That's me, my brother in law, and Zee in the key-transfer ceremony after we got the camper set up.
UPDATE: Sunday, Jun 11, 2023 · 12:54:10 AM +00:00
·
nancyjones
OMG, did I ever mention y’all are the greatest? Your caring and action through your recs and comments and contributions have resulted in $625 being contributed. What that means is that Zee can get his contacts and his driver’s license and Hope Springs from Field has a little boost for its awesome operations. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
A couple of months ago I went to NextDoor to see what’s up around here. DeSantis is in the process of taking over our municipal power company, and NextDoor is where I get up-to-the-minute info on that fiasco. I scrolled through the posts and saw one of someone needing “temporary cash” and offering to do yardwork in exchange for such. I needed a few hours of yardwork, so I sent a message.
The next weekend, Zee showed up. He put four hours of work into my yard and far exceeded my expectations. During the course of the day, we got to talking. I learned that Zee is a refugee from Tanzania. He’s been in the asylum program for 10 years, which keeps him from being deported, but he doesn’t have a green card, only a work permit, and the last time his work permit was up for renewal, it was delayed. Zee thinks that was because so many Ukarainian refugees were being processed at the time, and I have no reason to doubt that, but regardless, the result was that his work permit expired. He lost his job.
Zee had saved some money, but it ran out before his work permit was renewed, so he lost his apartment and ended up living in a shed owned by a crazy cat lady. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a cat lady myself, but from what I’ve subsequently learned, the cat lady whose property he was living on was batshit crazy.
Fortunately the week before he showed up to do yard work for me, his work permit got renewed nearly a year after he’d applied for renewal, and to his delight the renewal was for two years. He was only expecting one. He had the opportunity to get back on his feet, and the first thing he wanted to do was get away from the crazy cat lady. He needed to find someplace else to live.
Now, I’m no stranger to extending a hand to the homeless. Back in my Occupy days, I invited a homeless man to spend a night in my spare bedroom because the temperatures were gonna drop really low and he had health problems and I didn’t want him to freeze. He ended up staying for four months until we ultimately found a way for him to get home to his family in Miami. Through that experience and others, like working in the social services office of our hospital, I made a lot of contacts with people who help the homeless.
After hearing Zee’s story, I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I was intent on finding someone who can help him. I mentioned the situation to my sister in Atlanta, and she said, “Oh, well we have been thinking of selling our camper for a while. We could bring it to you.”
Long story short-ish, that’s just what she did, and Zee is now living in that camper in my backyard. He’s doing eight hours a week of yardwork in exchange, and man is my yard looking good! I’ve learned a little more about him, like he was born in Somalia and his childhood consisted of his parents escaping from one war-torn region to another as refugees. In 1985, when he was five, he witnessed his 17-year-old uncle be executed during a refugee camp slaughter in Lebanon. He calls Tanzania home because that’s where his family found the most of what little refuge they found, and two of his siblings still live there. The rest of his family is scattered over the region, and he jokes that he comes from a UN family. He came to the US when he was 18 to go to school, earned an associates degree, but life and health woes happened so the family’s dream of following him here never materialized.
In the short time I’ve known Zee, he’s been an inspiration to me. He’s polite, he’s smart, and above all he keeps a positive attitude despite severe adversity. Because his work permit has been renewed, he sees things looking up. Like maybe he won’t have to live in a cat lady’s backyard forever!
Zee has diabetes, which is affecting his eyesight. He hasn’t gotten a new prescription for contacts for three years, and because of that he can’t pass his driver’s license test. He needs a driver’s license so that he can make an income. He’s told me he needs to come up with $500 for the exam and the prescription. I want to help him. To be clear, he hasn’t asked me for help, but I want to help him and I don’t have that kind of money, but I do have y’all and maybe this is something you can pitch in for. He doesn’t know I’m writing this, but here’s the ask.
Could/would you chip in a few dollars to help Zee get his vision corrected so he can get back on his feet? Any amount would be greatly appreciated, and so would reccing this diary so more people can see it. No guilt at all if this isn’t up your alley. I think y’all are the greatest and I understand more that many that there are only so many dollars anyone has to help others with. But if you can and you want to, please send contributions to my PayPal account, jones.nancy at outlook dot com, or CashApp to nancyhjones.
If more than $500 is donated, I’ll send any extra to Hope Springs from Field PAC. I have no formal affiliation with them, but I read snowbored’s diaries regularly and am convinced that that’s a great effort to support if you want to see more and better Democrats elected!
Oh, and one more thing. I’ve vetted Zee. He’s a Bernie Sanders fan, and he thinks DeSantis’s anti-gay, white supremacist policies suck. He’s also got a 14 year old cat, Maggie, that’s lived with him since her infancy.
Thanks for reading!
