The famous waiting room. Image was cropped to conceal the identity of Yusuf.

I couldn’t put my finger on the exotic smell that filled the house of the newly transported Memphis family I met today. I previously lived in a melting pot of an apartment in the culturally diverse mecca of Los Angeles, and because of this experience I was surprised by the naïve nature of my intrigue. My day’s journey began at the World Relief Memphis, where I was assigned to help a refugee from Somali, a country I have never met someone from. I also am new to Memphis, only having been a resident for ten days. I was told that the man I was assisting spoke English, but it was ignorant of me to think we would have an easy flowing conversation, during our drive. I took Yusuf towards downtown Memphis to the health department, this was his first time, and he would be receiving a Tuberculosis test. As we drove I unsuccessfully attempted to make small talk while successfully managing to miss every other turn on our trip. After scrambling for parking in a part of the city new to me, we hastily made our way into a room labeled “TB,” this is where the waiting began.

The first step was to assist my new acquaintance with filling out forms; this is where I had my first real chance to start communicating directly with him. We talked about geography, he knew which state Los Angeles was in, but had to explain to me the region where he had lived. My new friend was from Somalia, but had fled at one time to Uganda. Somalia lies to one side of Kenya, and Uganda to the other; which means an entire country separated his home land of Somalia and his displaced home of Uganda. I am a self-proclaimed geography wiz, and the need for a lesson on this part of the world bruised my ego.

Despite the waiting and hurried manner of the other patients, Yusuf smiled all day, even cheerful when posing for his identification picture. When he was called back for his examination I passed the time feeding quarters to the parking meter. It didn’t take long in the muggy heat advisory of the day for my shirt to become saturated. Between rounds of his appointments our conversation intermittently continued; our small talk got easier as we chatted about the weather, I even won back some amateur geography points. As he made his last trip into the clinic room, he gleefully showed me we were done with a thumbs-up sign.

As we hopped in the car that had been roasting in the heat all day he said it felt like the hot dry African climate he was used to. I turned on the radio after a long day of the dreary health department and asked if he liked American music. He smiled saying he was a supporter. I found out his favorite artists were rappers 50 Cent and Tupac. He was also a Bob Marley fan and I was treated to a few a-capella bars from Marley’s, ‘Buffalo Soldier.’ As I changed radio stations, we discovered Bob Marley singing, in which we both nodded our heads back and forth with the windows down, as we made our way to his home. At the end of our journey he turned to me, and gave me a big three-part handshake before he exited the car.

Being new to Memphis myself, I can empathize with the man and his family, but it is hard for me to fully image what it would be like to be transplanted from across the globe. This family was fortunate to be taking under the guiding hand of the World Relief operation in Memphis, which assists hundreds of refugee families every year. I can sympathize with the challenges that the family will endure adjusting to life in a new country, but I am confident in the aid that World Relief will provide and most of all in the friend I had made today. With a contagious smile and unending gratitude, I completely expect for him to thrive in America. Only one day into my Odyssey Forward program and I’m all ready day dreaming about getting to help this organization and this family on a regular basis, if all the organizations are this great I might not have much free time in my new city.