Yankee Transplant says: In 1975, F had been in Liberia, West Africa, working for the Peace Corps. During his time there, he met and fell in love with A., who was 19 years old and amazingly beautiful. Her skin was dark, dark brown and had a perpetual sheen to it. Her hair was braided and way down her back. She was more than just stunning and sexy, she was engaging and intelligent and soft-hearted.
Saturday, June 11, 2005
A Really Long Post About Heroism
[Excerpt]
In 1975, F had been in Liberia, West Africa, working for the Peace Corps. During his time there, he met and fell in love with A., who was 19 years old and amazingly beautiful. Her skin was dark, dark brown and had a perpetual sheen to it. Her hair was braided and way down her back. She was more than just stunning and sexy, she was engaging and intelligent and soft-hearted. When F returned to the United States, they said goodbye with the promise that he would send for her and move her to America to be his wife. F. was true to his word, and after an incredibly arduous visa process, home she came, to his white world and Italian American family, and differing levels of acceptance and inclusion. F's mother adored A, and the feeling was mutual. She taught A all about flower gardening and American cooking and made her feel loved and appreciated.
A left behind her two sisters, her mother, and three nieces, among others. They were living a primitive life in Liberia, but a happy one. The civil war changed all that. The three girls, their parents, grandmother, and aunts were in imminent danger. In fact, the father of the girls was murdered in front of the middle daughter. The language they spoke in Libera is Kisi. In Kisi, each person has a given name, and a "number name" that signifies their birth order. For instance, first daughters are all called Sia, second daughters, Kumba and third daughters, Finda. Kumba was 8 when she witnessed her father's murder. After his death, their mother, aunt, and grandmother packed up all the belongings they could carry, and walked the girls north to relative safety in a refugee camp in Sierra Leone, also on the west coast of Africa, adjacent to Liberia. There they began to make a new life for themselves. The oldest daughter, Sia, who was 17, had been to school quite a bit, and knew a good deal of English. The little girls, Kumba,who was 12 and Finda, who was 8, had only been to two years of school each and knew very little. Shortly after the move, the girls' mother was cooking one afternoon, while Sia was out working, selling vegetables at a stand, and Finda was out playing with friends. Mama sent Kumba to the garden to get her a plant to help her belly-she had terrible pains and needed something to "put out the fire" as she told her daughter. Kumba quickly obeyed, and ran back with the plant. She put it in a pot to boil, and went back to her mother's bed, to find her already dead. The funeral was the next day, and the orphaned children held eachother and sobbed. They were now in the care of their loving aunt and grandmother.
Back in the United States, A received a phone call from Africa, informing her of her sister's death. After a long period of discussion, thinking, and worrying about finances, A and F decided to take what little money they had and buy a house, hoping to leave enough for travel to go claim their nieces and A's mother. F's family pitched in when they heard the plan. His sister, Aunt Angel, went to their father and convinced him to give F whatever cash he was hoping to leave him in his will, so they could get on with the business of making a home for their new family.
This was when I met them. A asked me in the yard that day if my kids were adopted. I told her their stories (tame by comparison!) and she told me that she and F were in the process of getting visas so they could adopt her nieces.
Thus began one of the most incredible family friendships of our lives. After an unbelievably convoluted, bureaucratic nightmare filled with red tape and disappointments, A flew to Sierra Leone and claimed her mother and her children. F stayed in Boston, to receive phone calls and fix up the house. He bought a large TV for the living room (?) and bunk beds for the younger two. He fixed up the bedroom downstairs for Grandma. He turned what was once his office into a room for Sia. He was ready, and Older Daughter, Younger Daughter and I were ready, too. I had gone to our elementary school, where OD was in fifth grade and YD in first, and talked to my good friend, the principal, about having Kumba and Finda attend school for the last month with my girls. He was more than happy to oblige. I had taken A. and F. over to meet the teachers, and I had given their history to the school so they could prepare the other classmates for these girls as much as possible. We counted the days until they could come home; an incredibly long time due to people falling asleep on the job at the American Embassy. During the wait, F and I spent a lot of time talking about how perfect it was that the younger girls were exactly the same ages as OD and YD; in my estimation, they had built-in friends. F was not so sure. "What if they don't like eachother?" he wondered. I refused to entertain such a ridiculous notion. My girls love other kids and have always approached new kids as potential friends. I just knew, down in my heart, that the gods had placed these people so near us for a reason. For several reasons. Finally, A. called and said they were really leaving this time. We could barely sleep the night before their arrival. I took the day off from work, picked the kids up early from school, and went home to wait for F. to call and say it was ok to come down the hill. We were very mindful of their long journey, their lack of familiarity with anything American-hell, they had only seen one white person in their lives! We saw the van pull in to the driveway and I told the girls that they would probably be exhausted and just want to crash and meet their father. Not so! Just a few minutes after they got home, A called and told us to come right down. We FLEW down that hill! Finda, the youngest, was already asleep, but Sia and Kumba were wide awake and shell-shocked. Quiet. Subdued. We walked in, said hello, sat down, and tried to communicate quietly, that is, after I threw my arms around A and kissed all of them all over their faces. The most beautiful faces I have ever encountered outside my family. They are all so, so dark and their skin is so lovely and smooth. We sat in awkward silence for a couple of moments, and then OD started chattering with Kumba. Kumba struggled to understand and be understood, and A spent a good deal of time shouting interpretation. We spent all our free time together for months. I would pick Kumba (my favorite) up on my lunch hour and take her places that made her gasp-the Pepperidge Farm outlet store, for instance. She could not believe all that bread and cookies in one place. The car wash-everyone's favorite. It was a drive-through. After being a little scared, they all squealed with glee. It was raining, but they were dry! Friday nights, we all had dinner together. Always baked chicken, African style. We called it "Chicken Friday". I would supply the meat one week, A the next, and we would have rice and salad. Kumba and Finda ate it all-even the bones! OD and YD were fascinated. The four younger girls became immediate and permanent friends. Sia, who was 19, was more aloof, but was able to open up to me. She had a very hard adjustment and she and her new mother fought quite a bit. At those times, I would take her to spend the day with me and let her vent. She had been responsible for her sisters for years. She didn't like being told what to do. I would sympathize without selling her mother out, and when she returned home, A always said it had made a difference.
Sia got a job at the local Stop and Shop. She went to our local high school. She started her junior year as a C student and graduated with honors. She enrolled in a community college for two years and has now just finished her junior year at an extremely competetive college, living on campus, on a full scholarship. She's getting a degree in accounting.
Kumba, OD's "best friend forever", has just finished her sophomore year in high school. Finda, YD's dear friend, is just finishing up 6th grade. She's a star soccer player. These girls learned how to navigate the world of American teenage-hood with my girls as their guides. They have shared something immeasurable. We see them every time we are in Boston, and Kumba spent a couple of weeks with us one summer. We'd have her any time. Their parents have been through a very difficult time, having gone from many years as a couple to an immediate family of teenage girls and a mother who speaks no English. But they hang in there, working, both of them, very hard, to keep food in the fridge and a roof over their heads. Grandma is very isolated. I don't know why nobody has taught her English and she hasn't tried to learn, but she wants to go back to Africa. She hates the cold. She and I had something truly special-a communication without words. Every time I show up at their house, she stands on the front stoop and dances around in a circle, clapping her hands. It's not me, it could have been anyone. I just happened to break through the barrier of silence.
I know I am the luckiest person alive. I have more incredible heroes and heroines as family and friends than anyone else on earth. I don't know why this is so, I guess I'm just born under a lucky star.
I miss these people, the children especially, more than they will ever know.
