#7 TATWTD  “ELARIO ARRIVES!”

 ELARIO ZAMBAKARI  - SOUTH SUDAN, KENYA,  UNITED EMIRATES, UNITED STATES –arriving in Phoenix, Arizona on Sunday, January 13, 2019

“OH, My Goodness! Oh, My Goodness,”exclaimed Arketa when we called her a few hours after her son, Elario, arrived in Phoenix. Arketa and I (and a slew of others) have worked on this transition since we met in 2009. Five years after his brother, Timothy, made it, Elario arrives.

Yambio, Juba, Nairobi, Dubai, Seattle, Phoenix. Twenty-three hours +. Get this—while Elario’s flight manifest read, “Class R-Economy,” I mean, “Row 77, middle seat, by the toilet door, Buddy,” —when he got his boarding pass in Nairobi, he was assigned a First Class seat. 

Elario, the Lost Boy, the Orphan, the poor parish priest dodging bullets in South Sudan, the young man traveling with nothing but a small valise, was handed a boarding pass for First Class passage between his native Africa and his inherited America. 

Crawl into your private accommodation, Father Elario; sofa-like private seating, sheets for sleeping when the sofa stretches into the much needed bed, stereo sound, international cuisine, soft cotton-covered pillows, blankets, sleeping socks, toothbrush and private movie screen (but what do I know about such airline comfort, being usually smashed in Row 103e with knees crammed against the chair ahead, the cranky kid kicking the back of my unyielding seat, and a big guy’s burley arm claiming my armrest?)

Elario had a certain level of comfort in his transition from Africa to America, from South Sudan to Arizona, from homeland to new land, and we couldn’t be happier. But, NO, David and I did not get to see Elario at SEATAC Airport as we hoped. We waited at the top of the escalators that led up from Customs were he free to leave the secure area before boarding his flight to Phoenix. But he was as not allowed to join us. He left Seattle and made it to Phoenix where his mother’s arms arrested all forward movement and her tears soaked the lapels of his jacket. 

“Thank you, I am home, Auntie” he said in a call to us before falling into his first restful sleep in . . . in what, years?

Yesterday, with the help of his brother, Christopher, Elario purchased a new sim-card for his phone and went clothes shopping. For two days, he belonged to his family. Today, work begins. Today, Wednesday, January 16, he will meet his parish, St. Mary’s Church, Chandler, Arizona. 

The entire Zambakari/Pine story can be found here in the Archive. BOOK: ZAMBAKARI. The chapters telling of Elario’s life are: 1, 4, 15-16, 18-19, and epilogue.