Mohammed

A shy 20-something with glasses studied his work as I, with the other volunteers, entered the bright classroom. I took a seat next to the young man and quickly introduced myself.

“Hi, I’m Marissa.”

 “I’m Mohammed. Nice to meet you.”

Sitting on the table in front of him were two worksheets talking about winter, the clothes you wear, the sports you play, and even the animals that hibernate.

“How about we start with the vocabulary?” I suggested.

“OK, yes, thank you. That’s great.”

As we worked our way through coats, skis, frost, and bears, Mohammed’s laugh became contagious. His upbeat personality and willingness to learn made the hour-long English conversation session a pleasure.

“Where are you from?” I asked. Considering we’d spent a whole ten minutes together, I figured it would be all right to ask. Plus, from my experience working with Africans, most of them are too polite to not answer anyway.

“I am from Sudan,” Mohammed responded.

“Really?” I exclaimed. “I spent nine months working closely with men from Darfur last year in Israel.”

“I am from Darfur!” Mohammed said, a large grin overtaking his studious face. Forget blizzards and flurries, I wanted to find out more.

Having lived through years of war, genocide, rape, and murder, Mohammed left his home in the western section of Sudan, Darfur, and made his way to his country’s capital, Khartoum. There he spent a few years working with his uncle until he had saved enough money to escape war-torn Sudan and made his way to Cairo. Thousands, if not millions, of Sudanese have left their homes since the gingaweed (the northern army) began terrorizing its own countrymen in 2003. Racial cleansing became the army’s goal, wiping out entire villages of their Muslim brothers in Darfur. While both populations share the same religion—as opposed to those in Southern Sudan of a different religion and different conflict—racial differences and clashes constituted the main problems of the genocide. Several years after living in Cairo, Mohammed left for the Big Apple. What a change.

Since arriving in the States, he has settled down in Brooklyn and has successfully found work as a cab driver.

“Cab driver? What did you do back home?” I asked.

“Diesel, you know?” Mohammed inquired.

“Yes, diesel.”

“Well,” he started, “I used to fix diesel trucks. The parts and things.”

“Oh, very interesting.” I responded. Man, he must be bored driving a taxi around all day if he’s a guy who likes to work with his hands. But hey, he’s got a job. And he’s alive.

We moved onto spring as I attempted (key word: attempted) to explain sprouts, buds, and blossoms through my 3^rd-grade-level drawings. Sure these words are relative to the beautiful season, but how many times do you use the word bud in your daily life? Probably not enough to have it on a vocab list. But I digress.

As we continued our seasonal conversation with almost no mistakes, we both started to feel more comfortable.

“Your English is really good,” I stated. If there’s anything I’ve learned while studying a foreign language, it’s that compliments go a long way.

“Really? No, I need to study more,” Mohammed answered shyly, too polite to relish in the much-deserved praise.

“Do you watch a lot of TV, Mohammed?” I asked.

“Sometimes yes. But I listen to the radio all the time. I need to know traffic when I’m driving. You know, if there is traffic I go a different way.”

“Like 1010 WINS?”

“Yes, 1010!”

Thanks, Mom, for always putting on 1010 AM while driving into NYC for as long as I can remember. You allowed me to share this awesome moment with Mohammed, the Darfuri cab driver, who I met in the AAFSC on a windy day in March.