Do you remember the first time you were in an airport? I don’t remember when I first flew, but I can imagine that it was for something fun like going to see family. Imagine now, that your first time at the airport was to leave the place that you call home and once you walked through that door you were not ever going back to your home country again. Such is the life of many refugees who come to the United States.
On Wednesday, I was given the opportunity to go on my first airport pickup with a case manager. There was a rare afternoon arrival and the case manager was willing to take me along, so I jumped on the chance. Early in the afternoon, Brendon and I climbed into the van and headed to Portland International Airport. The van was parked and five minutes later, the family of three appeared at the security checkpoint. Brendon and I introduced ourselves and the five of us set off for baggage claim. Within minutes we had the family’s bags and Brendon went to retrieve the van.
Once the van was loaded up, Brendon drove the family to their new apartment. Catholic Charities’ donations coordinator has provided the family with a bed, couches, chairs, pots, pans, a refrigerator and Brendon has provided food for the family. They are now the third Iraqi family to join the apartment complex and so they were greeted with friendly faces speaking their native language. Before we left, Brendon answered any questions they had about the apartment and how things worked. Finally, Brendon insured that the family would be able to have a home cooked meal with one of the other Iraqi families and we departed to let the family start to settle in to their new home. Thursday, they will meet with their case manager and their time in resettlement will officially begin.
Personally, I cannot imagine going through this process as a refugee. I cannot know how it feels to leave home and know that I probably will not go back. Nor what it feels like to land in a new country where an unfamiliar person is waiting to pick you up and take you to a strange apartment in a city which you’ve never visited. With all of these factors going into the new family’s arrival on Wednesday, they seemed to be handling everything pretty well, though I can imagine that having neighbors who also speak Arabic is helping with the process.
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