First Week with Refugees

I've just finished my first week of full-time teaching with my refugees. The second day of class--Tuesday--a Russian mama of 9 had a birthday. She cooked for the class for her own b-day. I didn't get great pics, but here a few that I snapped quickly.

A few of my students are Hindus that don't eat meat or eggs, but they will drink milk. I was careful to tell them which dishes had those in them.

These are not the best pictures of everyone since I caught them off guard so they aren't smiling. Most of my students have been here less than a year. A handful have been here less than a month, so they'll be going through quite a bit of cultural adjustment.

This is the birthday girl and her husband. I thought they were so cute to dress matching on her day.

I don't know much about my students backgrounds yet. I hope to learn more from them and from this website that has pdfs on their refugee history by people groups. Most of the Russian and Ukrainians I believe come here based on religious persecution--Orthodox against Pentecostals. I also have students from Burma, Yap (Micronesia), Somalia, Burundi, and Bhutan. For a lot of the students, this is the third place of refuge that they've been. For example, the Burundis were in Tanzania, the Bhutanese have been in refugee camps in Nepal for 16 years, and some of the Russians have been in Estonia and Kazakhstan.

They are a fun group with some surprises already along the way. I've already had to ask the Yapese not to chew betel nut in class. If you aren't familiar with betel nut, I'm posting some pictures below that I got off the net. It is common throughout parts of Asia to the Pacific islands. It is a mild stimulant that dies the mouth red, and I think it looks like blood in their mouths while they're chewing it due to how it dies saliva. All in all, it's pretty gross.

So you can see why I asked them to save that for the breaks!