The Newcomers by Helen Thorpe

Author:Helen Thorpe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner

2

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We Hate Sheep

When I told Solomon and Methusella that I was hoping to visit them at home again, they conferred with their father and told me to come on a particular Sunday. This was shortly before they moved to the two-bedroom apartment, back when they were still living in their first house. The boys did not tell me a specific time. To be polite, I tried texting with their father, Tchiza, to see if 2:30 P.M. would be convenient. I never heard back.

When I arrived at the tan clapboard house with the dirt yard and the chain-link fence, I was welcomed just as before, by the same dancing whorl of children. On this occasion, Julius was not available—his schedule at the grocery store conflicted with the time I had chosen—and I wound up employing a different Swahili-speaking interpreter, a gracious Ethiopian woman named Berhane. She had come straight from church and was wearing a long black skirt and a magenta blazer. Berhane had arrived in this country as a refugee herself, and had learned to speak Swahili while living in a refugee camp in Kenya.

We sat down at the kitchen table. Once again the boys’ mother, Beya, busied herself in the kitchen without sitting down herself. This time I could see that her actions were a form of deference. Tchiza belonged at the table, and so did the guests; Beya stayed in the background. I told the boys’ father that before we spoke further, I wanted to make sure this was a good time. I had texted to see if this hour was okay, but had not gotten a response. Berhane translated all of this into Swahili.

Tchiza smiled broadly. “Well, we don’t have the same concept of time,” he explained to me kindly, as if I were his student. Apparently, we were going to study another culture together: Congolese ways. He would instruct me. “We don’t pick one hour and ask can we knock on your door then,” Tchiza said, as if doing something so formal as that were the craziest thing in the world. “We just drop by! If you are home, then it is a good time!”

So, this was a good time.

Beya brought to the table several cans of pineapple Fanta, one bowl of potatoes and beans, and three spoons. There was a spoon for me, a spoon for her husband, and a spoon for our interpreter, but there was no spoon for Beya. I did not sense any resentment on Beya’s part about this. She waited on us with an aura of gladness. But to me, it was strange, having her attend to the rest of us and keep herself apart.

“This is a sign of respect,” the interpreter told me, pointing at the food Beya had just put on the table. “We will all eat from the same bowl.”

Oh, that’s nice! I thought. I’ve been fully welcomed into the family.

“Also, it is a good way not to get poisoned,” Tchiza added, with a little glint in his eye.

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