Refugee High

by Elly Fishman

  Just before the dinner is set to begin, a group of Rohingya boys come running down the hall. One boy, a small junior who has become the de facto leader among the group, carries two plastic bags with him. Rushing up to the spread of food, he sets them down and pulls out two Styrofoam takeout containers. A nearby student asks him what’s inside. The boy reports he bought the food from Ghareeb Nawaz, a fast-casual Pakistani restaurant, just a few blocks from Sullivan. The containers are filled with chicken biryani and mixed vegetables.

  “No one will know the difference,” he says with pride.

  In all, the group of students and Sullivan alums lay out a lavish spread of dishes from four continents. The splendor here is a measure of the lengths the students’ families go to when playing host, even if the school community room is a proxy for their tables at home. The gesture is particularly poignant given the scarcity that many families face at home.

  Inside the community room, guests begin to take their seats. Sarah planned the evening with speakers and activities and the program is outlined on each table. First, Lauren, the Rogers Park native who has dressed up for the occasion and wears a striped black and white dress that flares out from the waist, kicks off the night. For Lauren, the night celebrates what she loves best about her neighborhood. Outside of school, Lauren can spend an entire day exploring the intersecting worlds of Rogers Park. From behemoth plates of spicy biryani from a local Indian joint to her favorite grocery store with fresh carnitas by the bag, Rogers Park has offered the senior a passport to the world. She’s also learned patience. When Lauren was a kid, her closest friend was a neighbor who was first-generation Mexican American. The girl spoke Spanish at home and whenever Lauren visited for a playdate, she struggled to keep up with the conversation. That experience stuck. It gave her some small window into what she imagines her new refugee and immigrant classmates navigate every day.

  “There are students here from all over the world,” says Lauren, standing at the front of the room holding a microphone and notes in the same hand, while gesticulating with the other. “I know so much more about culture and life and about different places that I’ve never been to. Just coming to school one day is like taking a trip around the globe and I love that so much.”

  Next, the founder of a newly formed community group called Friends of Sullivan, who have helped organize the event for tonight, says a few words. He tells the room that Thanksgiving is the most wonderful American holiday and it’s a pleasure to share the tradition with Chicago’s newcomers. Next, Matt takes the microphone and offers some data on the students at Sullivan.

  “We all have our elevator speech about where we work,” he says, “and I don’t talk test scores. We have thirty-eight languages spoken here. We have so many different cultures learning from each other. We have kids from the Southeast Side meeting students from Southeast Asia. And there are so few places where you can see these cultures meeting with each other.”

  Sarah walks to the front of the room. Originally, she hoped Alejandro would read his “I Am From” poem. Sarah asked several students to write such poems on that theme for the Thanksgiving event. Alejandro’s was poignant and she wanted the other students to see that side of him. Alas, Alejandro’s father broke his leg in a soccer game and called the senior to give him a ride from the field to the hospital. So now, Sarah stands up in the front of the room alone.

  “Every year, I would do a lesson on Thanksgiving with my students,” Sarah begins. “The Indians, they already lived here. They were the first Americans. They sat down for a feast with both groups bringing their dishes, their stories, and their traditions. I share this piece of America’s history, a piece of my history, and ask my students to share their history. Because our history, our stories, our past, and our traditions make us who we are today. To the new Americans in the room, we old Americans welcome you and embrace you with open arms.”

  When Sarah finishes her introduction, she invites Alejandro’s replacement, a Ghanaian student whom she’s asked to read his own version of “I Am From.” He quickly gets up from his seat and makes his way to the front. Without looking up at the audience, he nervously dives into his poem.

  I am from Ghana … We live a peaceful life and eat fufu, which is made from the plantain plant … Dreams are everywhere … I know we came here for a better education, but it still hurt because I miss my friends … Ghana is country well-known, full of gold … I believe my country will be powerful one day … Dreams are Everywhere

  When he finishes reading the poem, the boy returns to his seat at a table toward the back of the room. He sits between an alum from the graduating class of 1965 and a Ugandan senior. He picks up his fork, stabs a piece of turkey meat, and relishes it.

  The next morning, the library is once again alive with students. In the absence of programs and decorated tables, another kind of cultural exchange is at work. Ihina, a Nepalese senior with a penchant for dirty jokes and cutting observations, sits at the edge of a table.

  “Where y’all from?” she asks, eyeing a group of boys in the corner.

  “Syria,” one of them answers.

  “Shit,” she says, stretching out the word for several seconds. “Syria? Your country is fucked up.”

  Danny looks up from his phone. “Ihina,” he says, amused, “you’re from Nepal.”

  “Shit, I know.”

  Josh Zepeda

  Josh waits in the ELL office in the back of the library. He’s cleared the room so he and Belenge can have some privacy for their first session. Belenge has been back at Sullivan for a few days, but he has yet to return to the classroom. Instead, the sophomore keeps to the library catching up on missed school-work. Belenge is allowed to remain in the library because the few times the boy stepped into the hallway during a passing period, he froze in fear. When he recounted the feeling, Josh suspected Belenge suffered from second-hand trauma, although in refugee students, first- and second-hand trauma often compound.

  Josh knows that trauma is part of the cultural fabric inside Sullivan. As much as 75 percent of refugee youth experience some level of post-traumatic stress disorder. And for whatever trauma stems from students’ experiences before arriving in the States, there’s the additional trauma of resettlement and navigating life in America. Refugees qualify for Medicaid health coverage, which includes therapy and counseling for psychological trauma in Illinois, but the practices are foreign concepts to most refugees and few take advantage of the services.

  Josh was raised by Mexican and Chilean immigrants, and hoped working as a school social worker at a massive school just north of Chicago that’s neither urban nor suburban, but a combination of both, would connect him to first-generation Americans who may feel caught between two cultures. Josh himself experienced a similar tug-of-war growing up Latino in Libertyville, a mostly white, wealthy suburb of Chicago. But his work didn’t pan out that way. Instead, nearly every student Josh worked with came from a wealthier, white family. Of the school’s thirty-five hundred students, Josh had close to four hundred under his watch. Mariah was among them. At twenty-five, he found the load untenable. Josh quit his job in June.

  He spent the summer contemplating a career change. He considered playing music full-time or going back to school. In August, Sarah called. Josh had met Sarah while doing an internship at Sullivan as part of his master’s in social work. Though Josh’s internship did not focus on refugee students, he found himself drawn to them. Sarah took note. When Sarah called to discuss a job, Josh, who was raised a devout Catholic, considered it a sign from God. Sullivan would be a second chance at this work.

  When Belenge enters the small room, Josh encourages him to take a seat. He points to the chair next to him. Josh can clearly see how fear has seized Belenge. A goofy dancer and talented soccer player, Belenge never seemed uncomfortable in his body before the shooting on October 13. Now, he hunches his shoulders and keeps his head tilted toward the floor.

  “We’re going to work on some stuff to help you feel less
scared,” says Josh, speaking deliberately, slowing down his natural, enthusiastic pace. He pauses on the word “scared.” Belenge doesn’t appear to understand what Josh means. Josh pulls out his phone and types the word into Google Translate. Hofu. To ensure Belenge understands, Josh also mimes the emotion, widening his eyes and mouth and placing his hands on either cheek. Nonverbal communication holds equal importance in finding the right words. Belenge smiles, now understanding what Josh means. He nods. Josh then asks Belenge if he’s feeling anxious. Wasiwasi. He tries to convey the feeling with his eyes, but the nuance is hard to communicate. Belenge doesn’t seem to process the notion. Anxiety will be a tricky idea to communicate. Google Translate only goes so far. He’ll return to that one.

  Josh presses forward. He wants to teach Belenge how to calm himself down when he begins to feel paralyzed with fear.

  “This is what you do when you feel hofu or wasiwasi,” Josh continues.

  Josh scoots toward the front of the chair and sits up straight. He takes a deep breath, exaggerating the sound. As he does so, he pulls his arms upward as though pushing air through his lungs. He looks at Belenge and nods at him, encouraging him to do the same. Belenge complies. They’re communicating. Josh holds out his hands and uses his fingers to count down from five. Once done, he begins to exhale slowly, constricting the back of his throat, and pushing the air out through his nose.

  “Slowly,” he says to Belenge, who mirrors Josh’s movements. “Polepole.”

  Josh repeats the breathing cycle several times. As he does, he watches Belenge and guides him. Can the boy feel air moving into his windpipe and down into his lungs? The rise and fall of his chest? Yes, again. Josh continues to take slow, deep breaths, squeezing his words in between. Once the two have practiced several rounds, Josh motions Belenge to stop. Josh wants to show the boy a second exercise he can practice while sitting in class. He tells Belenge that it will help him when he begins to feel tense. The word, however, is not as easy to translate, so Josh settles for nervous. Neva. He tells Belenge to stare at his toes. He should focus on his toes, then relax them. Next, he should direct his mind to his legs. Are they tense? Relax. Pumzika. Josh instructs Belenge to inch his way up his body until his every limb loosens. He instructs Belenge to practice the exercise. He watches as Belenge tries it out. He starts and stops several times, frustrated. Josh tells him to keep trying. It may feel silly, he says, but it will help. He urges Belenge to try.

  Pulling himself forward on the chair, Belenge closes his eyes. He sucks in a long, deep breath and begins. He does it again. And again. He does it until it almost feels natural.

  Sixth period is almost over and Josh can hear a group of Syrian boys begin to congregate. Belenge hears them, too. He loses focus. Today’s session is over.

  When the two meet the following week, Belenge performs the exercises with a little more ease. The week after that, he’s even more relaxed. By the end of November, Belenge returns to the classroom.

  TOBIAS

  •

  Belenge’s father, Tobias, never spoke much about his home village in Fizi, a territory in the South Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo where his family’s tribe, the Bembe people, lived. When he did speak of Congo, Tobias offered one simple belief: “Home is who you are and I am Congolese.”

  In Fizi, Tobias was born into a family of farmers. As the only son among nine children, Tobias was taught the family trades: harvesting tree nuts and carpentry. Like many Bembe families, Tobias’s relied on farming. The nutrient-rich soil was used to grow rice, maize, groundnuts, beans, and bananas. By the time Tobias married his first wife in the early 1980s, Congo was ruled by a notorious kleptocrat, Mobutu Sese Seko, who had turned the country into a mess of corruption. Across the country, healthcare systems broke down and mortality rates pushed past emergency thresholds. In eastern Congo, children accounted for more than 45 percent of deaths due to diseases like malaria, measles, and malnutrition. Tobias and his family were not immune. Over the course of their marriage, Tobias and his first wife had five children, all of whom died before age six. Not long after her fifth child died, his wife fell ill and died in a local hospital.

  Tobias married again in 1991. Three years later, the longstanding conflict between the Hutus and the Tutsis—two African ethnic groups—in Rwanda, began to spill into the Congo. In 1994, Hutus seized power and massacred eight hundred thousand Rwandan people, mostly Tutsis. A Tutsi-led rebel army retaliated causing more than one million Hutus, including some who orchestrated the genocide, to flee to Congo. With an influx of Rwandan refugees spread across the eastern edge of Congo, the border areas, including Fizi, erupted in clashes around ethnicity and land ownership. Amidst the growing mayhem, rebel groups with access to firearms took hold of Bembe villages. Tobias, who believed the agitators to be Rwandan Tutsis, was forced inside his home as he watched militant squads burn homes and farms and round up young local boys to train them as soldiers. During the most violent stretches, Tobias and his family would flee to the rainforest and hide for days at a time. This pattern held for a year, but in 1995 Tobias’s two eldest children were killed in a flare-up of violence. His second wife died less than a month later.

  A year later, in 1996, Mobutu steadily lost grip of the country and was eventually overthrown during a coup staged by Laurent Kabila with the support of both the Rwandan and Ugandan governments. Once Kabila was in power, Rwanda invaded South Kivu, announcing it intended to crush Hutu militias on the Congolese side of the border. With little left for him in Fizi, Tobias fled with nothing except his two-year-old daughter strapped to his back. Some Bembe people fled for the mountains, but Tobias joined a group of hundreds as they ran toward the rainforest. When the group reached the forest, each family tied themselves to one another with rope, encouraging the young and athletic to lead the pack. Tobias, who traveled only with his young daughter, remained separated. He figured it would allow him to freely move among the mass of people.

  It took Tobias more than ten days to walk more than 600 miles to Lake Tanganyika. The rainforest canopy provided shade and mangos, but the threat of death was ever present. Many around Tobias died from dehydration while others drowned in the fast-moving rivers. Some starved and hundreds were mowed down by roaming militia groups. Tobias only stopped to sleep and pull fruit from the trees and water from the ground. When he dug for water in the mud, he’d often have to scoop the liquid into his hands while stepping over half-buried bodies. He’d grown accustomed to death. The journey was hard on Tobias’s young daughter. She cried often, her screams loud in Tobias’s ear. Tobias serenaded her with lullabies his wife used to sing. One, a Christian song, soothed the toddler. Some days, he repeated the simple tune and lyrics until his voice went hoarse: Now the home is burning the day, and your mother has gone to the farm, who is going to put out the fire? It’s me, I’m the only one at home.

  When Tobias reached Lake Tanganyika, he was told to board a small fishing boat. He could see many such boats traveling across the lake, each one overcrowded and weighed down by passengers. The war had pushed hundreds of thousands of Congolese from their home country. The violence, which continued through the following decade, would eventually displace 4.5 million people and kill another two million. At the edge of the lake, Tobias watched several boats capsize before reaching the Tanzanian shore. Tobias, who did not know how to swim, held tightly to his daughter as he climbed onto the wooden boat. He was told it would take eight hours to cross the lake. He closed his eyes and prayed.

  When Tobias reached the Tanzanian border, he was put on a bus and taken to the city of Kigoma where the newly formed UN Refugee Agency camp, Nyarugusu, had been constructed. The seventeen-square-mile camp, which was built to hold fifty thousand refugees, would eventually offer shelter to more than three times that many. At Nyarugusu, Tobias was given a white tent, the blue UNHCR logo printed on its side, which was plotted in a sea of tents, the string of white canvas bright against the red dirt. He was given one pan, one pot, fi
ve cups, and five plates. The UN officer also provided semolina flour, beans, and cassava root. This would be the same set of ingredients he would receive once each month during his twenty years inside Nyarugusu. Outside his tent, Tobias cooked over an open flame with wood he’d gather from the surrounding forest and water he’d pull from a well and boil in his pot. He’d eat once a day, in the late evening, to ensure his food lasted the month.

  As more refugees arrived, an informal economy began to take shape. On Mondays and Fridays, residents from the dozens of internal villages would set up a large market where they sold flowers, fruit, and handcrafted goods. On one such occasion, Tobias spotted a young woman twenty years his junior who caught his eye. He proposed that same day. Within a year, the two had their first child. Belenge, their second of six, was born in 2000. When his sons were old enough, Tobias enlisted the boys to help him build a more permanent house on their land. By the time Belenge was a preteen, Tobias and his family lived in a one-room brick building big enough for three beds. Though there were several primary schools inside the camp, Belenge and his brothers spent most of their days playing soccer. On bright nights under a waxing moon, they’d gather with friends and listen to the rapper 50 Cent and flirt with neighborhood girls.

  Life was steady inside Nyarugusu and Tobias never expected to leave. But in 2014, he and his family were selected to be resettled in Chicago. He had never heard of the city, but Tobias knew of the United States. He’d heard of a priest who’d moved there. But Tobias’s wife, who was pregnant with twins, would never see America. Eight months before Tobias boarded an airplane for Chicago, his wife and both babies died after she suffered a septic embolism.