Chick on the Corner!

It was the beginning of the 21^st century and I lived in Houston, Texas, USA. I tended to observe immigrant struggles from the relatively safe and somewhat distant perspective of a privileged American. The fighting in Kosova, where Serbian soldiers attempted to terminate the majority Albanian population, had been halted by NATO intervention. In one of those instances where God’s timing interrupts my less-than-complete moral concentration, in January, 2000, I spent 7 days in Stockholm, Sweden. 44 of us from around the world met to draft accords on ethnic cleansing. There were no recognized words that expressed unequivocally that it is wrong to eradicate an ethnic group and most especially egregious to do so in the name of God. While helping to write those accords, I received a refresher on the history of Balkan ethnic and religious tensions.

I define it as providential that, just days after returning to Houston, the leader of the missions team in the congregation where I was pastor informed me that 500 ethnic Albanian families from Kosova had been relocated to Houston. I was shocked, because I had just been briefed on Albanian troubles during my Sweden visit and would return to Skopje, Macedonia (FYROM) in less than a year to sign those accords and lead a short-term ministry project among Albanian people. Almost immediately, our congregation began to care for these immigrants who had recently arrived in our “backyard.”

One day I made a home visit with an Albanian family. Their tiny apartment held a family of 7. In typical Albanian hospitality, they welcomed me and offered sweets and juice. Immediately, the family pet entered the room. As a seasoned pastor, I recognize the importance of acknowledging family pets. I have admired more puppies and cats than you can imagine! But, I was shocked when this pet strutted in and hopped into my lap because the beloved companion was a chicken!

After the father told me the chicken’s Albanian name, I inquired (with a straight face) “And, how did the chicken become your family pet?” The explanation was straightforward.  Coming home from night-shift work, he stopped at a traffic light. Without air conditioning, he had his car windows down; over the noise of traffic he heard the “cheep cheep” of a baby chick. Strutting proudly near his car door, amidst busy traffic, this little chickadee seemed to be requesting a rescue. Knowing that his family wanted a pet, but could not afford a regular one, he took the little darling home. And the rest, as they say, is part of Houston Albanian immigrant history!

You decide how to interpret this. Perhaps it reminds you of significant emotional enhancements gained from having pets around. Maybe it speaks of innovation in the midst of economic deprivation.  Perhaps you hear the tale of a desperate father, trying to provide for his children.

Almost a decade-and-a-half later, I understand immigrant struggles from a much more intimate viewpoint. Living as an immigrant myself and knowing many Albanians in Athens, Greece, I marvel at the sensitivity to essential necessities which is often serendipitously honed when a soul leaves his native soil. My personal experience with immigrants is that, despite the pressures and discrimination which they face, their personal losses often help them to understand better and encourage them to respond more positively to privations – both their own and those of others. Their ears have become sensitized and attuned to hear the desperate cry of the less-fortunate over the background noises which so easily conspire to drown them out.

 “He who has ears to hear …”

Three Wheels, Two Generations, One Hope!

In that intermediate, in-between time connecting sunset and dark, I came up behind them on a congested street in the Koukaki section of Athens. Even without the ostensibly mandatory red tail light, I could tell that it was a handmade, small truck-like vehicle, wired and spot-welded together. The two tiny, rear wheels sagged helplessly; I think I heard them cry out, beneath their far-too-heavy load.

Looking at the used auto batteries, bathroom porcelain and various shapes and sizes of metal piled haphazardly (and dangerously) into the tiny truck bed, I knew that the immigrant driving the thing was collecting recyclable junk from the public trash containers. I was neither surprised nor disappointed when, at the last minute, he pulled-in beside the next dumpster and began to poke around in it. A homesteader in Athens’ underground economy, who probably lives in one of the cardboard shanty-towns, he was planing to collect some needed cash from the assortment of cast-off items he had so perilously scavenged from the streets.

When I happily passed by this makeshift contraption, on to what I assumed to be my much more important business, I noticed that the front end of the thing was a motor scooter. The mini-truck bed had been affixed to the front wheel and handlebars of what my Albanian friends refer to as a motori. Compounding my surprise, I noticed that the driver was holding an infant on his lap. The baby couldn’t have been more than 12 months old! In my rear view mirror now, the happy-as-a-clam father was laughing and talking with the baby, while simultaneously steering, braking and preparing to dismount from the motor scooter-cum-pickup truck.

My first reaction was to let loose a generous dose of righteous indignation. How could any responsible father risk this tender infant by precariously placing him on a bony knee, while navigating the busy city streets in that contraption?! Then, my holier than thou resentment morphed into practical curiosity. How could the man shift gears, apply the hand brakes and steer that thing while cradling with his left forearm, elbow and palm, this squiggly, child?

And then, in a swift, mini synaptic passage, I became slightly more reflective. I began to imagine how this unique “take-your-child-to-work” scenario could have happened. What forces, social, familial, economic and political, contrived to create such a scene? What does a man feel when, through what is patently a multiplicity of causal factors, he is called upon to babysit a child while simultaneously doing the “trash run”? Where is Mama? Big sis? Big brother?

I spent most of my drive time thinking about the father’s attitude. How does a father arrive at the place where he can celebrate the child, even despite these less than ideal conditions? What messages does that father want to send to his most recent newborn? In a world that is likely to communicate to that child that s/he is a worthless inconvenience, that the struggle to survive would have been better off without him or her, how does a father laugh and embrace the precious infantile presence? What spiritual dexterity is required to authenticate humanity and to demonstrate a positive receptivity in close proximity to a trash dumpster?

Just wondering!