Ever Heard of Eritrea?

For my January Middler Immersion (Seminaries really love coming up with specialized terminology), I am working at Casa Marianella, an emergency shelter for immigrants.  I've spent two weeks now helping people set up their online banking, making random drywall repairs, and getting lessons in African geography.  When Casa Marianella first started, they served a largely Hispanic population, but as time has gone by, they have seen a dramatic rise in political asylum cases from Africa - especially Eritrea.  Since my Spanish-speaking skills are limited to locating the bathroom and counting to about thirteen or so, and since many Africans learn English in grade school, I have been working primarily with the group from Africa.

Before I started work two weeks ago, I don't think I could've pointed to the correct continent for Eritrea, so let me give you a little primer: Eritrea is on the shores of the Red Sea, and shares its longest common border with Ethiopia.  From the small sample of people I have interacted with, Eritrea is - so far as I can tell - a beautiful and formerly rich country with a very corrupt government.  Young people are sneaking out of the country all the time - in fact, most of the men and women I've met are younger than me - and there are very few educated professionals left in the country. Even the one University in the country has closed! America is a prime destination for Eritreans because we refuse to deport them back to a country that will most assuredly mistreat them.  I heard a story last week that one nation (Israel, perhaps) had rounded up and deported 300 Eritreans back to their country - no one knows what happened to them.  There are many such stories.

Such corruption and fear are large motivators.  Many of the people I have met have made journeys of several months that cost them thousands of dollars - they cannot simply hop a plane to the US, so they come into Central and South America and then pay smugglers to sneak them across all the borders between there and here.  One man walked his fingers across a map of Central America explaining how he traveled across each country and each border: "bus ride: 17 hours; then smaller car, then walk through jungle for two days.  Bus ride, 6 hours, then boat ride 6 hours in the dark - got very sick.  Here (pointing to El Salvador): got caught by police, spend one month in detention, let out, bus ride - 4 hours, walk through jungle - 9 hours...." and on and on.  All told, he spent 4 months and fifteen thousand dollars to end up in an immigration detention center in Texas for two months, then freed with only the clothes on his back.  I can't imagine what it would take for me to leave a career, family, and homeland and undertake such a journey.

Last week I took two of the most recent arrivals - both young men - to the Social Security office to begin the process to become legal workers.  While waiting in line (which was quite a while), I showed them pictures of my family and talked with them at length about their country and mine.  We watched on monitors as surreal animated characters (my favorite were the animated eagle and Social Security card who embraced each other and then thanked us for visiting our local Social Security office) explained the ins and outs of the application process and the queue order.  One of them was denied a card (round 1) and the other was accepted, but the birthdate on his form was incorrect, so we had to drive 15 miles across town - yes, really - to correct the form.  The people at the second office only complicated things more, and he came away frustrated.  All this for just one little piece of what will eventually become a mountain of paperwork and logistical hoops to jump through (one crazy example: many of our clients can't take regular day jobs for the first year because they have to be able to drop everything at one phone call to go in immediately for a medical exam every few weeks).  On top of this, they must check in regularly with immigration - a process slightly less humane than being forced to watch digitized dancing Social Security cards: they can't even bring snacks or water into the waiting area.

After all the frustration, I took them over to an Ethiopian restaurant that's only a few blocks from my house.  I realized while I was driving around that I still had a little Christmas money left, and I couldn't think of a better way to spend it than to eat African food with a couple of guys from Africa.  We had a blast - I told them to order something good for us to share, and they got a huge platter of several foods.  They were surprised to learn that I had eaten like that before, but they still had to give me some pointers on my technique! We ate until we were stuffed, and we shared stories about family and food, and I made some new friends.  When we got back to the house, I made a few more friends.  The other Eritreans were very grateful that I had showed the 'new guys' such kindness.  Now every time I head in to work I get called into the kitchen and handed a plate of spicy African food.  It was the best Christmas money I ever spent...