“May I please speak to a healthcare representative? I have a question.” 

         “Hold on, we can’t find your information. Please share your details once more — this time, slowly.

“Ok….Yes, B as in boy…L as in Larry”

In the throes of a Tuesday ESOL class, I feel shoulders straighten and spines align with heads cocked as a room full of worn women endure another language lesson. Exchanging imagined conversations about education, insurance, healthcare, and business, these women are here to master a foreign tongue to equip themselves and their children with security. I notice how whispers of Arabic fall between conversations to dissect English jargon that is built into simple ideas of health and wellness, and I reflect on how the English language has come to symbolize security and submission in this country. For many, English is a simple means of communication, but to our clients, it is a tool of survival. I watch the children of these women bickering with each others in English that they comfortably picked up at local schools in our makeshift daycare during ESOL classes. I watch these kids mediate our conversations with clients as we ask how we can help. In this space, Family is understood as a network of coworkers, clients, and kids working to sort our issues that are lost in language.

Class ends with an exercise of name-sharing over phone calls. Skipping introductions, it has not come across me that I barely know half the names in this room. Many of our clients reference one another as sister and brother, so in practice, I adopted this sense of family into our lesson plans. However, naming is a crucial part of identity here, so we set a plan of action to clearly articulate this. I smile between words as I notice many of our clients grimacing and eye-rolling envisioning the prospect of spelling their full name out over the phone.  Many had opted for nicknames and shortened surnames in conversation. This, of course, was a notable issue in our own documentation of information. We constantly were fact-checking names and addresses to connect arbitrary yet significant identifiers.

By the end of the lesson, women are phonetically exchanging names – isolating every letter and pairing them with alien words to ensure their own identity was understood. As class wraps up, we scramble to sort Eid toys for the restless kids in the waiting room. Handing them off to various families, we trade goodbyes that are lost in translation.

Reflecting on this challenging week, I am starting to understand the type of measured spontaneity and adaptability that nonprofit work requires. You are juggling shifting needs and priorities, substituting uncertainty for collective assurance — one that is built by an exceptional support system found at MFS Ohio.