am i qualified for this?

I did a central intake interview today. This is where a new potential client who has come into IINJ sits down with someone, usually from my department (counseling), to talk about what has brought them and what type of services we may be able to offer whether they are seeking asylum, can qualify for the refugee resettlement program, are looking for counseling or just need something translated, a refferal or a lawyer for a change of immigration status. Most of the time, this entails getting an overview of a person's background, checking their papers and status, and hearing a bit about their story without getting too much into the details. Most of the time, I can go through the motions of doing the interview with the necessary paperwork and know basically what to expect and what to say, how to wrap things up and promise them a phonecall from the right department in the near future. Many times, I hear new stories about persecution from unfamiliar places in Africa or more familiar stories now from places like Chad, and afterwards I take a deep breath, finish writing notes, file them in the right place and move on to other things of the day. Every so often, I am caught off guard and am unprepared to deal with the story and the very person before me. Today was one of those days.

I interviewed a woman from Darfur, newly arrived to the states about a month ago. What I thought would be a short interview, turned out to be a "Here's my story in detail from the very beginning of the current conflict in Darfur, through 3 different countries and back to the present." Here was a woman before me that was pretty much on the front lines of human rights and NGO work in one of the currently most repressed places on the planet. Without saying too much about the details (all info has to remain confidential), let's just say that I could never be as brave as the woman sitting before me on behalf of a cause, or as diplomatically poised or as hands-on educated in women's rural development. I felt like with the exception of a little language difficulty (English is only her 3RD language afterall), she could be my professor. And there I sat, trying to take in her story, furiously scribbling notes on events and places that I know next to nothing about beyond vague recollection of things that I had read on the BBC. Honestly, it was one of those times I felt pretty dumb for not knowing more about world events...specifically African world events. But it was also one of those times where I just couldn't comprehend the magnitude of the problems facing the people over there, and I couldn't get my mind around living through conflicts, corruption and danger like that, or the ease with which lives could be destroyed. Even though I have lived in one part of the third world, I have no context for grasping something like that.

She spoke pretty fast, not resting for too long on any one event but just kinda let her story flow out from one event that led to another, sometimes in chronological order, sometimes skipping around. I had to try really hard to concentrate. My brain was shutting off. If it wasn't for one of our volunteers, Eiman, sitting with me mostly just nodding, who herself is from Sudan (though she left about 10 years ago), I don't think I would have been able to mentally stay with it for the whole thing.

When she was finished I told her about our SOT program, let her know that we are Not connected with any government agency and had to ask mundane questions like "what's your current address?" (seems kinda flippant to ask a question like that after hearing the above story). I gave her my work email address, the name of another agency that she might want to look into working with (Sauti Yetu- African women's advocacy agency in Brooklyn) while she begins to go through the long process of finding a lawyer to take her asylum case, and told her that she is an amazing person and that many people in America would love to/need to learn from people like her.

So I kept a level head, gave her the basics of information about how we may be able to help her, and promised that after speaking with my supervisor, someone would be in touch. And then she left, to enter into a period of what I know will be a rough time of adjustment in a rough city, and mostly, waiting.

While I was with her and then after she left, trying only somewhat successfully to refocus on all the other things to be done, I kept wondering, who I am that I am in this position that someone who is such an uncelebrated hero would come to this organization to speak with someone like me, looking for help? How could they find their way here, to this communicationally challenged office, and sit and then ask me for direction? I am not qualified for this.