PRINTA lifetime of waiting
Refugees from war-torn Liberia struggle to reunite their family and make a new home in Columbia
Ellie Gardner
Helena helps shingle the roof of the Glays’ new home, a Habitat for Humanity house. Before moving into the house in the summer of 2007, the family rented apartments. For many refugees, paying for necessities is an ongoing challenge. Upon arriving in the U.S., each refugee gets $425 from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. This is not enough to pay for the month’s rent, security deposit, utilities, furniture and week’s worth of food that the money is meant to cover. Refugee and Immigration Services relies on donations, mostly from churches, and state grants to stretch that support to cover five months’ rent and utilities, up to five years of child care (with income-based qualification) and eight hours of driver’s training.
June 12, 2008 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Apart
Long distance relationships are hard. The chasm widens when it’s your own decision to part ways. Helena Glay knows the pain all too well. She has been both the leaver and the left. When her family came to the U.S. as refugees in 2003, they couldn’t find her in time and left Africa without her. When she finally joined them in February 2007, she had to leave behind her then 1-year-old son.
Africa
The Glays brought almost nothing from Liberia, only traditional African clothing and language. Helena’s parents, Moses and Annie, speak mostly Krahn, but their children prefer English. They miss their land — 250 acres of rice, yams, potatoes, corn, plantains, cassava and pumpkins. Moses roughly tallies the thousands of dollars he’s paid in rent since coming here. He is ready to own a home again.
Still, Annie and Moses like America. The people in Columbia are friendly. Education is free, and they can rest easy at night, unlike in the African refugee camps.
The Glays have found friends in their neighborhood, on the job and in refugee communities, but it’s still not home. In Africa, families would gather, eat together and watch after one another’s children for days at a time. They didn’t pay for baby-sitting; they simply said thank you.
Annie misses her family and the animals: goats, sheep, cows, chickens and the old family dog, Rocket. The Glays left them all behind when they set out on foot to escape the war.
In 1990, American Charles Taylor’s attempt to overthrow the tyrannical Liberian President Samuel Doe started a civil war. Although Doe was captured and killed, other rebel groups seized the opportunity to try for power. The Liberia the Glays loved was transformed into a battleground.
They fled to neighboring Cote d’Ivoire in the early 1990s with their young children. Their 10-year-old daughter, Teresa, who had stayed in Liberia with relatives, was shot and killed in the war.
Moses remembers the danger of leaving. They crossed a river. There was shooting. The children ran out into a field instead of ducking down, but none of them were shot. Annie carried the 2-year-old baby on her back and diapers on her head. Days without food or water cost the baby its life.
The fighting in Liberia paused in 1997 when Taylor became president. But the democracy he promised never materialized, and civil war resumed as rebels fought to expel him. In 2003, he was exiled to Nigeria, and a peace pact was signed. Hundreds of thousands of Liberians fled during the war, and more than 3 million West Africans were displaced.
For more than a decade, the Glays stayed in Guiglo, Cote d’Ivoire, as refugees but never settled. Living without jobs or security, they struggled to sleep through the noise and terror of gunfire. Here, Annie gave birth to Patricia, Debo, Alex and Neil. When Neil was 3, he died from diarrhea, and Annie and Moses were left with only five children. The next year, in 2003, war crept into Cote d’Ivoire, and the Glays applied to come to the U.S. But Helena was not with them.
Annie spends time at home with her family on a day off in 2006. Now ...
Alice Glay (wearing yellow shorts), now 4 years old, was born in the U.S. and ...
To celebrate closing on a new home, Annie Glay wears traditional African clothing.
Patricia and Debo help comfort their little sister, Alice, who got hit by a ball ...
Crossed lines
At her parents’ encouragement, Helena had gone to Abidjan, a few hours away, to cook, clean and sew for the Creahi family. Then, after years without a home, the Glays learned they were going to the U.S. as refugees, and the race to contact Helena began. They repeatedly called the Creahis, but Helena only got one message and didn’t believe it. Language might have been a barrier. The Glays didn’t speak French, but Helena’s aunt, Gertrude Soway, did and eventually called and told Helena her family was leaving.
When Helena caught up with them, they were already on a bus to the airport. Through the bus windows, she saw her family weeping, but she was too stunned to cry. She thought she might never see her parents again.
Bereft and homeless, Helena returned to work for the Creahi family. They apologized for not relaying the Glays’ phone messages sooner. They said they didn’t realize how badly her family had been suffering at the camps. It would be easy to blame the Creahis for the separation or the Glays themselves for leaving their daughter. But Helena would soon see the flip side of her hurt and anger. She would soon have to make the same decision about her own son.
Peaks and valleys
The peak of a joyful reunion almost makes the valleys of separation worthwhile. Almost. For the Glays, each season apart from Helena wore heavier. When they arrived in the U.S. in the fall of 2003, Annie filed a Refugee Relative Petition to have Helena join them. Meanwhile, Helena gained refugee status in Cote d’Ivoire. The Glays sent money so Helena could leave the Creahis and live with her aunt Gertrude. Life was looking up.
Helena played soccer, made friends and went to parties, such as the New Year’s celebration where she met her son’s father. Their relationship lasted less than a year.
Back in the U.S., the Glays had moved to a different apartment and missed the letter saying Annie’s Refugee Relative Petition had been denied. Moses, the principal applicant, should have filed instead. Months had been wasted. So, in September 2005, Moses filed again, but only for his daughter. He didn’t know she was pregnant.
Two months later, Marvin was born, but his father had already left town. Helena’s friends were eager babysitters. They’d pick him up and give Helena a day off. Of course, it wasn’t a hard job. Marvin only cried when hungry. He just wanted to play.
Nearly three years after the Glays’ arrival in America, the petition for Helena was approved. A visa, embassy interview, medical tests and immunizations followed for Helena but not for her son. Moses could only petition for his immediate children.
Helena could have stayed in Cote d’Ivoire to try to leave later with Marvin. But by the time she learned of that option, she had already fixed her mind on going and arranged for Marvin to stay with Soway. Torn between her parents’ determination to reunite and her desire to stay with her son, Helena favored her role as daughter. Still a new mother, she had yet to experience the particular heartache of leaving her baby behind.
Columbia Airport
Helena’s mother, Annie, clutches a cellophane-wrapped bouquet of white and pink flowers. She mingles with friends, church members and Refugee and Immigration Services staff, but gravitates toward the window. Helena’s 3:10 p.m. flight arrives late. The propellers stop, but Helena does not get off. She’s missed her connection. Next flight: 10:30 p.m.
A smaller crowd reconvenes that February 2007 night. The youngest Glay is asleep on the pastor’s lap. On a chair rest Annie’s flowers, wilted.
“There’s a plane coming!” Helena’s brother yells and presses his face against the glass.
She’s here.
Annie breaks into dance and embraces her daughter the moment she steps inside. She bundles a fur-lined coat around timid, petite Helena, now a mother herself. Chatter erupts, and all eyes are on Helena’s weary smile. When the receiving line recedes, Helena sinks into a chair and draws the littlest Glay up on her knee. She’s heavier than Marvin, but it still feels familiar. Sleepy 2-year-old Alice, who was born in the U.S., had never met her oldest sister, Helena.
Church
The Glays have every reason to be hardened, embittered, cynical, but they aren’t. They expect good fortune, and oddly enough, they seem to get it. The kids are doing well in school, and, apart from painful teenage orthodontia and the occasional cold, everyone is healthy. They were selected for a Habitat for Humanity house and moved in this past summer. Maybe it’s the unswerving hope that glosses over the years of waiting, or their determination, which surpasses understanding. Then again, maybe it’s the sheer goodwill that has enveloped them since they arrived in Columbia.
In Africa the Glays went to a Catholic church. Their first Sunday in Columbia, they attended Rock Bridge Christian Church, then tried a Catholic church the next. Pastor Maureen Dickmann says after that they chose to stay at Rock Bridge, which they consider their church family. It’s not surprising why.
In 2003, Dickmann asked Mandy Manderino to sponsor a family of Liberian refugees. She said yes, and the Glays showed up within a week. They were supposed to be self-sufficient in three months. “That wasn’t possible because they came without competencies we take for granted,” says Manderino, who still works with them weekly after five years.
She says time is not a concern because she is retired. It’s the worry and insomnia that get to her. She remembers a rainy morning during the kids’ first week of school. She was lying in bed when she pictured them waiting for the bus without umbrellas or ponchos. She gave up on sleep and came to the rescue.
Manderino still fills out forms, goes to games and sometimes takes the kids to doctors’ appointments. The Glays have become important to her, almost part of her extended family. “I can’t imagine my life without them,” she says.
The Glays have a sort of magical thinking, Manderino says. They figured the sooner they repaid their airfare the sooner their daughter would get there. It doesn’t work that way, Manderino has repeatedly explained, but this doesn’t stop them from believing it. Their latest plan is to gain U.S. citizenship and then retrieve their grandson from Liberia.
Since the Glays deplaned in Columbia in 2003, Manderino has worked closely with Refugee and Immigration Services to help the family. With this help, the Glays gained food stamps and insurance, learned English and comparison shopping, and tried hot dogs and water parks.
Refugee and Immigration Services adds 50 to 100 refugees each year to an already steady workload, a tremendous responsibility. Helena’s paperwork to send for her son got caught in the shuffle, and months passed before it was mailed. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services received the application in February 2008 and estimated a 60-90 day review process. The wait continues. If the application is approved, more waiting can begin.
The office
Helena’s earrings are from Africa. Her new locket is from her mother. She wears both for her orientation to the U.S.
Caseworker Senad Music bounds into the tiny meeting room and launches into another swiftly moving stream of information. He shares the floor with Dan Murphy, also from Refugee and Immigration Services.
Last time they started with food stamps, Medicaid and the price of bringing her son on humanitarian parole, a rare circumstance. Helena came as a derivative of her father, the original refugee, but her son is one step removed. Most cases of humanitarian parole are for derivatives of derivatives, such as Marvin. He won’t be a refugee and won’t get the same benefits.
By this third and final orientation, some topics are repeats: driving, job, insurance, money. Others are new and add to the vast expanse of responsibilities. “We are here to help you, but you have to help yourself,” Music says. The goal is self-sufficiency, and nothing is taken for granted. Fire alarms, when to call 911 and definitions of abuse and harassment all get squeezed into one hour.
In three months, Helena must be trying to get work. “In America there is no perfect job,” Music says. If she turns down an offer, she might lose her benefits.
Murphy and Music breeze through questions about depression and anxiety. Helena doesn’t seem to be experiencing either. She has her family and Manderino, and that helps, they conclude. But Helena is practiced at internalizing, and she likely wouldn’t open up even if she were alone.
Divides
The best approach is to stay busy and let time pass. Distraction helps. Exhaustion works, too, most of the time. African music, dancing, cooking — all of which the Glays practice as full-contact sports — keep Helena’s body and mind occupied between phone calls to Africa, which might be weeks apart because of unreliable cell phone service.
She can’t talk with her now 2-year-old son, even when she reaches her aunt Gertrude, who’s keeping him. He won’t hold still long enough to talk. Helena understands — he’s just a baby. She communicates love through the things she provides. She wired $100 to her aunt to buy him a tricycle in Monrovia. He seems to share his mother’s need to keep active.
Death and sadness still break like waves over the Glay household, but they’ve built pillars of community to shoulder the blasts. Fellow Liberian refugees flock to the Glays’ home, fill metal folding chairs under the carport and sprawl with babies on blankets covering the kitchen floor. Guests are at home for the days or weeks they visit. Some come from Jefferson City for companionship, others from St. Louis to find jobs in Columbia. It’s impossible to know exactly how many Liberian refugees live in the Columbia area. Many move to reconnect with family or follow jobs across the U.S. An ocean away, pieces of their hearts remain back home, in Liberia.
Rooftop
Helena has never been on a roof, much less shingled one. On a spring morning, she clears brush around her new house with the other Habitat for Humanity volunteers and has no intention of climbing any ladders. She’s in the same clothes she wears for class, meetings, cooking and cleaning. Today she has wrapped a pink handkerchief around her hair for construction.
Friends from Rock Bridge Christian Church arrive at the site first, with doughnuts and coffee. Dickmann says the church sponsors refugees in response to Jesus’ teaching: Whatever his followers did — feeding, clothing, housing — for the least of people, they were doing for him.
By late afternoon Helena smiles down from the roof and hammers confidently. She shows others how it’s done, matching the shingles to the chalk lines and putting the nails in place. She corrects someone next to her. It’s her first time on a roof, but, like most challenges in life, she takes it in stride.
