A Burmese Midnight Snack…

I wasn’t hungry, but when I saw the spread of spicy Burmese food, I couldn’t say no.

Last night, I worked my first case as an assistant caseworker for the Center for New Americans in Syracuse.  A fellow caseworker, a Burmese man who arrived in Syracuse six years ago, and I picked up a family of seven at the airport after they had been traveling for more than 24 hours from a refugee camp in Thailand. Although the family was technically Burmese, they had been living for years in Thailand in a camp and three of their children were without citizenship since they were born in Thailand, but neither Burma or Thailand will recognize them as citizens.

CNA is one of the three refugee resettlement agencies in central New York that receives notification from the federal government when a refugee or refugee family is approved to enter the country.  The refugee usually has only one or two options of where to go within the U.S., and Syracuse happens to be a refugee destination hotspot.  When CNA gets word that a new refugee is coming, the agency is responsible for securing them housing, food vouchers, doctors appointments, and referring them to the Refugee Assistance Program, an associate agency, for English classes and job training.  Refugees receive three months of government benefits, and CNA services, to get on their feet before being cut off and have to fend for themselves.

The first of the CNA services that a refugee family receives is getting an orientation and hot meal from CNA caseworkers when they arrive.  That’s where I came in last night.

I loaded their luggage (two large, plastic bags) in the back of my pickup truck and piled four of the children into the car with me while Stone, the other caseworker, drove the other three. Not speaking a word of English, it took some sign language and demonstrating to explain how to buckle a seatbelt and how to work the automatic door locks.  Finally, they settled in and we drove to their new home in Syracuse, a three-bedroom house on the Northside.

Of course, I don’t speak Burmese at all and so for once in my life, I didn’t try to make conversation but simply turned on the radio (to the delight of the little boys in the back) and we drove in silence.  Honestly, and this rarely happens to me, I felt slightly out of my element. To the people sitting in my car, I was an anomaly, a complete and total enigma, just as they were to me, and we had no way of communicating. I was just one more strange thing for them to add to their, I’m sure, long list of strange things they had seen since stepping foot in the U.S.  I wanted to make them feel at ease, but I didn’t know how, so I squashed my natural tendency to chatter, and simply let them take everything in about the city flashing past the car windows.

Fortunately for them, another Burmese family was waiting at their house, even though it was midnight, and took them home for the night to sleep and give them a hot meal. With my job done, I smiled and turned to leave but was stopped, to my surprise, by the host, a Burmese man who has lived in Syracuse since 2007.  ”Won’t you stay and eat with us?” he asked in Burmese.  Stone translated for me, and I hesitated before realizing that they were actually eager to have me stay and sample their Burmese cooking.  They wanted the opportunity to teach the American something, to draw me into their world a little, in contrast to having been thrust so abruptly and completely into ours.

Relaxing a little, I took off my shoes and sat down on the room-size plastic mat called a piat (I think), and they passed around bowls of rice to which each person added their choice of fish, meat, or shrimp and rich oily sauces, both spicy and sweet.  The cooking was similar to Indian but not quite. I couldn’t put my finger on the distinction but the flavors were a bit more Middle Eastern than Indian.  One of the little boys, about three years old with the most endearing smile I’ve ever seen, dug in with his hands.

Speaking through Stone, my host then invited me to break the fast and celebrate Ramadan, the Muslim holiday, on Friday with his family.

Well, I guess I should go! I was touched that they had invited me, and invited me so enthusiastically as well. However, I realized one very important thing last night: working as a caseworker exposes me to these different cultures and experiences, but at the same time to people undergoing the most traumatic and significant changes of their lives.  The gap in understanding between myself and these people is wider than any distance I had to leap while studying over 5,000 miles away.  Right here in Syracuse, NY is where I’m discovering the true meaning of intercultural exchange and understanding…and it’s more powerful than I ever thought it could be.

An Afternoon in La Vega

If I’m in danger of feeling boredom, or lethargy, I walk.

“Wait, you walk to and from work everyday?” say my friends. Yes, I do. And just about everywhere else as well.

I spend at least an hour every day, usually more, just walking. Sometimes choosing new routes, but no matter what, I always see something new wherever I choose to walk.  When I studied abroad in Santiago last year, I realized how much time I wasted on the metro, underground, without light and crammed into a tight space with hundreds of other extremely stressed-out people.  No thanks.

Today, I decided to work from home so I missed out on my daily walk. By about 2:30 in the afternoon, I’d had enough of staring at my computer screen, especially with all the tantalizing sunlight streaming in through my apartment’s enormous windows. I needed to some fruit, so rather than walk to the corner grocer, I decided to walk (about an hour’s walk) to Santiago’s largest fresh fruit and vegetable market, La Vega.

La Vega is one of my favorite places in Santiago. It’s close to my office so when the weather is nice, I walk down to get a mote con huesillo (stewed dried peaches and corn in peach juice), from my favorite stand and sit in the plaza, observing the comings and goings of the vendors and shoppers. Invariably, there is a group of eight old grizzled men playing cards around a table by the mote con huesillo stand. They rarely speak, but the same group is there every single day, playing cards, regardless of what time I happen to visit La Vega.

La Vega can be overwhelming in its variety but today I shopped with efficiency, buying bananas, apples, kiwis, walnuts, olives, and plantains before treating myself to my favorite snack and settling into my customary place on the plaza to enjoy the sunshine.

Then it hit me. This is what I will miss. The sheer independence of walking where I like, having the time to sit and watch a group of old men play cards, observe the sharp contrast of the Andes mountains against the tall buildings of Santiago. This summer where my obligations have been my own, not contrived by external forces such as class, homework, job, or even friends and family. Above all, as I sat there watching the bustle wash around me, I’ve finally achieved a sense of place and home in Santiago, hard-earned and long in coming, but achieved all the same.

Such is the feeling of a complete independence, impossible to have throughout one’s entire life, but cherished in the moment.

I finished my mote con huesillo, hoisted my bag of fruit over my shoulder, and started my leisurely way back home, composing a new article for my website in my head as I went.

Cirque de Soleil, hey!!

My phone rang at 12:30 a.m. last night.

It was my friend Vasco. “What are you doing? Did you I wake you up?” he asked.

“No, you didn’t,” I replied, although I was huddled in my bed, just about to turn out the lights and get a full night’s sleep before a busy day at work.

“Great, want to go out?”

Absolutely not, I thought, but then he pulled out the only motivation he knew could possibly get me out of bed on a Tuesday night in the freezing cold of Santiago, Chile.

“Want to meet the President of Chile?”

I was up and out of bed in a flash, pulled on some nice clothes and was out the door when his car pulled up. As employees of Cirque de Soleil, which will be in Santiago until August 15, Vasco and his brother had passes to the exclusive Cirque de Soleil cast party, and where apparently, Chile’s most influential elite had gathered earlier in the evening to see the show.

When I heard we were going to a cast party, I knew the mention of the President had been a ploy. “He already left didn’t he?” I accused.

“Yeah, most likely. But that’s the only thing I could have said to make you come right?” he said.

Well yes, I had even grabbed my reporter’s recorder and little notebook, just in case.

Regardless, we drove to the massive Movistar arena where the cast party was in full swing. When we entered the arena my jaw dropped. Nearly a thousand people filled the arena, now decked out as a ritzy nightclub with two VIP sections and four open bars with every kind of liquor imaginable stationed strategically at each corner of the huge space. And in the middle? A ferris wheel that tipsy Cirque de Soleil performers rode while rocking out to the two brilliant DJs set up on the stage in front of flashing lights.

Granted, no Piñera, but I’d never seen anything like this cast party. My own cast party experiences after high school musical theater shows paled away to a transparent wisp of pathetic memory in comparison to the trapeze artists, clowns, and musicians that gyrated and danced with wild abandon in every corner of the arena between trips to the bar for free drinks.

The full absurdity of my situation hit me after two hours, a few drinks, and was peering down at the crowd below from the top of a ferris wheel. Cirque de Soleil, you’re a ten in my book, and I haven’t even seen the show yet.

Needless to say, I was late for work the next day.