emotional week for us, not only because we LOST to Earwigs, we lost our dignity as humans to little wriggly, squirmy bugs that drove us from our home, that TOOK OVER our home, that slept in our beds and recorded their favorite insect shows on our Tivo, but also because we found out that our Fugee friends moved away.

Ya, I know, right? What the heck happened?!

We are still trying to figure that out ourselves, really. We literally went from spending 3 days a week with them, taking them to English classes, taking them shopping, taking them swimming and to the movies and babysitting Baby Fugee, to nothing and then they moved. Without telling us. To Texas. As in, far far away.

We feel super guilty about it because about 3 weeks before they moved, we stopped seeing them. We didn’t break up with them, per se, we just needed a little wee break was all. Did I mention how it was 3 days a week? As in, 1-2-3 days within 7 days over and over again? So when their session of English classes ended and they didn’t need us to taxi them around as much, we sort of, kind of backed off for 3 weeks FULLY intending to pick right back up with it after our little Fugee Holiday.

But then I emailed our IRC office and was told that “Your Fugees moved to Texas. Did nobody tell you?”

Uh, no. Nobody told us.

So now we totally feel like garbage. Our Fugees probably thought we were mad at them or done with them and they never called us to say Goodbye. And now they moved to TEXAS and we feel like we lost our friends. Our non-English-speaking, non-public-restroom-using, so-in-love-with-America African Refugee friends.

Delaney is up in arms about the whole thing. She keeps asking about Baby Fugee and then screaming “But, I didn’t WANT him to move to Texas!” And we didn’t either. But from what I can gather, the Fugees paid for non-refundable airline tickets to visit Mama Fugee’s long lost brother in Dallas and instead of buying round trip tickets, they bought one way tickets and then upon realizing this, rearranged their entire lives accordingly by MOVING there instead. I guess we all have to accept the consequences of our mistakes, but really, this seems extreme.

I worry about them. Dallas Texas seems scary. And big. Even to me and I speak English and have a fairly firm grasp on the proper rules of public restroom etiquette and how to fill out an employment application. I worry about them and at the same time, I am annoyed at their disregard of the IRC Office’s advice. Apparently, they were warned (in Swahili) by the IRC office here of the VAST differences between Boise and Dallas, of the MAJOR changes they would encounter and the challenges that would be waiting for them. They were told, in detail, that the rents were more and the city was much larger and their work commute would be longer.

But they went anyway. I don’t know whether to commend them for doing what they feel they are capable of and going for their American dream or if I should call all the Dallas Hospitals in hopes of rescuing them. Either way, I am sad that they left. Good Luck Fugees, we’ll miss you.

The IRC Office asked if they could match us with a new family, an Ethiopian family. So time to dry the eyes and jump back in I guess. There are more scared and excited families out there who need us to show them episodes of the Simpsons and how to play on an xbox 360. Our work is not yet done.

May 19, 2007

How do you explain the concept of Excercising to African Refugees?

Excercising. Okay. Ummmm. In America, we have lots of food. Food, yes? We eat lots of food. And we keep eating lots of food. Too much food. Too much food, understand? We eat more and more and more food in America. And… then we get bigger and then we EXCERCISE to get smaller again. And… well, so, we basically get bigger because we eat lots of food and then we sit at desk jobs in America instead of hunting for wombats in the African desert, so, you know, we have to induce physical activity….

AND…….. they’re looking at me like I’m offering a general description of quantum physics.

This all went down when we took them to the YMCA swimming pools to go swimming in America for the first time. We are chillin in the kiddie pool when all of a sudden we are startled with “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” blasting over the loud speakers and the next pool over is swarmed with giddy water aroebic participants.

“And Push it! And push it! And keep those knees up! Keep those knees up!”

“And run in place! Run in place!” (oh daddy did you know you’re still number one!..…..)

Mama Fugee is transfixed with a triad of feelings including disbelief, concern and terror. She looks to me for answers. Answers that she won’t understand. Just like why Paris Hilton is famous and why we let wild beastly dogs live in our houses and snuggle up next to our children.

April 23, 2007

So, Baby Fugee broke his arm.

Behold Baby Fugee with a pink cast (as if I didn’t already have issues with him being a boy and wearing pink and purple all the time):

We went over to the Fugee house the other day to take them out for our weekly American Extravaganza which so far has included A MOVIE! A TRIP TO THE GROCERY STORE! A TRIP TO THE ACCOUNTANT! McDONALDS! TACO BELL! DRIVING INSTRUCTIONS IN A MORMON CHURCH PARKING LOT! and THE ZOO! Pretty ingenious and exciting tour guides aren’t we? Low expectations people, that’s our motto.

Really, the movie trip and the driving instructional hour deserve their own detailed posts, except to say that the Fugees now believe everyone wears 3-D glasses when going to movies since their very first movie experience happened to be a 3-D cartoon AND our car now makes a strange squeaking noise ever since Mama Fugee FLOORED IT, drag race style, DIRECTLY INTO A CURB. Yeah. I had a brief moment there where I seriously reconsidered doing volunteer charitable-type work anymore.

So, where was I, oh right, Baby Fugee’s arm.

We get to their house, they welcome us in as usual, we chat for awhile, go over some bills, tell some funny stories and then load up into the car. As Mama Fugee is loading Baby Fugee into Delaney’s old car seat, Baby Fugee belts out a mortifying wail. We all look a little alarmed.

Then Mama Fugee goes, “oh yes, one thing, please? Baby Fugee arm - mmmm, not so so good.”

Mike, my incredibly sexy Nursing Student Husband, sprang into action and sussed out the arm situation. Mike’s report was not good. There was a Massive inflamed bump on his arm and he bursts into tears if anyone came near it.

We ask what happened.

“Baby Fugee fell swing 2 day ago”

WHA!?!?! “It’s been like this for 2 DAYS!”

“Um, yes?” (confused)

“You need to call us for things like this! Call us and we can come help you! This is not good! You need to call us, remember?!”

“Oh, yes, yes, okay.”

Alright. Fast forward through 4 HOURS at the emergency room in which every single person asked me to translate for them in which I replied that I am not a translator and then every single person called Baby Fugee a she (there’s that pink shirt thing again) in which I replied that he is a he. Etc Etc Etc Etc. Broken in 2 spots. Seriously. On goes the PINK cast because they were out of every other color. I give up. Put the pink cast on, whatever.

So that was that! They loaded us up with painkillers and we had to make a detailed chart for 4 days telling them EXACTLY when they could give him the meds and how much of the meds they could give him and we went on our merry way.

So, the kid has a broken arm.

But it doesn’t stop him from gettin jiggy wit it whenever he is over at the Whitey’s house:

March 30, 2007

Hello my interpeeps! (By the way, I stole that word from Boomama. I will give credit where credit is due now, but I will continue to use that word in the future and pretend it is mine)

Where to start.

Numero Uno: We talked with our Birthmom. It was a real live phone conversation with our Birthmom. It lasted 30 minutes and it couldn’t have been more comfortable, calm and peaceful. It was beyond our highest expectations for a first phone call with a woman who plans to give us her child. I won’t go into a lot of detail because it is personal and sacred to us except to say that we got to document a bunch of little delicacies for Miles. His Mom craved hot dogs and peanut butter when she was pregnant with him. She laughs so easily. She is feisty and sweet at the same time. Without ever meeting us or knowing us, she opened her heart and trusted us when she was vulnerable and scared.

And the name. We all decided on a middle name for Miles. Miles Orion, after the middle name of our Birthmom’s deceased little brother. Miles Orion. We just couldn’t be more happy with that. It flows, it’s original, and it came from his first mom with significant history attached. We love it.

Numero Dos: We had the Fugees over again yesterday and thanks to my friend Erica, We made significant headway on speaking English. OVER! UNDER! RIGHT! LEFT! HIM! HER! BIG! LITTLE! Our neighbors probably have their doubts over the new family that moved in and chants THAT IS A GARBAGE! THIS IS A TABLE! really really loudly.

Mike had a good laugh because the 6 year old fugee boy was trying to ask for a piece of gum and Mike really kindly showed him to the bathroom. The kid was all “Ummm no sir. I don’t need to pee”

Also, one last story, we were all eating Mike’s smashingly successful dinner of roasted chicken, wheat rolls, corn and apples when we were trying to get the two brand new American boys to speak a little English. Mike asked the older boy how old he was and he replied that he was thirteen. Then Mike jokingly asked the six year old if he was seventeen. The whole table made this face like seventeen? No, he is not seventeen and then they said “no, six”. Mike was all “We’ll work on Sarcasm next week.”

Numero Tres: After many profane and loathsome emails and comments from my internet vote on the kitchen color, we decided to repaint. Big thanks to Rae at Rachel’s Blatherings for her suggestion of a rusted reddish/orange color. We went with it and here are the results:

Before:

After:

We really love the color and we never plan to repaint it ever again, so please only say nice things. Thank you.

March 24, 2007

Well, we took our Fugees to the zoo yesterday. This is the whole gang:

We had our 3 Fugees, plus the pregnant couple who have been in America for 2 weeks PLUS 2 other boys that had been in America 1 NIGHT. Because, why the heck not? right folks? We aim high.

On the way there, we kept trying to convey that we were going to see animals. A-NI-MALS. Animals? Yes? They nod and nod saying yes, yes, good, okay. Then when we get there, they ask if we are there to swim.

First exhibit. Leopards.

Mike and I walk right up to the cage and turn around to find them all 25 feet back, absolutely terrified. We begin to wonder if this was a REALLY BAD IDEA. I’m not in to the whole Cesar Milan approach and don’t want them to have to sniff the poop of a beast that probably ate their friends in Africa.

“They can NOT get out. It’s OKAY. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay. (I felt like we said this about 387 times that day)”

Sloooooowly. Ever so sloooowly, they approach the cage and watch the massive sleeping cats. Our Mama Fugee says “In Africa.. no good! Nooooooooo Good” and then she put her hands in claws and made motions across her chest just like wolverine in X-men. “No this in Africa” and pointed to the cage.

We stayed at the Leopard cage for probably 20 minutes. They were in absolute amazement. The leopard wakes up, they all take a step back. They say that the cat can tear down the cage, they know it with a certainty. We all laugh a bit and the nerves wear off.

So, this is how the zoo trip started off:

Very serious. By the way, they asked for this picture to be taken. They LOVE having their pictures taken but they haven’t really learned the whole smiling aspect of it yet. But the picture embodies their emotions at the Leopard exhibit. Sheer terror and then fascination.

Next up: Penguins. You can imagine Africans seeing penguins for the first time. A lot of giggles and questions that they didn’t know how to ask.

Next up: Tigers. Somewhere between the penguins and the tigers, the 6 year old first-day-in-America kid walked to the side of the walking path and started peeing. Uh!!! Umm!!!! No no no no no no no. Enter: first trip to public American bathroom. Mike had to show him where to aim, how to turn the sink on and off, how to get paper towels and where to put trash.

Fugees seeing a Tiger:
So, overall seeing the animals was pretty cool for them. Except for the occasional “I eat that” they were truly fascinated and had a really good time. Llamas - amazing! Porcupine - magnificent! Iguanas - you get the idea.

But the REAL fun began when we went through the kid’s section and they discovered the giant Giraffe slide. It was a sight to behold! Eight Africans running up and down the children’s slide at the zoo, the adults waiting in line, laughing and laughing, asking for their picture to be taken.

Papa Fugee:

Pregnant Fugee Friend: (yes, a pregnant woman was going down a slide at the zoo and had the time of her life)

Mama Fugee: 6 year old first-day-in-America boy contemplating why he can’t pee outside in this weird American food factory: His older brother about to be knocked down:

2 thumbs up! We have no idea what their generalizations were about a zoo in America, probably that they would be filthy rich once they figured out a way to gather all their common livestock and food supply back home and then charge us stupid Americans to walk by and gawk at it. Oh well.

Afterwards we took them to McDonalds, because, really, you can’t be a true American until you gorge yourself on fried axle grease. We were happy to Christen them.

March 23, 2007

Here’s a riddle for you:

Mama Fugee has a MASSIVE scar on her stomach going from her side towards her belly button and then all the way down towards the holy of holies area. She says it’s from an operation in “Afrique” and she makes hand gestures indicating a REALLY LARGE round object and places her hands where the scar is. She complains of pain still and says she is seeing an American doctor. We hear that she is going in for another surgery.

For the last 3 weeks we have been racking our brains trying to figure out what the deal is.

Did they remove a tumor in Africa?

Was there a growth?

Was there a cyst?

Something with her large intestines?

Was it inside her stomach or outside her stomach?

Why is she still in pain?

Any guesses?

WELL, if you guessed an enlarged spleen due to a bad case of malaria and that she has a hernia now - YOU ARE CORRECT! I’ll let you use your imaginations as to how we finally figured all of this out….. except to say that it involved Mike’s nursing books and lots of pictures of body parts.

It’s like playing pictionary for hours and not being able to take a nachos break.

Boy, they flocked to those nursing books like white on rice. They love medical books, we have learned. They had another Fugee couple over at their house last night also from the Congo who are newbie Fugees, only in America 2 weeks! They. looked. so. scared. My heart went out to them. They were pregnant with their first baby and she was either 6 or 7 or 8 months along. The four of them were carefully examining the medical books and came across a naked picture of a white man. They stopped. Silence. I wondered “Did they think Whiteys had different genitalia?” but then the Fugee Man Friend muttered something and all four of them BUSTED UP LAUGHING while Pregnant Fugee Friend WHACKED her husband over the head, still laughing. Mike and I make that face that you make when you don’t get the joke, kind of a half smile with “huh?” eyes. Finally, our Mama Fugee between laughs points at the naked white man and says “baby Fada - Fada of baby!”

Sense of humor, they have a sense of humor. Yes! Then Mama Fugee ran to the back room and came back out flailing birth control pills. “Look! No baby!” (Enter maniachal laughter while she processes that fact that if she takes this little teeny pill once a day, she would not get pregnant).

We took their baby Fugee for the day so they could have a break. We taught the little man how to say HELLO! and HELP ME! (instead of making whining noises) and how to say MY NAME IS BABY FUGEE (not really, we didn’t have him say baby fugee, come on people). Then we bought him that blue jacket that we have been meaning to buy instead of his pink and purple care bears jacket. Had to go.

Here is Baby Fugee:

We are taking the entire Fugee family to the zoo today. This oughtta be interesting. Mike was all “Do you think it will be like us paying to see cows in a cage in New York City?” Hmmmm.