Perseverance is a Good Trait

A man running for his life grabs up his little girl and runs towards safety during what seemed like a forever war in Côte d’Ivoire, (the Ivory Coast).  Trying to make sure everyone survived, he left his wife behind with their son.  I’m not sure of all the details, some of which I suspect are much too horrific to recount even now. His daughter found herself on a whole different continent in a country so many miles from what she knew as home in the place called Maryland some 20 plus years later. I came to know that girl who managed to grow into a fine young lady; 24-year-old Seta, along with her five-year-old son, Hamza, arrived in Maryland speaking very little English in September of 2009. When we talked about it, she mostly talked about Abidjan which is a major urban city on the southern Atlantic Coast of Cote d’Ivoire.  She talked about her friends there and her quest to come to the U.S.  She gave me very little detail about her growing up and I didn’t press her. As with so many refugees, she had heard of the United States as the place to be. She wanted that chance for her and her son. Willing to leave behind all that she knew, she applied for asylum, and after some time, she was finally accepted to come to the US. I’m sure she was excited but also scared. I think about her these days as I watch the horrors of the Ukrainian people being forced from their land, abandoning their homes and all their possessions just trying to survive. One thing I know about the human spirit is that it can survive even the most unimaginable conditions.

As part of the Young Professionals organization, my middle child (Maya) was assigned to help this young lady get acclimated to life in the US.  What she didn’t realize at the time, was that Seta did not speak the language well. She understood the language and her son spoke English well but communicating with her was extremely difficult.  We would visit with them on average, twice a week.  Maya would help Hamza with his homework, and I would try to teach Seta to read. This was no easy task and to be honest, after working all day my patience often wore thin trying to teach what would be for her, a third language. I got the most enjoyment out of just reading books to Hamza. About a year into our “project”, Maya decided to move to LA and that left me and sometimes my youngest daughter Nayda to continue helping our newly acquired extended family.  There even came a time that Yamil (my oldest who lives in Boston) even helped. I can’t tell you the countless papers I read and forms I filled out on her behalf. Forms for school, forms for getting an apartment, forms for applying for citizenship, etc.  Sometimes I had to redo forms. She had to move quite often and with each move, I assisted in getting her settled in. One such place she was sharing with another person who had a boy child like her.  She too, was from Africa although a completely different country.  One day Seta called and was extremely upset.  I always had a hard time understanding her on the phone so when she’s upset, she actually sounds like she’s speaking another language – definitely not English and definitely not a language I know. As it turned out, the person she was sharing the apartment with was not paying the rent (even though Seta was giving her the portion she was supposed to give her).  Seta arrived home from work to find that she had been evicted. All her things were on the street. I immediately went into action.  We gathered up all we could manage, and I rented a storage unit for her to put her things in. The worst part was that her apartment mate stole all the money she had been saving to try to go “home” for a visit (about $3,000). It was impractical for them to come to stay with me as we lived in different counties and Hamza’s school was nearby the apartment where she was. That day, after going to the police department and filling out forms, I left her and Hamza at a bus stop where they waited for one of her friends to come home.  I had plans to go to New York and as painful as it was for me to leave her, she was confident that everything would be fine. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but one of my co-workers went and got her and took her and Hamza to a hotel for homeless people.  She would have to get up so early just to get Hamza to the babysitter and school. Hamza recounted the experience to me one day. “My mama cries a lot. I tell her to stop crying mama it’s ok”. She refused to go to the shelter because she had heard about the terrible things that happen to people there. That was just one of a series of negative events for her. At one point she was working three jobs – one at a nursing home, another at McDonalds and in what little time she had left, she worked braiding hair. She finally did get to go back home for a visit and during that visit she married Hamza’s father. Not only that, after so many years, she found out that her mother was still alive and got to see her as well – what a glorious reunion!!!  After being in this country for 10 plus years, I was honored to attend her swearing in ceremony for her and Hamza’s citizenship. Then came the task of trying to unite her family. I filled out so many forms trying to get her husband here and then, as fate would have it, in 2016 the country was pretty much locked down to immigrants. Finally with the election of a new president in 2020, things opened up for just a short time and then came the pandemic which put everything on pause!

I got to see Hamza graduate from elementary school and then again from Junior High School.  This year he will graduate from High School. Some 14 years later, Seta, and her husband were reunited here in the United States and incidentally her husband is now working!  Seta has completed school, has had two additional babies, another boy and a precious little girl, and is working on getting her driver’s license.  How’s that for PERSEVERANCE!

“ And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men” Galatians 6:9, 10a