Search Results for: mawulidi

Great news. Our friend the Rev. Dahn Gandell, who works with refugee kids in Rochester, N.Y., is coming to Pompanuck Farm the last few days of December, and she is bring some refugee children from Burma with her. They also play soccer.

The RISSE soccer team has a lot of kids from Burma, and Ali (from RISSE, the refugee and immigrant center in Albany) is eager for the two groups to meet. Ali says they intend to wear their new uniforms (above), we’ll see if a game came be conjured up.

The kids have called themselves the Bedlam Farm Warriors, not something I asked for. it is kind of cool.

i’m going to Albany tomorrow to meet with Ari and the soccer team. I’m also meeting with Mawulidi Diodone Majaliwa, I wrote about him a couple of months ago, he is a carver from the Congo who was forced to leave all of his tools behind.

You may recall the Army Of Good raised money to buy him some new tools, and we went out into the woods and helped him pick out some wood. He’s bringing some of his first carvings to our meeting at RISSE tomorrow. They will be for sale.

I hope to offer them on my blog and/or Maria’s blog this week in time for Christmas. This is exciting, you have given him the tools to honor the work his grandfather taught him, work he thought was lost to him.

I’ve also talked with Ali about helping the soccer team ice-stake on some Saturdays this winter at a n rink outside of Albany. It will cost about $7 a child, and I’m bringing a check for the first visit.  It will cost roughly $100 to get the team to the rink, depending on how many come.

Thanks to the members of the Army Of Good for contacting Ali about sending Ukelele’s for each of the kids, that could be wild. Also a check to pay for additional indoor soccer tournament fees this winter.

I am trying to focus our help on keeping the kids together and busy and active during an upstate New York winter, the first for some of them.

Most come from single parent homes, and there is little money or transportation for them. Few of the families have cards,  Ali is working with me to make sure they have healthy and fun things to do. He is their lifetime to the outside world, and few of them have seen snow or sub-zero temperatures.

In the hard part of winter, they will be stuck in apartments, I will work with Ali to get them out and with their friends. The federal subsidies that were available to them and their families are disappearing rapidly. They will need help. This is a major focus for me in the coming months, it will not take a lot of money to get them to movies, skating, practicing indoors, some outings.

I’ll keep you posted on all of these activities. This is sacred work for me, the true soul of America.

We’ve send them to see Spiderman, paid for birthday parties, soccer uniforms. I’d like to get them to some other movies.  I hope, with your help, to keep supporting them through the winter, and then again when soccer season cranks up.

This is so important, to see them together is to see how much they love and support one another. Their lives would be harsh and lonely with this connection.  Ali, my brother, is a saint.  He calls me a savior, but he is the one reaching out to these kids.

I want to keep helping him.

The December meeting with the children from Burma will also be important to them, they rarely get to see other refugee children from outside RISSE, they are already excited about it.

If you wish to contribute you can send a check to my post office box. P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or via Paypal, [email protected]. We have about $1,500 in the Mansion/Refugee Fund, thank you. It was getting low there for a bit. Please mark your payments or checks to Refugee Fund or The Mansion, or both.

All donations go into a separate account, overseen by a bookkeeper an an account. Every penny goes where it is supposed to go.

“Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day:

– I shall not fear anyone on Earth.
– I shall fear only God.
– I shall not bear ill will toward anyone.
– I shall not submit to injustice from anyone.
– I shall conquer untruth by truth. And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.”

– Mahatma Gandhi

Yesterday, two men from the Congo, their names are Mawulidi and Isaiah, came to my farm. i am getting to know Mawulidi, and I admire him greatly, I hope one day soon to be able to call him my friend. With him was a young man from Mawulidi’s village in the Congo, I do not know him well, his name is Isaiah, but I see that Mawulidi  has taken Isaiah under his wing, and is beginning to teach him the carving skill that his grandfather taught him.

Mawulidi is a wood carver by trade, now working as a bread maker at a bakery in Albany, N.Y. For the past few weeks, another of people I have never met have been working with me to restore to Mawulidi the tools he needs. He needed about $500, he didn’t want more or ask for more.

I am not sure I have known many men or women like Mawulidi. He is shy, gracious and unfailingly courteous. He never speaks unless spoken to. His eyes are always scanning the wood around him, from the firewood in my shed to every tree he passes. He smiles and laughs in a joyous way when he sees the wood he wants and needs, I like to see him rub his fingers and hangs over the wood to get a feel for it.

It is a great gift to see someone who has found his bliss and knows it. I think nothing will keep Mawulidi from carving his wood, and I will work hard to sell it for him.

Mawulidi is a smart and determined man, he survived 20 years in a brutal and dangerous refugee camp, and made it to America.

Many people, some in our government, believe that this is the kind of person who should never again be permitted to live in America. He is not wealthy, he speaks little English, he has no skills that most Americans consider valuable. He is a wood-carver, and I don’t know many people as or more skilled than this gentle and creative man.

Over the next few years, I will be eager to follow Mawulidi’s story and see whether or not he becomes a United States citizen, whether we find justice or injustice. I think Isaiah is fortunate to have Mawulidi as a mentor, and I am fortunate to know him as a potential friend.

I am eager to see  first carving as he hastens back to his life.

We all have our ideas on justice and injustice, especially lately, we all struggle to find common ground. I can’t tell anyone else what to do or think, only what i do or think. And if there is justice in the world in my mind, Mawulidi and others like him will continue to struggle to come to America, and America will continue to open its doors to him.

It is really a miracle to see someone like this man, who has spent half of his life in a kind of cultural prison hell work so hard and graciously to put his life back together again. If you want to help, you can do so my donating to my refugee fund:  Jon Katz, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. We are doing good, I promise you that.

After Mawulidi came by for a tour of Bedlam Farm, we drove over to Pompanuck Farms. Scott Carrino volunteered to cut down an ash tree for Mawulidi for his wood carvings, and Mawulidi was delighted by the wood. We packed about a dozen of these pieces into the van and some larger ones for his taller sculptures.

Mawulidi left a very happy man. He said he would start work on his carvings right away. He asked me to thank everyone who helped.

He’ll come back to Pompanuck and to my farm in a couple of weeks to get more wood. Mawulidi says he will start out by carving birds and flowers and small animals. Maria and I will sell his work on our websites until he figures out a permanent way to show his work.

Mawulidi is not  tech savvy, nor he is political. He says nothing about the immigration battles raging in Washington. But he is the prime target for the new administrations proposed new immigration policies. Under the new proposals, the immigration of unskilled workers to the United States would be drastically cut in favor or wealthier and more highly skilled immigrants.

A refugee or immigrant’s willingness to work hard would no longer be a factor. Almost all immigration experts favor choosing new immigrants carefully, and seeking out skilled workers. But under the new proposals, there would be few or no Mawulidi’s. I have been getting to know the refugees and immigrants in my area recently, and I can testify they are model citizens.

The new legislation would also decimate the number of migrant workers permitted to come to America and work on farms. Wealthy, skilled immigrants cannot replace them and Americans are not interested in applying for these jobs – just ask any farmer you know.

For one thing, it is not simple to survive as a refugee and get to the United States now. Only the most remarkable and determined people get through a long and arduous process.

There are scores of hoops to jump through, it takes time, patience, intelligence and a lot of hard work to get here. Mawulidi was working in a bakery within days of his arrival into the United States, he has supported his wife and four children ever since he arrived. He is working to learn English, and now has the tools to also renew his carving work and supplement his income further.

The refugee and immigrant parents I have met are obsessed with getting their children a good education and living a meaningful and independent life – they appreciate America in a way even many Americans can’t.

Mawulidi is a law-abiding, quiet family man with a lot of talent. It is a privilege to help him regain the tools he lost to do his life’s work. I can’t think of a better citizen for the United States, I couldn’t begin to relate the suffering he has experienced and never complains about. In the coming weeks, I hope to offer some of you his beautiful art work.

Mawulidi Diodone Majaliwa is an argument for permitting people like him to continue to come to America. He is not here to do us harm or take our money, we have nothing to fear from him.

 

It looks like Maria and I will be in the wood carving sales business shortly.

Yesterday, Mawulidi Didodone Majaliwa came to Bedlam Farm to see the dogs work and meet the donkeys, we planned to over to Pompanuck Farm where he could select a tree for his larger carvings. Mawulidi came with Francis Sengabo, left, the director of RISSE, the refugee and immigrant support center, and Isaiah, a young man from his village in the Congo, who is now also living in Albany, N.Y..

He loved the donkeys and the sheep, but he really lit up when he saw the huge stack of firewood we have gathered to heat the wood stoves in winter. He loaded up Francis’s van with firewood before we headed over to Pompanuck Farm. The firewood is perfect, he said,  for making some of his beautiful birds and small carvings. He just lit up when he saw it.

All three of these many are refugees from  some of the awful genocidal conflicts in Africa.

Francis founded Risse after spending 11 years in a refugee camp, Mawulidi was in a refugee camp for 20 years, half of his life. He learned how to carve wood from his grandfather but had to leave his carving tools behind in Africa when he came to America last November. Isaiah arrived in America last year.

I tried to talk Mawulidi into a blog or website, but he has no computer and has never been on one, so that won’t fly. Maria and I decided to sell the first series of carvings that he makes, if they are anything like the one I have already seen, they will be scooped up.

Mawulidi has all of the tools he needs now, he just needs an electric drill to bore some holes in the wood, he needs to go to Home Depot with someone who speaks better English and who can help him. I volunteered but Francis thinks he knows someone in Albany who can help.

Mawulidi is a gentle and gracious men, you would never know what he has been through. I look forward to getting to know him better, and I thank the Army of Good for supporting this project. We spent about $500  replacing the tools Mawulidi had to leave behind in Africa when he came here.

I suppose he is precisely the kind of immigrant the new government is trying to keep out of America. He hasn’t learned much English yet, but he is no drain on our resources. He works long hours baking bread in a bakery in Albany and he hopes, with these tools, to resume his work as a carver.

After we loaded up his car, we drove to Pompanuck Farm where Scott Carrino had cut down an ash tree. More photos coming. It was a great and successful trip, and I thank you for your support. If you wish to help some of the new refugee and immigrant arrivals to America, you can donate directly to RISSE, which is doing difficult and critical work, made all the more urgent by the deep cuts in aid from the federal government that are already being felt by refugee families.

You can donate directly to RISSE here, or donate to my separate work by sending a donation to my post office box, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or through Paypal, [email protected]. Thanks.

Another good news alert: This afternoon, Mawulidi Diodone Majaliwa, a new friend who came to the United States in November after spending 20 years in a refugee camp, is coming to the farm to find a tree to cut down so he can resume his work as a carver, thanks to your help in replacing the carving tools he was not allowed to bring to America.

Brother Francis Sendago, the RISSE (refugee and immigration center in Albany, N.Y.) Operations Director, is driving Mawulidi from Albany to Bedlam Farm, from there, we’re going over to Pompanuck Farm, where Scott Carrino has a lot of trees that might fit Mawulidi’s needs. He’s looking for wood sections that are at least 32 inches in circumference and a meter in length.

His plan is for us to help him cut the small tree down – it can be dead or alive – and let it lie in the sun for a few weeks, and he’ll come back to get it and resume his carving. Mawulidi was a carver in the Congo Kinshasa, he fled during the civil war there and has spent half of his 42 years looking for a new country.

He might find his tree here, but Pompanuck Farm’s trees are more numerous and might fit his needs. We’ll see. Scott Carrino has generously offered one of his trees to us, and he has a power saw  (no one in town will sell me one, they fear Maria will kill them.)

His grandfather taught him carving and left him his precious tools when he died, but Mawulidi had to leave them on the airport tarmac, he has carried photographs of his tools with him since he had to abandon them. Carving was his livelihood in the Congo before he had to flee.

Thanks to your generosity, we have raised enough money for him to replace the tools, he will start carving some of his wildlife figures and sculptures, he is eager to sell them but we have to figure out how to do that.

Mawulidi is working as a baker for an Albany bread company, but he has never give up his dream of returning to carving.

He is very grateful for this help. My idea for Mawulidi is to help him set up a blog or website so he can sell the beautiful carvings he knows how to make. He needs to be able to do business transactions, which makes the blog more expensive. If you wish to contribute to this work, you can do so by sending a donation to me at Jon Katz, P.O Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. or to Paypal, [email protected].

I would like to continue supporting Maluwidi in the small ways most refugees need help – some tutoring, some basic household needs. I’ve seen his carvings, they are quite unique and lovely. I’ll discuss it with him this afternoon. More later. And thanks for helping to make this dream come true, another successful project from the Army Of Good.