God Bless the African Summer

I stole this from my sister Danielle's blog and I had to share it with you all. She's an amazing person (and a great writer), so I thought you should read this.


my african summer
(by danielle strannigan)

note: this is a terribly long blog about my experiences with somalian kids. just don't say that you weren't warned.

so . . . i have about 15 african children in my life this summer. for those of you who aren't in the know, i started voluntering with catholic charities a month ago to help somalian refugees here in portland. officially, i am supposed to teach english to majuma, a somalian woman, but what usually ends up happening is that i sit in the shade with majuma and three old somalian men, while i fan myself to keep cool and desperatley try and catch on to the mostly somalian conversation. so far i have learned to count to ten and say hello, and majuma has learned the word "starbucks". after i sit for awhile with the adults i usually wander over to where all the kids are playing in the dirt--there are about 5 or 6 families, but majuma takes care of all the kids while the other mothers go to their various service-oriented jobs.

the kids are great, man. they are always so excited to see me (or any other person, for that matter), and they are always wanting to be held or hugged or affirmed or just get any attention, really. i am used to kids ignoring me as a general rule, so it has been quite a shock to my system to instantaneously be bestest friends with a pack of wild children. but it is so much fun.

i wish i could take everyone in the world with me to the apartment complexes where they live--even an afternoon could change your life. i still have no idea what has happened to these families, to these kids--majuma and i cant communicate well enough yet and the kids have all blocked it out. all i know is that somali has been war-torn for many years, and some of the kids have scars on their faces, arms, and backs. most have lost their fathers to war.

there is this one little kid- abdikadi--who i have never quite been able to "get". he doesn't smile as much as the rest of the kids, and is very, very quiet. but there is an anger in him that is unusual for a 6 year old, although its just underneath the surface. to be honest, i have never paid him that much attention before because he never demanded it. on monday i had another pool party for the kids at my house and i took home in my car two older boys (both 17) and abdikadi. there were some pictures of me in india floating around the back of my car, and abdikadi was totally entranced. he stared at those pictures for the whole ride home, and i could hear him saying "dani-yell" over and over. finally, i looked back and said "abdikadi--you know my name! good job!" (it is really hard for the kids to say my name . . . usually they just say "teacher" or "dani"). he smiled shyly and looked away. one of the older boys, abdi, looked at me and said "he talks about you all the time."

that warmed me to the very cockles of my heart. the next day my friend jenny and i took all the kids to my churches program because we thought the kids would get a kick out of the "serengeti" theme. jenny took the 3 youngest children and that left me with the other 8 . . .and it was pure chaos. there was biting, kicking, screaming, cursing (unfortuntately, the few english words that they all know are somewhat unsavory), and lots of kids falling asleep in the middle of the "bible talks". i was definetely the bad mom whose kids ran wild and whom the other parents "tutted" about. i couldn't help it--mostly i just had to laugh at how hilarious it was to have these 8 crazy kids at my all-white megachurch. nobody knew what to do with them. as frazzled as i was by the end of the night, i don't think i have ever loved kids as much as i did right then. as we were taking the kids back to the van, abdikadi ran up to me, slipped his hand into mine, and started jabbering away about what he did that night at vbs. unfortunately for me, he was talking in somalian the whole time, so i just nodded my head and smiled. but i got the idea. he fell asleep smiling on the way home.

this summer has been amazing mostly because of my time with these children. everytime i am with them i learn to appreciate life just a little bit more. i am so inept, so uneducated, and so clueless--but christ is in me. and uses me to show love to others.

i am pretty sure that i am going to have to go to africa at some point in my life now. put another country on the dream list, danielle.