"America is good!"

I don't know what I expected out of this weekend, but whatever my expectations were, they were exceeded. To bring some of my readers up to speed, Beth and I spent our weekend in Columbus, OH visiting our Somali Bantu friends - Mowlid (father), Imbia (mother), Abdulehei (two year old son) and Aaron (six month old son).

We met our friends almost a year ago, here in Phoenix, when we signed up to volunteer as "American Friends" through a local refugee resettlement agency. Our time with them was brief but intense and between us a close bond developed. After living in Phoenix for several months they were contacted by "relatives" - everyone is a relative - who offered our friends the opportunity to move to Columbus. Their relatives paid for the flights for the family and helped them settle into their new home. I somewhat feared they might not find life any easier in Ohio than they had in Arizona, and this weekend that fear was put to rest.

What we found when we arrived is that our family is thriving in a large community of other Somali Bantu refugees. It appears they have a strong support network and a large group of friends. While we were there we observed what seemed to be the regular occurrence of Abdulehei playing with several other Somali Bantu children while Imbia watched and chatted with other Somali Bantu mothers. There was also a regular flow of visitors from within the apartment complex and from other cities to our friends' apartment.

In addition, Mowlid is working and even driving! He knows the area, can navigate well and knows the rules of the road. His employment seems stable and their are additional opportunities for other jobs with better pay and better hours.

The community extends beyond the apartment complex as evidenced by our visit to a Somali marketplace less than a mile from where our friends live. Again, in the market we passed the time by hanging out with our family and their friends; friends they appeared to have a good rapport with and who seemed engaged in the lives of our friends.

Their apartment is decorated with carpets, wall hangings and even Christmas lights! They are settled into their place like they never were in Phoenix and we sensed they were much more at home. Friday they made it a point that they were the hosts and there to provide for us. They cooked us lunch and later, drove us to dinner at a pizzeria and paid. They hadn't eaten pizza since Phoenix and never had been in a restaurant so Beth and I felt honored at the gesture - it was important to them to make us feel welcomed and at home and important that they demonstrated their self sufficiency.

These may all seem like simple activities but when compared with the very sheltered life they were leading in Phoenix it filled both Beth and I with a sense of relief and joy. Based on our weekend, we believe they are connected and around people that care for them, they are happy and healthy and overall experiencing a positive quality of life. While in Phoenix it seemed they were scraping to stay at a very low level of existence and at times even deteriorating into a lower level. In Columbus we were convinced, in the brief time we spent with them, that they are advancing in their quality of life.

That they are comfortable and self sufficient allowed Beth and I to experience the family in a different way. While in Phoenix our visits were spent managing their lives and helping them to stay afloat. Although a friendship developed, we spent a lot of time getting things accomplished and making sure their basic needs met and less time getting to know who they are - this weekend we got to know them even better and cemented our friendship.

I could give you a run down of the activities, but to me the activities are superseded in importance by the impressions weighed upon us as I have written above.

Who knows what the future holds for our Somali Bantu friends, who knows what it holds for our relationship with them. I am confident though that they are on a good path and that we have created a bond that will last a life time.

Given their life circumstances - watching their parents die at the hands of armed militia, being forced from their homeland into a different country that isolated them into squalid camps, devoid of food, health, safety and opportunity, where they lived for years with little hope of a future - and despite all of that, they now have a chance at a positive future and we have had a chance to create life long relationship, then Mowlid's insistence is backed by strong evidence...

"America is good!"