Breakthrough

I think I had a break-through the last couple of times I visited the Phans. The kids are usually very chatter-y with me, but sometimes after an hour there is a lull in the conversation. I’m not that outgoing, so those pauses make me feel uncomfortable, as I search my brain for the match that will spark a conversation. Last Saturday I told Sonny, who understands English the best, that I was going to Los Angeles that afternoon to visit a friend who just got a pacemaker. I didn’t use those words of course. I said something like this: “I’m going to Los Angeles today. My friend got a machine right here (putting my hand over my heart) to help his heart pump. (I opened and closed my fist.) The machine helps the heart pump. Thump, thump, thump.”

Sonny passed the story on to the rest of his family. They seemed genuinely interested. Pacemakers aren’t a part of refugee camp medicinal cures. As neighbors came and went as they always do at their apartment, I knew the story was being passed around in their language, Karen. I could pick up the words “Los Angeles” and the sounds “dup dup dup.” When each new person heard the story, their eyes would get wide, and they would say something like our English “ohhhhhh.”

Yesterday the kids and I spread out in a circle on the familiar green and white woven mat. Some of them got out their homework while the mom, May, took out a clump of grocery store ads that came in the mail. She busied herself cutting out the food items, while the kids and I worked on homework. At one point, I took out a credit card from my wallet and told Sonny that someone stole my bank number from my card and took $1,000 from me. I said they bought makeup with the money and asked them if they knew what makeup was. They did not. I mimed putting on eye shadow, rouge and lipstick and said that was makeup. Me-yem immediately translated my actions into the Karen word for makeup. Everyone had stopped what they were doing to listen intently to Sonny’s translation. I said they had bought the makeup online. “Online” was a new word for them, so I used the words “on computer.” We talked for a while about that. It felt good that they were so captivated with a story from my life.

My usual course of conversation is to ask them questions. This time, they were asking me questions. They were very surprised when I said the bank is going to give me my money back. This concept was as foreign to them as a pacemaker. Someone asked how they got my number. I told them that I didn’t know, but when I enter a PIN, I’m going to be much more careful to hide the keypad when I type it in. Actually, I didn’t exactly say all that; I borrowed Sonny’s calculator to demonstrate entering my PIN and how I am now going to cover the pad with my other hand. May asked if her food stamps card number could be stolen. I asked her to show it to me, because I didn’t know what a food stamps card looked like. I didn’t know if it resembled a check or a credit card. It looks more like a toy credit card. It is the same size as a real bank card, but the numbers are printed on it, not raised like a credit card. I asked if she needed to enter a PIN, and Sonny asked, “You mean four numbers?” I replied that the four numbers you enter is called a PIN. May does need to enter a PIN when she buys groceries. We all agreed to be more careful when we enter our PINs.

We went back to solving the sum of fractions with different denominators, identifying the food that May had carefully cut out and reading a very simple story about snow. I left on a high note, feeling like I had really accomplished something by realizing that things that go on in my life may be just as interesting to them as their stories are to me.