Lula and the "Tiger"

Along with other members of my church I’m getting to know a community of women and men who have emigrated from Somalia and Kenya.  Lula came to the US from a refugee camp in Somalia twelve years ago.  Since Lula wants to pass her citizenship exam, a few of us have begun to visit her and other women in her community to do what we can to help them learn English.   So far we’ve used flash cards, calendars, magazines, simple books and materials a friend and ESL teacher loaned me.

Lula is the lovely woman pictured above; on Thursdays we knock at the door of her apartment.  Sometimes she answers the door, other times one of her six children do; sometimes neighbors who are visiting let us in.  We really aren't sure who lives where.  Some days we work one on one with Lula; other times we work with a group of women.  We don’t quite get all the relationships—not yet anyway—because each Thursday it's a different scenario.

Last Thursday Rachel and I knocked on Lula’s door expecting to work with a group who said last week they'd meet us there.  Only Lula was available.  After going in search of the other women and finding no one else, we sat down on her couch with ABC flashcards, each flashcard a two-piece puzzle. These special cards have the letters on the left pieces and pictures of animals, toys or objects beginning with the letter on the right pieces—a great help for students as they learn both letters and vocabulary words. So we helped Lula match the letter P with a picture of a pig and slice of pie, the letter F with a very bad representation of a frog and a fish, the B with a ball and a baby.  When we came to the letter T and a picture of a tiger, Lula gave a start and said she doesn’t like tigers.  I wish I could relay the story that followed in way she did, but the experience went something like this:

Lula:                        My brother and me in Africa—He nine and I seven; we lest.

The meaning of “lest” was very important to the story.  After several guesses and misses, we finally understood that Lula and her brother were lost which means they were exposed to the wild.  Kind of like Hansel and Gretel.

Lula:                        We walk and walk; my brother have shoes—I no shoes. He—”

Here Lula hunches over and points to her back and we guess that Lula’s brother was carrying her piggyback.  She nods furiously and continues.

Lula:                        We have no nothing—(She throws her head back and points to her mouth).

Me:                          Oh!  While you and your brother were lost, you had no food?

Lula nods and makes a pouring motion.

Rachel:                   or water!

Lula:                        (nodding again) Then! I see tiger!! (she rolls her exquisite eyes) And I—(She points to her wide-open mouth and rubs her eyes)

We guess that she's either crying or screaming or both.

Lula:                        Yes.  Brother—he see—(She makes upward climbing motions with her hands).

Us:                           Tree!

The tension of the story is mounting and we begin to choose our words in her clipped, terse style, dropping articles and choosing a strict and spare vocabulary.

Lula:                        My brother climb tree (she points to her feet).

Me:                          (gasping) You don’t have shoes!!!

Lula:                        Brother climb tree and I cry and scream. Brother—(she makes the same climbing motion with her hands again, only in the opposite direction).

Us:                           He climb down!!

My heart is racing as I imagine 7-year-old Lula left on the ground to deal with the tiger by her little self. 

Lula:                        Yes!  He climb down—(She makes a wrapping motion with her arms).

Us:                           He hold you!

Lula:                        (nodding again) The tiger, he look at me—(she points to her own eyes); he do this!

Lula bares her own teeth and contorts her face and we know without having to guess that she is imitating the tiger.  Of course the tiger didn’t eat Lula or we wouldn't be talking about it, but I suddenly wonder if I can continue to listen because we don't know yet about her brother.  And we’re learning all kinds of stories from members of Lula’s community and know that many of them live with horrific memories from their past lives in Africa.

Lula:                        He look at me (she makes that face again, showing her own teeth)!!  He leave us!

We sat with our mouths open for a few seconds after that. Obviously, the fact that the tiger didn’t eat her or her brother is still astonishes her.  She repeated over and over that the tiger looked at her—that the tiger saw her and passed on.

After a bit she continued and we gathered as best we could that as soon as the tiger was out of sight, Lula and her brother didn’t waste any time climbing up the tree, shoes and no shoes; that’s where they spent the night. The next morning a woman walked by carrying a container of water, gave them each a drink and took the children home with her.  The woman and her husband worked to get the names and family information from the traumatized children, and the husband went in search of Lula’s family.  Six days later, said Lula, she and her brother were back home.  Rachel, Lula and I all clapped happily.  Lula finished the story by saying that her mother “cry and don’t eat when we lest.”  I have no doubt.

After we recovered a little from the tension of the story, Lula told us that she knew a family that was attacked and eaten by a tiger while the father—a friend of her father’s—was away.  “They do that,” she said.

Later in the day I repeated Lula’s story to a friend who has traveled the world over.  “I’ll bet it was a lion,” she said.  “I don't think there are tigers in Africa.”  I Googled tigers and learned that she’s right; I even Googled a story from my childhood involving a child and tigers and saw that the story took place, not in Africa as I always assumed, but in South India.  So I’ll have to bring a picture of a lion with me next time I see Lula and see if the animal was a lion though in the end it probably doesn't really matter; even I know that there are plenty of horror stories involving lions in Africa.

Lions and tigers (and bears); oh my!