I Like Pigeons Because Nobody Else Does

Not much going on otherwise. I went to an interview last week with the International Rescue Committee to offer my services as a volunteer. The IRC began in America in 1933 by Albert Einstein as a response to Jews fleeing Hitler. At the time, he headed the organization in Europe, but it had not yet been established in the US. The IRC is the largest humanitarian organization in the world and they help people in any country that need assistance, sometimes in horrific working conditions.

Although they assist refugees in a multitude of ways, the San Diego office is tasked primarily with resettlement. The local office was established in 1975 when Vietnamese refugees fled communist invaders and ended up in California at Camp Pendleton. Each year the US admits a certain number of refugees and recently, Iraqis, Somalis and Burmese have replaced the southeast-asians as the groups in most need of help and the IRC helps them integrate into American Society by teaching them to read and write and other survival skills. 

Many of them arrive here after having endured horrors that most Americans only imagine in nightmares: genocide, rape, mutilation, torture, murder on an industrial scale, etc. We can only poorly imagine what it must be like to live in the wilds of Africa going about your business farming and tending a few goats when suddenly your entire family is murdered in front of your eyes and a few months later you find yourself in a country that you only knew through fantastical accounts that traveled hundreds of miles to reach you. The trauma is unfathomable.

The IRC provides schooling for everyone and has a number of programs to help people adjust. I volunteered to teach English in a family’s home once a week. I am waiting to hear from the San Diego representative who they’ve paired me up with.

Perhaps you’re wondering why a misanthrope such as myself has all of a sudden gone and gotten all “do-gooder” with regard to humans. By and large, I think humans suck. Well, a trip to Thailand and reading this book and this book followed by subsequent internet research, kind of lit a fire under my ass. After you know those things, how can you not do something? How can you not help knowing these people are enduring sickening acts of cruelty while all most Americans worry about is how much gas costs and what the price of Christmas decorations are at the local Wal-Mart (who, by the way, purveys almost 100% of their items made in China who has its own lesser-known long and sordid history of outrageous animal and human right abuses, the knowledge of which would curl your hair. I will address that here one of these days). In this country it’s gluttony run amok and I’m just not going to participate.

I tried helping people once before at the Literacy Council in Durham, but after 4 months of my students coming to class baked, I got pissed and gave it up. How the hell can you teach someone to read who’s just done half a dozen bong hits?