Three Evening Scenes

• Tuesday night had already been a full day when I arrived at the Troutdale City Hall. I was there to talk a little bit about Yo Ghana!'s partnership with Reynolds High School, but mainly I was there to support two of our students. One of them was Rando, a small, ebullient Muslim girl from East Africa who has been interviewing family elders to relate their journey through civil war and refugee camps to America. Her voice started very faint, then became stronger and stronger as she shared the remarkable story, and the council members' eyes filled with respect and wonder.
  
  About two hours later I boarded a transit train and heard the voice of Diana calling to me, another one of our students, a girl from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who in the rainy night was in charge of her little brother and wheel-chair bound mother, all of them struggling to understand a new language and new skills such as how to negotiate the transit system in a wheelchair. But they seemed much more resolute than frail and not at all deterred by missing a stop.
  
  ​Then I joined an apartment full of Ghanaians full of joyful expectation. The wife and children of a leading volunteer were about to arrive, ending a separation of nearly five years. When they stepped into their new home it exploded with noise and joy. The eyes of the three young children were wide. So much to take in. Twenty years from now they'll still remember that night, and by then they'll be doing great things.
  
  ​Americans often ponder going to Africa and helping Africans. But Africa is also coming to us, and Africans' resilience, warmth, and determination are helping all of us, now and far into the future.

Making Sense of Each Other

​Kwame Anthony Appiah, the distinguished philosopher born to an English mother and a Ghanaian father, remarks in Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers: "when the stranger is no longer imaginary, but real and present, sharing a human social life, you may like or dislike him, you may agree or disagree; but, if it is what you both want, you can make sense of each other in the end."

His words came to Wednesday morning during the Yo Ghana! Student Showcase at St. Andrew Church's Community Center in Northeast Portland. Students of Deb Tavares (shown above) who are learning English shared their work. A boy from the Democratic Republic of the Congo related how his father survived and escaped war; a Muslim girl from East Africa spoke of how she has come to love wearing her hijab; and a student from Mexico showed a photograph of the truck his father uses for his landscape business, a job that leaves him exhausted, but "this is how we make a life."

Yo Ghana Board member Dr. Labissiere shared the delights and fears of growing up in Haiti and how coming to the U.S. brought new challenges of racial and personal identity. Yo Ghana Project Coordinator Ibrahim Ibrahim emceed, young Maddie from Fowler Middle School read some fine letters on overcoming hardship from Ghana, and a bunch of students received awards. Students and teachers from Reynolds High School, Vernon School, St. Andrew Nativity School, Fowler Middle School, George Middle School, Campfire Columbia, and Judson School--all the way from Salem!--attended.

We are often urged to exercise tolerance toward others. Appiah urges us to "make sense of each other." I hope that tolerance and understanding can lead to deeper exchanges in which we learn from and move forward together.