Recommended reading:

Mark Fritz, Lost on Earth: Nomads of the New World (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1999)

Astonishingly ignorant about international events, I took an interest in the latest round of human misery and mayhem in Kosovo.  I learned Milosovic's name, and who he was.  I read about mass migrations within countries and forced exiles from one country to another, mostly in Europe, mostly in the last ten or so years. 

I am accustomed to marshalling intellectual, strategic and political resources to fight a good fight for a good cause. I'm less accustomed to actually doing anything about anything.  So, this time, I expressed an interest in helping to sponsor a Kosovar refugee family. 

Now, for me, the easy part of this would be financial.  Not because I'm rich, or even financially secure, but because I know how to make money when I need it.  But, here in Canada, we support refugees with our tax dollars, at least for the first couple of years.  We don't support them well, of course, because that would make them indolent and dependent, and not a part of the economy and society in which they are settling.  (An odd logic to me, especially when they don't even speak the language, and who knows what horrors they are trying to leave behind?) Still, the absolute minimum in housing, clothing, food, and health care will be provided by the government.

Our job, as a group of people "sponsoring" a family is to help them settle into the community.  To help them find housing they can afford, and get them into language classes, and learn their way around on public transit, and figure out our health care system, and get the kids registered for school, and so on.   A  two-year commitment by a bunch of "white" folks, none Muslim (which Kosovar refugees are likely to be), and only one of us who has ever lived on the income that will be "generously" provided to this family by the government.   We met tonight for the first time to discuss this commitment and how we will deliver on it.

The family we are to support are six: a woman (40-something), and her five children, ranging in age from eight to 22.   We know that the eldest has worked in construction in Kosovo, and we know that the 17-year-old speaks "some English".  We don't know what really matters, though.  Did the "man of the family" get killed by Serbs recently? Was he out of the picture for years?   Had they ever heard of Canada before they were offered it as an alternative to the refugee camps near Kosovo?  Are they hoping for better social and economic opportunities? Or just to get a breather before moving back?  Were they poor in Kosovo, or middle-class?  Answers to these questions would help us anticipate what kind of settlement help they might need. 

But, no-one promised us planning time.  They only promised us a family to support.  Support emotionally, practically, logistically -- but not financially.  I'm looking forward to meeting this family.  I'm hoping we can help them settle into a stay in Ottawa, whether temporary or permanent.  (They have two years to decide whether they'd like to stay or go "home" to Kosovo.) 

I'm hoping, too, that I'll learn from them.  I'm not sure what it is I'm hoping to learn.  Their life experience has been so horribly different than mine. Yet, it's their history.  I don't think they'll want to forget what they left behind.  I don't want to live through terror and war and the horrors of human cruelty vicariously; but I do want to understand how this family has ended up here, with our little group to support them.  And I want to know each of them: what they are passionate about; what makes them laugh; what makes them cry. 

It's an adventure we're all embarking on.  We, the sponsoring group, embark from the safety and security of a city we know, a community that has a place for us, and a home setting that feels complete and loving and stable.   Perhaps we can lend them some of the feelings of our place here.  Perhaps we can help them find their own sense of security and peace and place.  It's going to be an interesting two years!  (To be continued.)

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