AEC

I just got back from my regular Wednesday night at the Adult Education Center, a part of Spokane Community Colleges that offers ESL classes to adults. I just started volunteering there a few weeks ago, and so far it has been a huge highlight of every week. The classroom that I am in is the people who speak very little to no English. Most of them are refugees who came here through World Relief and are now trying to figure out how to start up life in this country. World Relief helps them out for six months after their arrival, and then they have to fend for themselves. Can you imagine how challenging it would be to be dropped into this culture when you have never learned to read, don't know how to tell time, or pay American bills, or navigate American grocery stores, and don't know a single word of English? I would imagine it would be a bit like landing on a new planet.

Tonight during the break I was helping one man fill out job applications. Finding a job can be fairly challenging when you've spent the last twenty years in a refugee camp. Also during the break, some students were writing practice questions on the board for their written citizenship test. "If the president dies, who takes his place as president?" "Who was the first president of the United States?" "What is the capital city of your state?" The first step is sounding out all the letters, then figuring out the words, then understanding what exactly the question is asking, and then coming up with an answer and writing it out. My question is whether it would be possible to take the test orally.
There are so many challenges that these people face--it just makes me think how much injustice there is in the world. Born into a war-torn country, risking their lives to get into a refugee camp in another country, waiting for decades to get into a more stable place, often separated from loved family members, then starting an education at a kindergarten level as a 45 year old. And yet, somehow they can all still have a great time laughing as they do silly games and sing "head and shoulders, knees and toes" in this ESL class. I love it.