i don't want to grow up

yesterday was a pretty interesting day. i was at school all morning and worked at the library for an hour. i wandered around campus, trying to be sociable without feeling cheap. i got a free meal in the cafeteria, and read a book by a christian indian mystic. generally, i just tried to kill time, because i was dreading going to help my refugees move into their new house. finally, i went over at 2 . . . and it was pouring rain. as a complete side note, the jacket that i had just gotten for free (and forgotten to wash) smelled like an old hamster cage as soon as the rain hit it. and i had to wear it all day.
anyways, when i got to majuma's house, everything was all packed up, but there was no moving van. a somalian man, alisheck, was supposed to have gotten them a uhaul . . . but i found out very quickly that he had changed his mind that day, saying he was "too busy". i started loading up my teeny little car with an increasing sense of futility. just then, an emplyee from the refugee resource center showed up. her name is jennifer, and she was completly stressed out. we quickly figured out that neither of us had money for a uhaul, but that there was no way we could move the bed frames without one.
i didn't really know why jennifer was so stressed out . . . i figured that we could get the uhaul the next day and it would all work out. and then i remembered hassan.
hassan was in the hospital, and needed to come home that day. i didn't exactly know what was wrong with him, but jennifer told me that if he stayed an extra night in the hospital it wold cost hundreds of dollars. and the hospital had just told her that they would not release hassan unless there was a clean bed set up for him at the new apartment.
jennifer also told me what was wrong with hassan: the medication that he had been on for treating his tape worm was causing his internal organs to liquify. that explained to me why his eyes were turning gray and why he had seemingly aged 10 years in two months. basically, he is dying. not today, and probably not tomorrow, but sooner than later.
so. i found all this out, and we still needed a uhaul. jennifer ended up having majuma write her a check, and she went off to go get the truck. and then i had to start doing grown-up things.
i called the hospital and convinced them to discharge hassan at 4pm, and told them where to find the new apartment.
i took one of the somali ladies (suleka), filled my little car to the brim with trashbags full of pots and pans and went to the new apartment complex to start getting a bed ready.
i picked up my friend weston so he could help load/unload.
i helped finish cleaning majuma's apartment, and took her and her three daughters to their new place.
i talked to social workers on the phone.
i went back to the hospital in order to pick up the medication that they had forgotten to give hassan (don't even get me started on this one).
i went back to the apartment complex and tried to explain to hassan how to take 13 different kinds of pills.

and then . . . . i was done. i was so tired. and happy-sad. the somalis are the most amazing people you will ever meet in your life. there must have been 25 people in the new apartment (half of them little kids) all yelling and shouting in somalian, helping out out majuma simply because she was one of them.
i remembered the hundreds of times my family has moved, and i can't remember ever having that many people help us out. africans teach me so much.
its hard to grow up, especially in one day. but the stretching makes me stronger, and it makes me feel like i am alive. i have a suspician that days like this will be the kind of days that i remember when i am old and gray.
if i ever make it to that stage.