We fed 16 hungry men and boys. The first members of the new girl’s basketball team were supposed to come, but the female teacher couldn’t make it at the last meet, so it was just Ali and the boys. I’m going to meet the girl’s team in the next week or so.
Maria and I went s hopping and served a lunch of turkey sandwiches with cheese and hot sauce and mustard and two kinds of potato chips and a country salad. Lots of talk about the book “Outcasts United.”
Tomorrow, pizza for lunch, and then the kids go home. If you can judge by the laughing and noise level, they are having a great time. So are we.
We are all having a blast at the refugee retreat at Pompanuck Farm. Early breakfast, then hours of sledding, which Fate has been refereeing. The kids love her, she is a kindred spirit to wild boys. They have been sliding up and down the track for hours. This afternoon, a movie, and then dinner. Then a scary story, if I’m still up and awake.
They are having a great time doing things but rarely get to do in their other lives. Come and see. More later.
The soccer team is special. Every one of them thanked me and Maria for inviting them to the retreat, after dinner, every one brought their plates and glasses and silverware up to the sink, and washed and dried and stacked it. They stayed at the sink until every dish was washed and dried, and all were clean and spotless.
It took them an hour to help clean up, and I offered to take over, they politely but firmly refused. These are not kids who are on Facebook or cell phones all day, they love to talk and listen, they are curious, shy as many of them are.
It is a gift to be working with these children, their stories are sometimes heart-breaking, but their spirits and hearts are pure and full of love and hope. We are all getting comfortable with each other, and some of the kids are asking me about books and writing, they are trying to figure me out.
I can only imagine how I must appear to them. I’ll be taking more photos today in the daylight.
Thanks for your support. If you wish to support this work – the soccer season is looming, it will be a long and expensive year – you can donate to The Refugee Fund or Jon Katz, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816 or via Paypal, [email protected]
The soccer team is not really about sports, but about community, leadership, strength and hope. The team’s unofficial motto is “walk together, sleep together, die together.” They need one another in a sometimes hostile and indifferent world.
They are learning how to live in our country with grace and strength and love. To me, they are what America is all about. They need to succeed, for their sakes and our sakes.
The Bedlam Farm Warriors, the very determined RISSE (refugee immigrant and support center) soccer team arrived at the Pompanuck Farm Institute late last night for a two-day retreat on a 90-acre farm and retreat center.
They were hungry and tired. We fed them and they retreated upstairs to the Pompanuck Meeting Room where they are all sleeping (as I write this) on mats and sleeping bags in from of a warm wood stove. They had lasagna (meat and vegetable) and salad.
When Maria and I left, they were still up, reading, playing UNO and other games, and talking. Ali was sleeping right nearby. They are the nicest people, courteous, helpful and attentive. One would never know what they have endured.
This morning, I’m going over to help with breakfast and go out and buy supplies for lunch, which Maria and I are helping to prepared. the agenda today is up to them – they can sled, read, play games, go to a movie, rest. Tonight, i’m taking them out to a Chinese buffet dinner.
I gave everyone a copy of the YA edition of the best-selling book “Outcasts United” by New York Times reporter Warren St. John. It is the story of a group of outcast refugee kids who formed a soccer team in rural Georgia, and were taken in hand and trained by a compassionate and dedicated woman coach – she reminds me of Ali in so many ways.
The story is uplifting and inspiration, and I was very happy to see most of them were reading it when they went upstairs to get ready to sleep. Sunday, we are all going to meet and talk about the book, two people with the most interesting things to say about it will each get to take a tropical fish home in two special tanks with LED lights.
They also have some good DVD’s to watch, including McFarland, USA, the story of immigrants who become champion runners in California.
I’m looking forward to today, and to the meeting. Late tonight, I am scheduled to read a scary story to them, I’ve chosen “The Tell-Tale Heart” from Poe. I don’t think it will frighten them much, they’ve seen worse, but they love the idea of it, and they taunt me all the time about being unable to frighten them. I don’t really wish to frighten them, if the truth be told.
They are a wonderful group of people and the more I know them, the more I have come to love them. Ali is my brother from another mother (as is Ed Gulley) and I am so lucky to know such people. I’m thinking turkey sandwiches for lunch, with chips and ice cream. This feels so good to me, and thanks once more to the Army of Good for helping to make this possible.
Red, Fate and Gus – they are all asking for them – are coming today. I’ve asked the kids not to feed Gus any food. It is heartwarming to see how devoted they are to Ali and how much he means to them.
I wish you could all see how much this means to these kids and how important it is for them to have this time together out in the country, free from the many pressures they face each day, and the sometimes horrific experiences they have experienced at much too early an age. They are already making great Americans.
