First Encounter

1) My first encounter with our refugee family was to me very stressful. Taylor and I got lost, which didn't start the new endeavor off right. Once we finally found the house, you could tell that there was a bit of tension and a huge language barrier. Thankful that Kelly was there, she helped to make the introductions less awkward by making the kids laugh and learn our names in a funny way. When we finally started to get into things, I was with the little boy, Mustafa. We had children's books and he was learning all the names of the animals on the page. The mother Tagrid was with Hailey. They were working on money and seeing what coin meant what. I found it very interesting that she didn't even know what our money looked like or how much it was worth. I think going into the situation I expected them to at least know the basics of English, and then being in that situation I found that I was completely off. Taylor worked with the little girl Benin by doing something similar as Mustafa and me. She grabbed flash cards and went through basic concepts such as day and night or light and dark, etc. The father Sad was there for only five minutes and then the translator came and picked him up. It was nice to have the translator there so that we could ask any questions we needed and there would be no language barrier, for a short moment.
2) The whole first encounter has to do with perception. They way that each and every one of us perceived the situation from both sides would be very different. For myself, knowing that I was going to be with a family from the Middle East concerned me a bit. I know it is wrong to place judgments on people before meeting them but I did have a misconception of Middle Eastern people. I think it helped after watching the video Muslims in America for me to understand that not all Middle Eastern people all the same. After we were there for about an hour and after the translator had cleared things up I felt much better about the situation. My perception of this family changed drastically because I knew that they were just like every other family.
3) After my first encounter with the family I have learned that on the next encounter we need to teach them the basics. Just like we taught the mom our coin system and what each number meant, we will bring them flashcards of the ABC's and 123's so that they learn the basics of the English language. Also seeing how vibrant the children are we can bring lots of crafts to do to get to know them better. I think it will be important to teach Tagrid, the mother, the fundamentals like her name and her birthday so that she can fill out forms. She should also probably know how to write her children's names and birthdays. I think we now have a better idea of what we will be doing with our families especially after the first encounter because we know where they're at and how we can overcome the language barrier.