Help Wanted for the Muslim Diaspora

Help Wanted for the Muslim Diaspora
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This is a request to anyone in the Albuquerque area who is interested in lending a hand to political refugees from the Middle Eastern countries ravaged by violence, especially (but not limited to) fellow Returned Peace Corps Volunteers -- especially RPCVs who served in the Middle East. Or to those who want to resist the Trump wind and to persist in doing the right thing

Recently, at a meeting of area RPCVs, I met David D’Agostino, who served in the Dominican Republic. He told me that through Catholic Charities Refugee Mentoring Program he has been mentoring a young Afghani man who is a member of a family that had been totally devastated by the Taliban. When he said that the four three-generation family members – grandma, aunt, and two teen grandsons – spoke Farsi, at first I was surprised because I had believed that Afghanis spoke Dari, a cousin of Farsi, but a different language; but after he assured me that they spoke Farsi , I immediately teamed with David to help that family any way that I could (my wife Sabina and I had served in Iran from 1969-1971).

To introduce me to them, David took me to their small apartment, where I had a wonderful chat in Farsi with the two matriarchs while sitting on the floor and sipping tea. It was the first full-blown Farsi conversation I had had in decades. I learned why they spoke Farsi: they had emigrated to Iran to flee the Taliban violence and had lived there (in Shiraz, one of our favorite Iranian cities) for more than seven years. Grandma Khomari’s husband and son, the father of the two young men, had been killed by the Taliban. They recently came to the USA.

While telling Grandma Komari about our years in Iran, our 1971 Tehran-born son Christopher, and our love of that country, I embarrassed myself by bawling uncontrollably while recounting stories about Chris and his Iranian nanny, Fatima Khanom, Chris’s stand-in grandma. Grandma Khomari looks very much like Fatima Khanom, with whom we spoke only Farsi and who spoke only Farsi to Chris (for she, like Grandma Khomari, knew not one word of English); and who loved our son very much – her only son had been killed by a wayward car in front of her home a year earlier.

It was just too much for me recounting how Fatima Khanom loved asking Chris things like “Sweetie, what does the crow say? (”Joonam, kalag chekar mikone?”); then when he couldn’t answer, she would tell him: “Qaw! Qaw! Qaw!.” My tears flowed even more heavily when I told her about one day when we came home from school at lunchtime, we peeked into the kitchen and saw Khanom Fatima and Chris on the floor. Chris was helping her stem raisins. Khanom told Chris in baby-Farsi, “We’re gonna make Keshmesh-polo (Raisin pilaf) for you, Crees-Aziz-am (My dear Chris). I just couldn’t help it. I think it was a combination of speaking Farsi, nostalgia, and seeing refugees face-to-face.

Since I began volunteering at Catholic Charities -- teaching English to immigrants and political refugees, I have been heartened (but not surprised) that thirty other area ex-Peace Corps volunteers (like David) have also showed an interest in lending a helping hand to political and poverty-stricken refugees, as have countless other RPCVs and (non-RPCVs)across the country. The Peace Corps has even established an advocacy group for this post-service activity. Like, us, many of the surviving quarter of a million Returned Peace Corps Volunteers who completed their service abroad and are back in the U.S. cherish the cross-cultural experiences that led them to understand how best to work among the people in their assigned foreign countries.

As proud liberals (and not at all hesitant to describe ourselves with the “L-word” in the Trump era), my wife Sabina and I in the 1970s lent a hand to southeast Asian refugees after the disastrous Vietnam War; now we are finding ourselves doing the same thing after the disastrous Middle Eastern wars.

Some RPCVs speak Spanish and can speak with migrants who cross the southwest borders. Or French, and can speak with refugees from parts of Africa. Some want to help refugees no matter where they came from, as they remember their old friends, students, and colleagues in the countries where they served. Other RPCVs know other languages well enough to help refugees from North Africa and the Middle East. I’m in the latter category because I served in Iran and wound up teaching English in three different Middle Eastern countries for a total of sixteen years.

I feel there is no better way than to be an anti-Trump soldier than to serve refugees (and Mexican immigrants) these days. it’s very clear that we are living in a time in which the battle lines are being drawn. You know that the recent marchers were protesting three key attempts by our government to reduce or take away the rights on women, to reduce or take away health care for the masses, and to reduce or stop refugees and immigrants from coming to America as our ancestors did.

Please contact me if you would like to help in this campaign. Several refugees (and immigrants) need mentors.

#Islamophobia #MuslimRefugees #liberals #MexicanImmigrants #CatholicCharities

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