mornings

Berkeley is a pretty little town. There are plants and flowers everywhere, throughout the year. 

Niko, my son, is in 5th grade. He's 10 years old. He takes a school bus to school and we walk to the bus stop together each morning. 

Today, Niko pointed out a silver eating spoon stuck into the street post. Last week, we witnessed a double rainbow arched brightly across the sky. The earthy, distinctive scent of smoked marijuana greets us on our path to the bus stop. Once the smell was so pungent, I thought one of us farted. The kids who ride the bus are Latinos and Blacks, and Niko, a Pacific Islander. There is a kindergarten kid, a white kid, the youngest kid at the bus stop, who comes with his mother and his toddler sister. But only sometimes, most of the time, his mother gives him a ride.

Niko said that the bus picks up a few Samoan kids at a different school on its route back home. At school, the 5th graders help the 1st graders to read better. Niko's 1st grade reading buddy is a boy named Samoa. Niko asked Samoa once if he is Samoan, which by the way he is, and Samoa replied, "I don't know."

Two different Latino families who come to the bus stop are junior high school brothers and sisters who accompany their younger siblings. When the bus arrives, the younger siblings board, and the older brothers and sisters walk to the city bus stops to go to their schools. There is an older brother of a girl who goes to school with Niko. This brother takes his sister everywhere. I saw them at the Grocery Outlet on a Saturday and saw them waiting for the bus on Dwight Way on a Sunday. His grandmother, who lives next to the bus stop, told me that the boy and his older brother take very good care of their younger sister because, she and the children's parents, work everyday. 

I admire this boy for taking care of his family although he is only in junior high school. If you were to see him, you would say he is timid, awkward, ungraceful. This makes me admire him even more, that although he may be uncomfortable in his own skin, he continues to get up in the morning to help his sister and his family.  I also admire this boy for the lessons he is learning. These experiences help to build him into a certain kind of strong person. He is the kind of boy I want my son to be like. But Niko doesn't have anyone to care and be responsible for, not even himself most of the time. Since Niko's Music Together classes, Baby Yoga and art at the Red Lotus, pottery and movement at the Sorenson Center, Aikido at the age of three, dance classes at the University of Utah with toddler girls who aspired to be ballerinas, piano/guitar and community theater at Zumix, I have accompanied Niko. How can Niko learn to be his own person and to be responsible for himself and to help others, if he has never had to in his 10 years of life?    

When we lived in Worcester, I was in grad school full time and worked a legal internship full time. Niko had to take care of himself after school. He learned a lot during those two years.

In Worcester, Niko organized his own 10th birthday party. He called his friends and visited their homes  to announce his plans. On his birthday, I was walking home from work at 6:00pm and saw his friends, new immigrants from Somalia, dressed in their Sunday best. I asked them what was the occasion and they all enthusiastically replied, "Niko's birthday party!" Niko's friends brought several presents wrapped in Price Chopper grocery bags. Inside were the video games that Niko loved to play at their homes each afternoon while I was at work. In entering our apartment, filled with Niko and his sharp dressed friends, I received a call from Daniel, one of the Lebanese American brothers at Fantastic Pizza. "Wassup Daniel," I said. "Hey Loa," he said, "You really want 7 large cheese and onion pizzas. I thought Niko only eats pepperoni." I looked at Niko puzzled and asked about the onion pizzas. "Duh," said Niko, "My friends are Muslim, pepperoni is pork." "Hey," yelled Daniel on the telephone, "You must be eating pizza with Muslims." "Yes," I answered, "I'm partying with Niko and his friends."  

Now we are living in Berkeley with Fui, my sister, and Mo, my brother-in-law. Niko has more support around him and have family to help raise him. We all want to raise a young man who can take care of himself and can work well with others to take care of his community. Hell, I'm still working to become that kind of person.