African Queens

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Well how is everybody doing?

The past two days have been pretty uneventful compared to all my previous blog posts since I landed in Sweden. I have been sleeping in late, enjoying the whole not having to work and being on vacation part of this trip.

Carrie, they do have some pretty rad flowers here. I actually remember when we landed in Stockholm, we were walking through the airport and I got so many funny looks when I stopped to take a picture of flowers. Yeah, yeah, yeah I thought but as you can see… they are beautiful and different!

William’s village is very small, and we are trying

to find a place where we can find some good potted flowers that we can plant in the yard, but we can’t seem to find a place! Don’t worry Carrie, we’ll find something and I will post pictures!

So the African girls that Williams father, Jan (Yon) adopted into his life, are so wonderful! The story goes that one afternoon his father was out running some errands “downtown” (haha across the street from where they live and they avoid it because it’s SOOO busy!) when 3 African immigrants approached him asking him if he knew where they could access the Internet. Jan, being so kind as he is, told them to follow him to office and they can use the Internet there for free. So gracious and thankful to Jan the three of them said they would repay him by cleaning his office. The office is really 3 bedroom apartment in a basement of a building that he has converted to an office. The girls set to work picking up after this man who has not had a women in his life in YEARS! Jan said told them to come home with him and he will cook them some dinner. The girls demanded he not lift a finger and they do the dishes and clean the house. Jan, being a divorced empty nester, loved the attention and company and fell in love with the girls.

After doing so much to help each other out, Jan could not help resist but let them move into this huge house with so many bedrooms. The girls were living in immigrant housing which is very unsafe and poorly maintained. Jan has named them his African Queens. There is one of the girls who is just BEAUTIFUL and has so much ambition in her life to succeed. His father has named her Queen.

The girls were raped and beaten and their female parts have been cut out of them. They are left with huge horrible scared holes between their legs. Two of them were forced into the army and forced to do horrible things. The girls escaped and fled the country knowing once they left Africa, they would be safe. The country they fear is not known by many, it is in Africa and it is the country of Eritrea.

Some how along the way they ended up in Stockholm where Sweden accepts all immigrants and pays for their housing and needs using tax dollars, despite what tax payers think. They were sent here to Gallivare and told that in 3 months they would be moved again. It has been almost a year and the girls are here. Queen, the most ambitious of the three, is currently a student teacher at a local elementary school and spends all of her free time working for Jan at his accounting office with secretarial needs. They go to school 5 days a week where they learn Swedish and more about the western culture.

Jan is currently educating them the use of deodorant and showering daily! Haha. They are the most amazing girls I have ever met. They know very little English but do their best communicating. They have hot coffee waiting every evening for Jan when he returns home from the office and always cook dinner for him.

One of the queens has such horrible skin, it is so chapped and dry around her mouth and on her cheeks. They are adorable as they come to me, and ask me what to do about their skin. The queen with the terribly dry skin, has come to me for help. Jan sent me to the pharmacy and told me to buy whatever she needs, just to please help her. So currently here in Sweden I am playing dermatologist! The problem is that everything is in Swedish!!! So William rolls his eyes and stands there so patiently in the makeup section reading the boxes to me. Today when I gave the girl the moisturizer she went into the bathroom, I went to check on her and she had huge tears in her eyes. She was so grateful for my outreach to her, it was the 1^st time somebody had cared about her. In Africa women are treated so horribly by their husbands, no respect what so ever and never taken care of. The fact that I want to help her, she had tears over.

Out of the corner of my eye I see one of the girls staring at me, CONSTANTLY! At first it freaked me out, A LOT! Then I was explained too that white skinned women are looked up too. They can not believe a real white, female American is in their presence. The girls I would guess are between 23 – 26 and are just determined to never go back to Africa. Two of the girls, their mothers are being held in prison and will be released upon their return to Africa, the girls can not communicate with their mothers but know that their mothers would not want them to come back. How awful!

I just wanted to share some pictures of these girls with you, and just want you to know how good we have it in America. Having their genitals cut out of them, being forced into an army and having the courage to escape Africa and come here and work as hard as they do, I commend them and I love them. Look into their eyes in these pictures and just think that when things are bad, they could be much worse.

Queen, last night wanted to do something to say thank you for me helping out the other with her skin, so she braided my hair in the most amazing corn rows ever! I was wondering where the heck she was when I needed it done for girls camp!!! No frizz, nothing, this girl has got TALENT!!!

(I took a sleeping pill the Dr. gave me before I left, can you tell I'm about to hit the floor by looking at my eyes! Haha!)

Only Queen would let me take pictures of her last night, the other two are very very shy, but I will get some of them so you can see them as well!

For dinner last night, we had Swedish pancakes with some jam made of some swedish berries. The jam looked like baby dookie but oh my gosh it was delicious!!!



Today we are going back to Porjus and we are going to a place that they call the Swedish Niagara Falls!

Mom & Dad, if you are reading this... email me asap and I will call you, I miss like crazy!

Just so you know... this is how far from home I am... click on it and follow the purple lines... notice I am currently 2 hours ABOVE the Arctic Circle, what the heck!?