Lessons in generosity

That old saying -- that those who have the least are the ones who give the most -- it never ceases to amaze me how true it is.

I spent the better part of this afternoon with a refugee family who, after being driven from their home in the south of Bhutan in the early 1990s, spent nearly two decades living in a bamboo hut with a plastic and thatch roof in a Nepalese refugee camp.

They arrived in Chicago with four bags between the five of them, stuffed with clothes and paperwork and a few pieces of jewelry. Now they live in a brown brick building in the black hat section of Devon. The walls are bare and the living room holds two twin beds. The walk up three flights of twisting stairs left me winded, though the 86-year-old grandpa glides up them with an ease unimaginable for a man with an inhaler and a walker.

In the early 1990s, the Bhutanese government began a multi-pronged campaign against its citizens of Nepali origin, many of whom had been settled in the south of the country for several generations. The government instituted a national dress code, burned books written in Nepali and became pickier and pickier about citizenship papers. Then, they began direct pressure. Heads of the family were called in to government offices and presented with paperwork in a language that they couldn't read. When they signed it, they relinquished rights to their land and declared they were leaving the country by their own choice. Those who didn't sign were threatened. Some were tortured.

That 86-year-old stair-climbing grandpa watched the army burn his house and farm -- the only home he'd ever known.

How do you ask someone to tell you about an experience like that? I started slowly, asking about specific memories and pointing out what few objects were around the room. When I asked about food, they called their 18-year-old daughter and before I knew it she was serving us the most amazing dumplings. I asked about the parents' wedding and they brought out pictures tucked inside a hand-me-down American children's book. I complimented the mother's necklace and they brought me a beautiful hand-beaded necklace and put it around my neck.

Really, what can you possibly say to that?