"Beauty in Vulnerability," by Laihha Organna

I’ve experienced hunger, poverty—broken flip-flops-duct-taped-to-my-feet kind of poverty. Abuse: physical, verbal, and emotional and a never-ending cycle. Poison, the drugs and alcohol kind. The kind where your mother’s heart stops over and over. Yet she lives, holding on by a thread. Not for her children, and not for herself but just for more poison. The kind of poison she loved so much that she shared with my sweet sisters in the womb, one of them born with a lethal combination of alcohol and meth in her veins. The kind of poison that sounds like angry voicemails from my father, the kind of poison that dressed the beautiful hearts of my parents in disguise, never to be seen again.

The kind of poison that made me the girl with homeless parents. The kind of poison that took my father’s life. The kind of poison that I call abandonment. Abandonment that sounds like Mom saying, “I’ll be back for dinner,” and then not seeing her for three whole years. The kind of abandonment that looks like an empty seat at graduation. The kind of abandonment that looks like missed calls and texts left unread. A lack of power, self-worth, and utter abandonment left me to pick up the pieces of my being, attempting to put myself back together without any glue.

“Why me? Why couldn’t I be like everyone else,” I asked? Until I realized, I don’t ever want to be like anyone else. That path was never meant for me. I stopped sucking it up all the time, trying to be strong for those around me. I found beauty in vulnerability. I found confidence through my story and its ability to empower others. One day, I decided it was time to rewrite my story. It was time to create my life. And that my lack was not who I was.

Listen the entirety of Laihha’s first podcast—and many to come—at: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/laihha-mossnovak/your-fire-ignited?refid=stpr

Guest Author: Theresa Walelu

The first day of school, I just entered the school building. I didn’t know what to do. English I didn’t know how to speak. I met a white girl in the hallway. How to start to ask for help? “Hi” is the only word I knew in English. “Hi,” I said to the white girl. “Hi,” she replied. “No English,” I responded. “Oh, it’s fine,” the white girl said. She took me to the main office. There was a white lady sitting. She had gray hair and love to smile. You could tell when you just took a look at her face.

               “Hey, what can I help with?” the white lady asked.

               “Oh, sorry, she doesn’t know how to speak English,” the white girl responded.

               “OK, no problem,” she said.

               She looked at my eyes. “You speak Swahili, don’t you?” she asked. I checked my head up (yes). She made an appointment with my counselor. “Sit there, your counselor will come to take you.” The white girl went back to class. “Asete” (thank you), I said. “My pleasure,” she said while she left the main office.

               After a while a beautiful lady came out of the small room, with such good red heels and a black skirt. “Mbuyamba Walelu, come with me.” Luckily there was a man in her office who spoke the same language as me. “What can I do for you?” she asked.

               “I want my schedule and to know how to get to my classes. I don’t know anything. It is my first time going to school here in America,” I said in my language. The young man that was sitting next to me said it in English.

               They gave me my class schedule and someone showed me where all my classes were located. He did a great job showing me around the building.

               Then I was in my first period class. There were some students who spoke my language. They welcomed me and introduced themselves. Then it was my turn to speak. How could I start? I knew nothing about English. I was talking to myself inside my heart. ”My name Theresa” said my voice a while later. All the class started laughing. “What did I say funny that makes you all happy and to laugh?” I asked.

               “The way you say it is funny,” all the classmates responded.

               “It is not funny to laugh at someone when she speaks, OK,” the teacher said. “OK, everyone apologize to Mbuyamba.”

               “OK, we are sorry. OK, don’t get mad.”

               “Ok,” I said.

               Then the day was good. I met a lot of good friends. Some spoke English, others spoke my language.

               I learned how to speak English in a week. Everyone was surprised, especially my family. My family was happy. Then they found someone to help them with English in any way.

               Now it’s two years. If I tell someone that I have lived in America for two years, no one believes me. I didn’t want to give up on myself. I want to tell those who used to laugh at me that. I can now speak English better than you who have lived here for five years.

Guest Author: Christina Mai

The author, center, with two of her FRINQ students,
Meiling and Paola, after they led a story exchange.

Three and a half years ago, I was at my sophomore year in college. One day, my dad pulled me aside and asked me whether I wanted to study abroad. My family is not rich at all. I guess I am the child who is the best at studying among my siblings, so I was given the privilege to use such a big amount of money. I thought about my dad’s question. I imagined how my next few years would look like if staying in China or if studying in the U.S. For the first scenario – staying in China – I knew I would finish the rest of college, find a not-bad job, and probably be urged to get married with someone. (In our culture, people usually think girls should settle down and enter another life stage of marriage right after graduation.) I could see clearly the day to day life and already knew what would come along the way. What if l left for the U.S.? It was unknown. I could not imagine the possibilities. It would be challenging definitely to start up in a new environment. But the process of figuring out the uncertainty and observing how I would react to this intrigued me. So I made up my mind. I wanted to go.

When I arrived in the U.S., I was excited and curious about most of the things I saw, including the delicious and big-sized hot dog at Costco at the price of only $1.50. However, the honeymoon period didn’t last for long. Actually, on the first Friday night of the first term, having been holding all the emotions for the whole week, I cried out in front of my roommate. I barely understood the class and I couldn’t join the conversation of classmates at all because my English was so poor. I felt deprived of the right to express myself. All that I could do was either looking at people with a puzzled face, or maintaining an awkward smile pretending that I got what they were saying. At that moment, I felt huge restriction here while back in my home country, I knew the language, the culture; I could laugh immediately after hearing the jokes; I could tell my true thoughts fluently and completely. I didn’t have to tell others my favorite snack was chocolate, when asked, only because I didn’t know the English name of other snacks. Besides losing a way of self-expression, I passively lost or/and unconsciously gave up my way of interacting with people. For some reasons, which I haven’t figured out yet, I believed that my culture would not work here. Such a thought put me into a tough situation actually. Every time when I wanted to chat with others, before my mouth opened, I doubted myself – was it normal for Americans to ask this? Did they say like this? Would I sound weird? With such questions popping in my brain, I stepped back and stayed silent. Gradually, I increasingly feared interacting with people. I avoided talking with anyone. My life was plain, class and home, but no friends. I started to become addicted in Youtube since it took over my mind and allowed me to stop thinking about the frustrating reality. Obviously, it didn’t help at all but worsened my life. I was stuck in my comfort zone. On my first Christmas holiday in the U.S., I was at home sleeping all day long and thinking that I was so useless and incapable. Until then, I realized that I might be sick mentally, seized by the depressed emotion.

After the darkest and saddest Christmas holiday in my life (hopefully there will be no worse one :p), another term started. To some extent, it saved me. It forced me to walk out from home and meet people. At that moment, the only thing that I thought I could do well was my school work. I made efforts and saw the progress, which brought me happiness and increased my feeling of self-worth. I understood only 50% of the lessons, but I put 200% of my attention on every single word of professors and tried to comprehend and even guess it. It took me 15 minutes to read one full page, but I kept reading the textbooks and spent hours and hours in front of the desk. I wish I could share some miracles about how I overcame the language barrier in one night. But there is none. The process was slow and exhausting, but I have been improving my English skills and building up my confidence. I also went to a Chinese church where I could speak both Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese every week and made some friends there. They prayed for me. They helped me choose to accept my current situation instead of blaming myself for the weaknesses. They encouraged me to stop feeling guilty about the time that I had wasted in watching Youtube, and instead, to look forward and make the most of what I had and do what I could do. A baby step was still a step!

With a renewed mindset, I pushed myself a bit further out of my comfort zone by checking out the opportunities to interact with others. During the process, I practiced my English and also learned more about American culture through observing how people talk and act. I started volunteering in free food distribution to the community and homework help for high schoolers. The first turning point of my journey in America came in the end of my first academic year. A student leadership program called International Students Mentor Program was recruiting mentors for new international students. I was eager to help international students as one of them who struggled with the adjustment process. I was not sure if I could be capable to help, but I wanted to give it a try. So I applied for it and got the interview invitation. With zero experience in American interviews, I did badly. But maybe my strong desire to help international students impressed the interviewers. I finally heard back from the program right before their first meeting as the last candidate chosen. I was thrilled about the valuable opportunity. I met with other international student mentors on the training days and we formed friendships with each other. For the first time, I felt belonging because there was a group of people who I knew about and could say hi to on campus. I was not nobody anymore.

After this leadership program, I realized that I could do more than what I thought, so I began looking for part-time jobs and other opportunities to get involved in the campus life and American society. I applied for jobs till midnight. As a result of no working experience in the U.S., I got refusal emails. I felt sad that no one was willing to pay for my hard work. But I told myself that I would not consider giving up before I received the 100^th rejection. Fortunately, before getting 100 “NO”s I got my first job in the U.S. as a peer advisor helping business students with course selection and other academic issues. Later on, I became coordinator of Organization of International Students at school, Peer Mentor conducting mentor sessions for freshmen twice a week, and got multiple internships in various industries. The process seems smooth but I know it was not in reality. In my first few weeks advising business students, I was scared that I couldn’t understand their cases and help them. So I had to pray and calm myself down before meeting each of them. As I got familiar with the work, I gained more confidence and started to purely enjoy helping students solve their problems after putting down my worries. There were many moments like this when I faced the difficulties and failures, kept trying, and finally overcame them and moved forward.

Looking back to the past few years in America, I want to thank all the nice people who supported me and encouraged me, and thank myself who didn’t give up in face of whatever obstacles. I am so proud of all the efforts that I made to get adjusted to the new culture. At this moment, I don’t clearly know my future. But I know I will thrive as I keep trying to make the most of the situation where I am.