Home of the Brave

After the initial paperwork is finished, Dave takes Kek to another room to meet Diane. Here, Kek learns from Diane that the center has been working to locate any information about his mother. The instant Kek hears this news his “hope flutters high like a bird [he] cannot catch” (56). But the words he hopes to hear about his mother do not come. Diane tells Kek that it is hard to find refugees because of how often they move to new camps. She says they will keep looking but warns Kek that he shouldn’t get his hopes up. Trying to sound brave, Kek proclaims he will still hold onto hope even though he knows he sounds like a lost young boy.

It is in this moment that Kek feels helpless; he has no control over the critical aspects of his young life and he constantly feels as if he is running to try to catch up to the strange new world around him.

Kek encounters his own fear of losing his identity when he tries on his new clothes for school. At first he is proud, parading around the living room in the clothes, amusing his aunt and annoying his cousin, the latter of whom scornfully says, “It’s just school, Kek” (61). As Kek goes to view himself in the mirror, he wonders if he looks like an American boy. He then wonders whether “that would be a good thing or a not-good thing” (61). He begins to call into question what happens to his past and who he was as he tries to assimilate into American culture.

As he thinks of school, Kek remembers the few times he was able to attend the school at the refugee camp. His teacher encouraged them to learn English, and sometimes would allow them to sing songs, practice counting numbers, or engage in Kek’s favorite activity: telling stories. The stories would always begin with, “Once there was…” and the words would “lift [Kek] up, the words like a breeze beneath butterfly wings” (64). For Kek, the stories were a form of escapism, a way in which to leave behind “the pain in [his] belly and the tight knot of [his] heart” (64).

Kek hopes that the new school will allow students to tell stories, and if they do not, he intends to teach them. As he says, one needs only to start with three words (“once there was”) and let hope carry the rest of the story from one’s heart. Kek’s feeling toward stories reflects the purity of youth and humanity’s incredible capacity for hope even after experiencing darkness and despair.

When Dave takes Kek to his first day at school, the boy is amazed at the size of the building. He looks at the shiny hallway floors and the rows of lockers and takes in the whole of the experience. Kek gets to meet his new teacher, Ms. Hernandez, before the school day begins, and she greets him by saying hello in his native language. She shows him to his desk and chair, but Kek refuses to sit down, saying that he does not have the fine cattle necessary to pay for such a luxury. Ms. Hernandez tells him that school is free: “You just bring your mind and your smile” (68).

Kek cannot stop smiling as he sits down at his desk. He is aware of the opportunity, or the “honor,” as he calls it, that the school provides for him. He offers a stark reality of the lack of educational opportunities in third-world countries, and countries that have been ripped apart by war and famine.

Ms. Hernandez explains to her class that their course is an ESL (English as a Second Language) course and that the students will not always be able to understand each other. She shares with her students that she was an ESL student as well when she came to America from Mexico. This surprises Kek, who thought that teachers knew everything. He asks Mr. Franklin, the classroom aide, if he did not know things at one point as well.

Both Ms. Hernandez and Mr. Franklin present themselves as role models for the ESL students, two people who were once in the same place as these boys and girls, but who learned the language, adapted to the culture, and became successful. 

Kek’s class contains sixteen students who speak ten different languages; however, he notes that their faces reflect a wide variety of peoples: “brown and pink and yellow and white and black” (73). Despite their racial differences, they are all in the same class, sitting behind the same desks, wanting to learn the same things.

In one class, Ms. Hernandez asks the students to draw pictures of where they came from. Kek chooses to draw a picture of a bull, “like the finest in [his] father’s herd” (74). As he finishes the drawing, another student utters a “Moo” from the back of the room. Soon all the students sound like cows and Kek feels at home, thinking that “[a]t last we can all understand each other” (75). He thinks that some students are laughing at him, but he does not mind. The collective “mooing” has brought a sense of unity to a very diverse group of children.

At lunch, Kek is somewhat overwhelmed by the cafeteria process. He is shocked by the amount of food the workers pile onto his plate and confused when Hannah, the snowball girl, warns him away from the meat. Unsure of where to sit in such a large room, Kek is invited to sit with Hannah, who promises to tell him what is safe to eat.

Hannah reaches out to Kek of her own volition, a sign of her character and her own understanding of what it feels like to be the outsider in a large group of people. 

Kek eats lunch with Hannah and two students from his class: Jaime, who is from Guatemala; and Nishan, who is from Ethiopia. He heartily enjoys his food, especially his first taste of French fries, or what Hannah calls “[o]ne of the five major food groups” (79). The group gently laughs at Kek when he asks if the fries grow in the ground, and they laugh more when Kek learns to dip his fries in ketchup and tells Hannah, “You’re a fine cook” (80).

Despite their various backgrounds, the four students connect over their feelings about the food they eat. Kek feels good that he has made his new friends laugh, a sound that he says is “always a good surprise” (80).

What begins as a friendly lunch ends with Kek losing his appetite. While they eat, Hannah asks Kek about his cousin, Ganwar, and how he came to lose his hand. Kek tries to explain what happened using English, that Ganwar lost his family and his hand in the fighting. Sadly, both Nishan and Jaime can relate to what Kek has endured. They ask about his own family, and he talks about his father and brother’s deaths. Kek says he was lucky to see their deaths, and although Hannah has a hard time understanding this statement, Nishan does not. “Not knowing, it’s the hardest” (83), she says.

When asked about his mother, Kek stubbornly clings to hope and says he is waiting for her. Hannah mentions that waiting is difficult, and Kek realizes that she has suffered hurt in her life as well. This poem lays out the psychological impact that violence in the world has on children, regardless of their heritage.

Kek returns home from school and finds Ganwar about to do the laundry. Ganwar tells Kek he will show him the room in the basement where the wash gets done. He even convinces Kek the laundry is his job but that he will let his little cousin help, ostensibly to get out of having to do it at all. It is a rare, almost big-brotherly move on Ganwar’s part.

Kek excitedly shares everything about his first day at school with his aunt, and declares that “maybe I’ll like living here in America” (87). But Ganwar quickly shoots down Kek’s comment, claiming that Ganwar himself once thought the same thing but that they will never be allowed to “really feel like an American” (87). He then abruptly walks out of the apartment.

Ganwar resents his cousin’s wide-eyed enthusiasm and naiveté regarding his new life in America. For Ganwar, America has not been a land of hope but instead a constant reminder of what he has lost and why he cannot fit into American society. Ganwar represents many immigrants and refugees who feel overwhelmed trying to find their place in America.

Alone with his aunt, Kek listens intently as she explains Ganwar’s negative attitude. She knows it has been difficult for her son, but she also points out that “he doesn’t try” (89). In his mother’s eyes, Ganwar has not given America or himself a chance.

As his aunt prepares to leave for work, Kek asks her if she is glad to be in America. She notes that “[t]he freedom is a great gift […] To choose your leaders. To walk the streets unafraid” (90). But she also confesses that America is a lonely place for an older woman who is set in her ways. She hopes that change will be easier for Kek and Ganwar because they are younger. The younger generation’s adaptability is what Kek’s aunt is counting on to make the transition to a new culture smoother and easier than it was for her.

In an attempt to pitch in and help ease his aunt’s workload, Kek decides to take the dirty dishes in the sink and clean them—in the washing machine. Kek mistakes the washing machine that Ganwar told him about as the place to wash the dishes. He is trying his best to help, and in doing so, he thinks about how proud his father would be of his desire to assist his family. But thinking of his father causes his heart to hurt, “throbbing like an old bruise” (93). In trying to help his extended family, Kek only remembers the father that he will never see again.

As Kek waits by the washing machine, Hannah comes in with a basket of clothes. Kek is worried because the machine is not working, and Hannah lets him borrow four quarters to get the machine started. As the machine starts up, Kek is happy until Hannah mentions folding when the machine stops. The dishes in the machine begin to break, and Hannah lifts up the top of the washing machine to see the smashed dishes within, calling it “a problem with translation” (98). The dish incident shows Kek’s struggle to understand both the language and culture in America and the kindness of Hannah, a girl who knows what it means to be an outsider and who reaches out to befriend Kek.

Hannah and Kek burst into laughter at the sight of the broken dishes, and Kek reveals his native culture’s attitude toward women by saying, “Perhaps this is my punishment for trying to do the work of a woman” (100). Hannah tells him that in America, a woman can do whatever she wants. The dish incident is because Kek is a “not-smart boy” (101), in Kek’s words. They pull the pieces out of the machine and Hannah says they may be able to glue some of the parts back together. She warns Kek not to get his hopes up.

Kek mentions that he is getting used to being told to temper his positive attitude in the face of the reality that people around him have experienced. Kek’s positivity is partly due to his youth, but it is also a remarkable aspect of his personality that he still retains, despite the trauma he has experienced in his life.

This poem is important in emphasizing the foundation of friendship between Hannah and Kek. Hannah brings Kek to her foster family’s apartment to find glue for the dishes. While there, she explains to Kek how she came to be placed with a foster family, because her alcoholic father wanted nothing to do with her and her mother is in a drug rehab clinic. Hannah comes close to tears when speaking about her mother, and Kek offers her what he himself has lived on for so long: hope. In return, Hannah gives him a glass of chocolate milk, a drink that amazes him. Hannah tells Kek about the grocery store and the city bus, and he laments that he doesn’t know everything he needs to know about America. Hannah says she will help him because “I kind of know what it’s like to not know things” (105). From this moment, their friendship is solidified. 

In his desire to replace his aunt’s dishes, Kek tells Dave that he needs to get a job. Dave tells Kek to wait a bit until he get his feet wet, an idiom that confuses Kek; when he looks at his feet, they are completely dry. Dave explains that the phrase means to become more experienced. Dave turns his attention to Ganwar, encouraging him to look for a source of employment. But Ganwar responds negatively to this idea; he refuses to work at a restaurant, cleaning up after other people. In truth, Ganwar is afraid to be judged for the loss of his hand and he hides in his apartment and nurses his personal wounds and anxieties.

Kek, on the other hand, is beginning to branch out. He asks Dave to visit the cow at the farm they stopped by many years earlier, and Dave gives him permission to take the city bus to get there if Hannah goes with him. Kek has an idea and thinks that the farm might be the answer he needs.

As they get on the public bus, Hannah pays for Kek’s fare, despite his objections. She explains that her mother sends her money on occasion: money, but no note or letter. Hannah used to write to her mother, but because her mother never wrote back, she stopped. When they get to the farm, Hannah is surprised to see that the old cow has horns, but Kek says that female cows can have horns sometimes, too. As they get off the bus, Kek prepares to try to get a job.

Kek and Hannah go to the farmhouse door and meet the owner, Louise, or as she prefers to be called, Lou. She invites them in and listens as Kek tells her that her cow is depressed. Lou, an older woman, offers cookies to the kids and asks Kek to explain his background with cows. Lou’s kindly attitude is tinged with a desire to treat Kek’s interest in her cow with some seriousness. It is Kek’s open heart and hopeful personality that pique Lou’s interest in listening to what the young boy has to say.

As Kek shoves his mouth full of cookies, Hannah fills Lou in on Kek’s background and knowledge of cows. She explains Kek’s need for money to replace his aunt’s dishes. Lou reflects on her husband’s immigration to America from Norway and her own great-great-grandfather’s journey from Ireland. Lou’s husband passed away a year ago and she has had trouble keeping up the farm. Kek says that he can cheer up Lou’s cow by brushing her, feeding her the best hay, and talking to her. He did this with the cattle back in Africa and “they would grow calm and easy to herd” (122). As Kek waits hopefully for Lou’s response, she tells him to have another cookie.

Ganwar stumbles home late that night, and Kek has waited up to share the news: Lou has given Kek a job working with her cow. Ganwar is stunned, and as Kek tries to explain his need to be around cattle again, his older cousin begins to reminisce about his own experiences with the herds in Africa. Ganwar insists that they will never be accepted in America, and they cannot ever go back home to Africa. Kek tells him he must hold onto hope, but his cousin has already fallen asleep on the couch. Kek tries to fall asleep and thinks of his old life herding the cattle in his father’s herds.