The health screens went so well! What amazing kids! I loved them all!!
We just did vision screens, which went fine until the last kid I screened... he was doing so poorly and I struggled to know which line he was reading off of, because what he was indicating was so drastically different from what the answers actually were. I wondered why he was doing so poorly and thought that surely he would have been caught in screens before.... and then I realized I forgot to remove the blurry thingy... Yeah, apparently I'm kind of an idiot.
After this and helping the school nurse clean up a bit, I took off to go study some more for pharmacology before heading back to school for the guest speakers from a refugee placement association. It was pretty interesting to hear the extent of this program and how many refugees are taken into the US each year (which is apparently only 1% of the number of refugees worldwide). Then, a woman spoke, who is an employment advocate (she helps find jobs for refugees and makes sure they are trained adequately), and she told her story as a refugee from Sudan and her journey through the system to where she is now. Amazing. This might sound insensitive or just not the most appropriate thing to say--but hearing her story with all the hardships she faced really put things into perspective for me that my life, no matter how hard I might perceive it to be, has really been very easy.
She was 7 when her village was attacked, and in one night, 6 of her siblings were murdered. She was separated from her family, and ended up with a distant relative who took her along to a refugee camp in Kenya. She didn't know it until many years later, but her parents, 2 sisters, and 1 brother lived and went to a refugee camp in Uganda. Her family assumed she was also murdered. She spent ten years in the refugee camp in Kenya before she was able to come to the United States. She was unable to find work because she was not yet 18; after she turned 18, she applied and immediately got a job, but realized it was not something she wanted to do forever. She pursued education, and at the age of 21, graduated from high school. She then attended college and graduated in 5 years. Oh--and before attending high school here, she had never learned to read or write; so she was learning the ABCs when she was 18. She is able to read and write in English, but cannot in her native language.
After she was here in the US for about 10 years or so, she found out about her parents being alive and took a trip to see her family. It had been 20 years since her mother had seen her, and each had thought the other was dead. I cannot imagine how awkward (perhaps) and disconnected things might feel after that assumption and length of time.
So yes--I have had a very privileged and easy life, especially when compared with the hardships that this remarkable woman--and many millions like her--endured.
Just amazing.
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