Tag: Memories

Christmas, 1988

On December 16, 2021

The year I was 12, we were robbed on Christmas Eve. Nonetheless, it was my favorite childhood Christmas.

That Christmas Eve in Liberia, as always, was warm; the equator hovering just a few degrees south of us. ELWA compound was a square mile in size, one of the largest mission stations in the world, with over 70 missionary homes surrounding a hospital and radio station. Our house had a large front porch with a hammock and a concrete railing. When you stood on that porch, the swamp was to the right, it’s murky water adorned with lily pads and surrounded by mangrove trees, their spiderly legs creeping around the edges.

The swamp was fed by a lagoon on the other side of the dusty, red dirt road, which was fed by the Atlantic Ocean. Our Christmas music was the rhythmic pulsing of the waves, their white crests glowing in the darkness.

Four or five families set up luminarias that Christmas Eve – paper bags filled with sand and a candle. We lined the dirt road with them, and one neighbor found a large piece of styrofoam and set one bag floating on the lagoon. The magic of that night – the stillness, the waves, the flickering light suspended in the shadows – settled down into my 12-year-old soul.

Later that evening we sat around our spindly plastic tree to open presents. There weren’t a lot of gift options available in Liberia in the 80’s, but I remember being delighted with everything I received. However, the only specific gift I can recall was a small, furry whimsical creature that sat in a hollowed out, heavily varnished coconut shell, a homemade toy sold by a woman who walked the mission station, her wares balanced proudly on her head.

When the tropical sun woke us on Christmas morning, the contents of our stockings engrossed my brother and me. We heard a shriek from our mom in the kitchen. During the night, thieves had sliced through the screen on the window above our kitchen sink, the only window that didn’t have bars. They removed the louvered glass, stepped over the turkey defrosting in the sink, and stole our cassette player, our thermos jug, and my mom’s purse, which had been hanging on a chair.

The Longest Friends

By Amy Medina

On October 20, 2019

In Leaving Tanzania

Last week was mid-term break (it’s not called “Fall Break” around here; we don’t have “Fall”) and we went to our favorite beach for four days with our friends Tim, Emily, Caleb, and Imani. For all six of us Medinas, they are some of our longest friends in Tanzania.

We met Tim and Emily in 2002, just a few months after Gil and I had arrived in Tanzania. But what really brought us together was that Tim and Emily adopted Caleb just months before we adopted Grace. Then, Tim and Emily adopted Imani just months before we adopted Josiah. Caleb and Imani were Grace and Josiah’s first friends, and now, their longest friends.

Tim and Emily don’t live in Dar es Salaam, so we don’t see them often–usually just a couple of times a year. They live in a remote part of Tanzania doing incredibly cool things. But for many years, whenever they were in town, they would stay with us, which meant that their kids and our kids did a lot of life together. In fact, for a few years, Caleb and Imani would join our kids at HOPAC whenever they visited.

Getting my children together with Caleb and Imani is always an amazing delight. Their personalities mesh perfectly; they enjoy each other; they bring out the best in each other. And their shared life stories make their relationships particularly special. And of course, Gil and I think their parents are pretty awesome too.

So last week was a magical four days with perfect weather, moonlit games of Capture the Flag, beach bonfires, giant succulent fish dinners, and laughter. Oh, so much laughter. It was Tim and Emily who first introduced us to this perfect beach many years ago, so it was fitting that we got to spend these days with them there–during what might be our last trip to this beach.

Reading Stronger Than Death

And since I’m feeling pretty nostalgic these days, knowing that these kind of times are coming to an end for us, I’ll take you on a trip down Memory Lane with the Medina kids’ friendship with Caleb and Imani.

You Were Right, Dad

By Amy Medina

On July 30, 2019

In Other

I picked up our Round Table pizza last night, and I thought about Frank.

The summer I was sixteen, my dad declared that I would be getting a summer job. He helped me write a resume, and one Saturday morning, drove me around to local businesses, stopped the car, and forced me to get out and introduce myself to managers. I was not an outgoing person, but my dad believed in throwing me in the deep end.

One of those places was Copy Plus, a small store owned by Frank, which was just a few blocks away from my home in California. I got the job that same week. (It was either that or the candy store at the mall. Given these options, I figured a copy store was going to be better than any mall job. I was right.)

Frank was my first boss. He was from Philly, and he often told me the story of the gunshot wound on his elbow. One of my first lessons from him was that if anyone ever came into the store with a gun, I should open the cash register and back away. My wide-eyed little sixteen-year-old suburban self wondered what I had gotten myself into. After all, this was my neighborhood shopping center, not the ghetto.

Frank had a big laugh and an even bigger heart. He looked after me like a daughter, and he shared his business and his life with me. Every morning, he would tell me how much money we made the day before. We weren’t Kinko’s, he would tell me, but Copy Plus always went the extra mile.

It was just making copies, I thought–but with Frank, it wasn’t just making copies. Frank taught me how to run and service his giant, high speed copy machines, and I learned the thrill of getting them all working at the same time. The rhythmic chanting of those machines were the background noise as he taught me how to make our customers happy. I learned how to smile at strangers, how to solve people’s problems, how to meet deadlines. I experienced the exhilaration of handing a satisfied customer a nice, neat box of a job well done.

Frank showed me what good business looks like. What a good boss looks like.

Now that I think about it, I learned a lot about life at Copy Plus. Parts of Frank are indelibly a part of who I am.

Over the next several years, I quit that job four times–to go back to high school, to go to college, to be a camp counselor, to be a student teacher. Whenever I visited home, I would visit Frank, and every time, he asked me if I wanted my job back. He hired me back–four times. Copy Plus became a part of my history.

Round Table Pizza was just two doors down from Copy Plus. Round Table is still there, but there’s a UPS store where Copy Plus used to be. My parents have lived in the same house since I was two years old (minus the years in Africa), so when we visit, we order our pizza from the same Round Table. Last night, picking up the pizza, I lingered in front of that UPS store, and I remembered Frank. And I remembered that day my dad forced me out of that car with my resume. He told me that one day when I was older, I would thank him for it. He was right.