Wow! I'm getting a lot of email asking about the socks featured in
this auction for kos.
Yeah the socks are pretty cool, but the most amazing thing about them are the ladies who make them.
I've worked with refugees for six years. Most other workers are far more clued in on the systems in place (or not) for the refugees. The over-worked under-paid professionals know more about the trials refugees undergo to survive in this country.
For the last three years, I've been part-time and volunteer and I just hang out with the ladies--almost all Bosnian now though some Turkish Kurds will also form a similar group of war widows and I'll work with them.
I have a core group of them but the group has decreased over the last three years as they get real jobs--thank goodness! All the former city-dwellers and high school graduates in this group of war widows manage to find jobs and a place in our city. They mostly work as cleaners.
The others can work a farm, hitch a horse to wagon (they miss riding horses) grow crops, milk cows or goats and make cheese--but we just don't have a lot of call for that kind of work around here (if anyone knows of that sort of work that's public transportation commuting distance to Hartford, let me know! Yes, we know about the fabulous Holcomb farm). They didn't finish elementary school and are virtually illiterate in their own language, which doesn't help their chances of work here.
Yet their strengths far outnumber their weaknesses. Here's one interesting and fairly consistent feature to these refugees: their ability to forgive. For instance the people who killed the women's families, imprisoned and tortured these Muslim women identify themselves as Christians. Yet the women are unfailingly polite to the Christians who teach them and (I've seen this on occasion with some volunteers) attempt to push the Christian God along with the English classes at Catholic Charities.
The women who do the knitting and weaving I sell, grew up on farms. Before coming to our area, they had little or no experience with urban life. Displaced, confused, they depend on each other for company, therapy (there aren't a lot of PTSD Bosnian-speaking therapists around here. In fact I know of none) as well as help through emergencies--and they seem to have many, many medical emergencies.
Most of them have high blood pressure. They suffer from depression. The display of pills they take is fairly impressive. If you go visit my page you'll see a picture of Fatima here.She's 53 in that picture.
Like all the refugees I've met from places like Somalia, the Sudan, Liberia etc, these women have been plagued with problems for years--and not just poverty, though that's right in there too, and probably will be for the rest of their lives. That's what I think of when I read about the war in Iraq: all the countless smaller invisible, wretched losses or symptoms that never discussed because the people suffering either don't complain or their complaints don't count. An illiterate, inarticulate peasant who's lost all her teeth doesn't make good copy in newspapers.
Ten years after the war in Bosnia, the displaced ladies still start at loud noises. Many are either tearful or have lost the ability to cry. They want to tell their story and no one will listen -- or they still can't bring themselves to speak of their pain. Many of their children have trouble with aggression and other behavioral disorders. Refugee camps are not great places to bring up a kid.
But the women don't need pity--and they deserve admiration. These are the survivors. These are the women who've lived through hell and still find what it takes to get up in the morning now, clean their small apartments, to chat together, teach me Bosnian, talk about their lost farms, humor me when I try to teach them English, cook borek and treats for their families, and hold a wicked fun party on holidays. I'm honored to call them my friends.
If you want to see more of their crafts, mostly rugs, I have some photos here.