Regret of my one (Tibetan) coworker: Coming here.

My one (Tibetan) coworker told me that she regrets coming to the U.S. everyday.

She got here like over a year ago, and her husband just joined her.

She works at the resthome and also at a supermarket, and her husband is just finding his footing while her daughter is going back to school for an economics degree that will be recognized in the U.S.

"We came here for her," she was like, "But it is very hard."

She was a school teacher back in India and her husband had a good radio job and they had a nice house that they've held on to and are renting out, but here they work so much at low-level jobs and they rent and they probably won't ever own.

We got interrupted at that point in the conversation, but we'll have to talk again.

I think she's right, that it's worth it for her daughter to get a degree here, but otherwise they should head back to India, if they can get their jobs or equivalent jobs back.

Why wouldn't you be better treated there, if you're a professional like they've been, and especially at their age?

I've been surprised, too, by how many people I know who've told me to leave the country, since my career fate would be better abroad.  And these are well-educated people too, who I know from undergrad or academics from developing places like Chile and Brazil.  They say that abroad both me and my credentials would be appreciated.

Maybe if I was younger, but I'm too old now and I don't feel like moving, and I told them that.

One even told me then that to keep it in mind, if the U.S. becomes more destabilized over the years.

"At some point it becomes too late, when everyone starts wanting to go," she was like.

. . .

! ! !

My one (Muslim) (Ethiopian) coworker (5 of 5): Feminist activism.

The other week during downtime at the resthome after most of our work was done for the shift, I pulled out the memoir I was reading, by one of the Guerilla Girls, these pretty well-known feminist activists who do edgy protest art to draw attention to sexism in the art world.

And, my one (Muslim) (Ethiopian) coworker saw that I was reading that, and she asked me what it was.

So, I told her, and she was intrigued.

I then told her about their edgy humor and I shared a few examples with her, like how they made a poster observing that some museum only had 3% of its paintings by women but like 80% of its nudes were female, which made them ask if you had to be nude to get inside the museum.

"Mmm," she was like, approvingly, when she heard that.

I also read her a bit of a theater protest flyer, and the observation that a joy of a woman playwright was to live in the moment, since you wouldn't ever enter the history of theater.

"Ooooh," she was like.

"The humor is very sharp and dark," I was like.

"Yes," she was like.

I then held out the book and she read the final point of that flyer, which was something like how as an older playwright you get used to failure, since "your breasts also flop."

"What is 'flop'?", she was like.

"It's a metaphor for 'fail,'" I was like, "And it means when something falls all at once," and I held my hands by my chest and kind of let them plop down as I blew a raspberry PFFFFFFT.

"That's flop," I was like.

"Ooooooh!", she was like, and threw her head back and laughed really heartily.

She really is cool.  I wonder if that earthy sense of humor is her, or maybe it's a(n Ethiopian) thing?


Who knows, maybe it's both.

. . .

(I also made sure to test the waters with the memoir and keep the edgiest stuff till the end, to see how she reacted; I didn't want to get into harassment territory with a colleague with sharing that humor.)

My one (Muslim) (Ethiopian) coworker (4 of 5): Ramadan exchange.

The other week during Ramadan, my one (Muslim) (Ethiopian) coworker and I were talking, and she was surprised that I knew the greeting "Ramadan Mubarak!".

I then explained to her that I have a couple of friends who are half (Sudanese) and grew up in Sudan, and she asked if they were Muslim, and when I said they were, she was very pleased, probably because I had Muslims for friends, I'm guessing.

She then said that her city that she comes from is in a region near Sudan, and that "People from Sudan are very honest, I like," she was like.

She then asked if my friends were fasting, and I said probably not, that they were very secular, and the one had said it's a cultural thing like Christians who put up a Christmas tree and maybe go to church on Christmas and Easter.

"They should fast," she was like.

"I can tell them that, if you want," I was like.

"Okay," she was like.

So, I pulled out my smartphone and sent a "Happy Ramadan!" greeting to my one (half British) (half Sudanese) friend (the brother of the sister pair), saying that my one (Muslim) (Ethiopian) coworker says that he should fast.

When I finally got an email back a few days later, he wished me a happy Ramadan too, and he said that she was right, there's no excuse.

So, the next time that I saw her, I told her that, and she laughed, probably at his brashness.

"What should I write back, that he should fast?", I was like.

"No, just say 'thank you,'" she was like.

So, I wrote him that back and told him that she had told me just to say 'thank you,' and he observed that my coworker is very cool.

She is!

She gets what's going on, but chooses to be nice.

My one (Muslim) (Ethiopian) coworker (3 of 5): Drop-off.

The other week, I was outside when my one (Muslim) (Ethiopian) coworker got dropped off by her husband for work.

I was a bit shocked, since she had her veil on like usual, but she was also in a long black dress, since she hadn't been to the locker room yet to change into her scrubs.

I'm just so used to seeing her in a veil and scrubs, that anything else shocks me.

It's funny that if I saw her on the street, she would be an inaccessible person and a mystery, but I've gotten to know her decently from work, in a way that I never otherwise could have.

My one (Muslim) (Ethiopian) coworker (2 of 5): Ramadan observance.

My one (Muslim) (Ethiopian) coworker at the resthome had been fasting very observantly for Ramadan, and then one day during dinner she said she'd be over shortly to join us for the staff meal.

I was a bit confused at that, and was like, "But it's still Ramadan, right?".

"I am, how you say, menstruating," she was like.

On the courage of tenured faculty.

On the courage of tenured faculty, as described in an email by my one (half British) (half Sudanese) friend (the brother of the brother-sister pair I'm friends with):

my tenured adviser who earns a 6 figure salary is too self-interested to come out and openly support the grad student union, though behind closed doors he'll express support. how utterly pathetic!?!? I mean we are not talking about hiding anne frank in the attic here. just a public word of support for a legally recognized organization...

. . .

"Zing."

My one (Muslim) (Ethiopian) coworker (1 of 5): "Samusa" recipe.

After dinner the other week at the resthome when she was taking her break from fasting during Ramadan, my one (Ethiopian) coworker offered me a little triangular bread thing that she had a few of in a small tupperware container.

"Try it, it's good," she was like.

It basically was a slightly puffy dough wrapped over a little bit of lentils and some kind of chopped green herbs and then like lightly fried, and it was super delicious.

She said it was a samosa ("samusa," she pronounced it).

I said I didn't know there was like a(n Ethiopian) samosa variant, and she said there was, and I said I liked it better than (Indian) samosas I had had, since this was tasty and delicate, but Indian samosas are large and overstuffed and often super fried and greasy.

"Yes, samusas are all over, different kinds," she was like.

And, she was glad that I liked it.

She said it's her mom's recipe and she had taught her, so I told her that the next time she talked to her mom on the phone, to tell her that I like her samosa recipe.