I wanted to send the RISSE soccer kids back to Albany with some token of their visit to the country. I wanted to thank them.
I called up Scott Carrino who is boiling maple syrup this week from fresh sap gathered at Pompanuck Farm. Maple syrup is expensive these days, so I ordered 15 four dollar jars. Some of the kids had never heard of maple syrup, others were excited to get it. This maple syrup is delicious.
I was happy to see all the classy sneakers donated by the Army Of Good over the past few months.
The soccer team players say that most of them played soccer in the mud barefoot or in flip-flops back in their native countries. They were shocked to find that American soccer players wore sneakers from Europe and designed uniforms.
We aren’t going that far, but we are catching up. They look pretty snappy these days. The kids say their new uniforms give them pride and dignity.
The team is on a huge winning streak, just a few more games to go in the soccer tournament they are not playing in.
Bae Reh listens to Madeline talk about the theater. There was the powerful experience of listening that i felt in the Mansion dining room today. These refugee kids have some horrific stories to tell but they rarely tell them. Ali has taught them to be positive, to leave arguing to others, to not be sucked into the world of arguments, hatred and fear.
Stay positive, he tells them, stay hopeful, do not harden into anger.
Ali and I share this, Maria believes this shared philosophy is at the root of our friendship and work together, we seek to find positive space in a negative world, and if we can’t find it, we will make it on our own.
The refugee children have amazing stories to tell, but they came to listen. The Mansion residents, opened up by the warmth of these children, responded in kind. Two very different but very similar cultures came together to learn from one another.
And isn’t this, I thought, how it’s supposed to work, the young listening to the old, the old sharing their experience with the young? These children are finding their way in our world. We hold out our hands and hearts to them.
If you wish to contribute to their support, you can do so by sending your contribution to The Gus Fund, c/o Jon Katz P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816., to me via Paypal, [email protected]. Your money will be used – every penny – to support the lives of these children, and to who them the true generous and welcome heart of America.
When I began this work, I never imagined that the Mansion residents and the RISSE soccer team would ever meet one another, it never occurred to me that they might have so much in common, that they might possess an instinctive understanding of one another.
The refugee experience is not just about moving from one country to another. The dictionary defines a refugee as a person who has been forced to leave one place for another in order to escape war, persecution or natural disaster, a refugee is a displaced person.
I come from a line of refugees, and I was much affected by what I saw and heard today. The refugee kids swarmed me outside of the Mansion on the way home, they all said they wanted to come back. We will make it happen.
