Well, I celebrated my birthday in typical Jessica fashion, by ignoring it-- I don't know why- I have no objection to aging or birthdays in general and I feel strongly about celebrating other people on their birthdays. But also in typical Jessica's birthday fashion, the people I am close to (as well as random people that I sort of maybe remember from highschool thanks to facebook) did not ignore it and I was secretly was glad that it did not go all that unnoticed.
Birthdays bring instant fame on facebook apparently- from random people from my past to people who go to my church but I don't really know in "real life" to BFFs. It is kind of funny. That night I sat in the office at Glenfield church before ESL with our "Principal" Scott and said, "Oh look, the girl who "RAed" (Yes, Scott I will verb anything I want to! so shhh!)me for a month during the summer of my freshman year of college wishes me a happy birthday. Thanks Liz Amundsen now Reyes. Happy Birthday to you too!
I had a lovely birthday though. It started out with dropping The Mee Shaw and her mom off at school. Ma San Htin decided that she wanted to chaperone a field trip. I know this seems like no big deal, but I was really excited that she had the confidence to this- Ma San Htin, who didn't want to go to parent- teacher conferences because she didn't speak English!
Also, as a result, I got to have Wonderful for the morning- and she was wonderful. We went to my office and she just chilaxed with a movie and a train set. She is just so cute and good. We are Bff's now because I got her McDonald's on the way home. We hung out at her house for a bit then I was off to work some more, then to ESL.
At ESL that night I learned that one of my students was moving, which is half of our class. Worse yet,he is taking Michelle with him! A bit about Michelle, For a time it was only me and Abigail in class, our other 2 students had moved on- so we created "Michelle" one day. Michelle is a stick person of an ambiguous gender who can be used as a reference point in sentences such as, " Abigail always comes to class, but Michelle only comes to class sometimes" Well, I had 4 (real) students for a while, but then one got a job and the her husband was busy with the baby. So it was down to Abigail and Mo Rah again, with the occasional appearence of Michelle. Apparently Michelle has gained a firm identity as well as a history and now she is dating Mo Rah, who is all too apt to have girlfriends. So, Mo Rah will be taking Michelle with him when they migrate to Connecticut. Mo Rah came for his last class on Thursday and we kind of blew off most of the lesson to make a good-bye video for him fully equipped with music video- it wasn't in the lesson plan, but hey, it's a conversational class and we were definitely talking!
Abigail and I worked on a song for the video- to be sung to "God is so good" because we all know that song as we sing it at ESL every week.
Chorus:We miss Mo Rah, We miss Mo Rah
Please don't go, just stay here (with us/ Mo Rah)
If you want we will bring
for you Michelle
If you go Abigail
Will have to be the doctor. and the patient!
(Chorus)
We will cry
Is that good for you?
We think it's ridiculous
that you are leaving
(Chorus)
You have an obligation to come and visit us
When you go we will cry
and that will be a distrction
Obviously, you can see that we have been learning some "big words" in class. So I think we sent Mo Rah off well. we had fun at least and used our big words.
Mo Rah is leaving because that is what refugees are conditioned to do when things start to look bleak. He and his brother Eh Kaw are the breadwinners for the household. They live with their parents and uncle who are too old to work. They arrived about 6 months or so ago- I remember that day. Mo Rah and Eh Kaw were both working and trying to figure out how to also go to school when their factory closed down. Because the have been here 6 months they are at the bottom of the list for help in finding employment with their resettlement agency-- and the list is long, very long these days.
It is difficult to find employment for refugees for so many reasons, in the situation of the Karen, often times the families have been in camps so long and unable to work that they are coming here with skill, yes, but not marketable skills in this context. Mo Rah was born in Thailand. His family fled Burma more than 21 years ago. In addition the this, many refugees come to the U.S with little or no English skills. If you have no English, but can speak Spanish, that is one thing, but if you speak an obscure lauguage belonging only to your people group, it is another thing entirely. Mo Rah cam with a little English, but Eh Kaw came with none. Employers who hire refugees are often facotries and they will hire a group at a time. Unfortunately Acme has just closed down and Touch Sensor is closing soon- two big companies that employ new refugees.
Mo Rah and Eh Kaw's family are moving on to Connecticut. They have a realtive there, but no real prospects. They don't really want to go, but the mother is certain it will bring them something new. I hope so. I often see refugees migrating all over the country in search of hope when things get tricky. It makes sense, times like these were like the beginning of the storm in their own countries.
Well, it was a nice day, despite the news that Mo Rah and his girlfriend Michelle will be leaving us.
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