Well over a year ago I had expressed an interest in the mentoring program at Girls’ Inc., but this was prior to Megan Oberymeyer’s wonderful coordination of the group. So I must admit I was a little hesitant to get involved when Meghan contacted me last fall–until I had a very warm and open conversation with her. I attended an orientation of sorts with her last October and she did her magic and matched me with a wonderful 14-year-old girl, Amina Abdullahi (it only took me a few weeks to pronounce this correctly), who came to the United States with her family from Kenya when she was 7 years old.

She is in the 8th grade at Bryan Middle School and has 6 brothers and sisters. She loves art and tacos. This is basically the information I had before meeting her in late November. Meghan set a meeting up with Amina, her, and myself. I had never been to the South annex of Girls’ Inc. before so I was actually a bit nervous about the whole thing but Amina is such a warm and friendly young lady that it went “swimmingly”.

The first weekend in December the local “Hot Shops” artist coop has an open house; so remembering Amina likes art, I asked her to go with a friend and me. It was interesting to see what some of the current local trends are with some of the artists and I think Amina enjoyed it.

In an effort to keep communication going, I would call her a couple of times a week to see how she was doing. She talked a lot about her art classes in school. They were studying Georgia O’Keefe and she was very interested in the various aspects involved in the flowers. I was impressed with her art teacher’s assignment for the students to draw all the different parts of the flowers, before drawing the entire thing. Amina enjoyed this too.

After the holiday, Amina and I went down to Lauritzen Gardens to see the poinsettia display, indoor train display, and have lunch. I took her a book on Georgia O’Keefe that had been my mom’s. At the same time, she presented me with one of her beautiful drawings of a large flower—much like the O’Keefe style. I was so terribly touched. So much so, that I told her I am working on having it framed. I learned something I should have known all along, and that is that Amina is Muslim and does not eat pork (Duh!). Somehow this fact slipped my mind so I was newly informed when she turned down a ham sandwich. (My ignorance at some of the cultural differences amazes me.)

After seeing the movie, “Les Miserables,” I thought it would be a great movie to take Amina to so we had coffee/cupcakes at Jones St. and went to the movie at Aksarben. Halfway through the movie, I was worried that a 14 year old might be a little bored with it, but at the end she said she loved it. A few weeks later, Amina, her sister, and I went to the opening weekend at Film Streams of “Chasing Ice,” a documentary about global warming and the frightening meltdown of the glaciers. Both of us were blown away by the photography, and I was interested in exposing her to the global warming issues. I was pleased to learn they have been talking about it in their science classes.

We both enjoyed going to the Mentor/Mentee dinner at Olive Garden, compliments of Girls’ Inc. I picked Amina up early and brought her to my house (not far from Olive Garden) to hang out a little bit and yak. I had also gotten an artist’s toolbox and filled it with some odds and ends that an artist friend of mine had suggested because Amina had talked about doing some drawing at Girls’ Inc. and I would like to encourage her to continue to embrace her talent.

She was so thrilled. Also, I wanted her to have the chance to meet my two dogs, which are such an important part of our family but boy, did I learn another cultural difference! Amina can’t touch dogs because they view them a lot like pigs—it is not totally clear to me, but I respected this and kept the dogs outside.

All in all, I have enjoyed getting to know Amina better. I have two children entering adulthood so at 58 years of age, I was not sure what I could really offer but I have quickly learned how much we both can teach one another.

Amina is a very outgoing, talkative, at ease young lady. I have so little knowledge or understanding of her culture but I try and be an encouraging ear and support. We talk a lot about her family, her interests, which are so different than mine—not in a bad way, just different. (I had no idea there were entire Bollywood and Nollywood movies and actors.)

Amina has begun calling me regularly to share things from school (she made honor roll!, and is participating in an art show competition at school). She even called me after a weekend I was out of town just to say she had missed me, which about blew me away. I look forward to the new experiences ahead.