Strolling together outside, Meskerem Tadesse, 15, and Tirhas Miteku, 17, hold hands. It’s something their new American peers aren’t used to, but something their friends used to do all the time in Ethiopia. Holding hands is one of the traditions from home they’ve decided to keep, along with cooking injera, a large sourdough pancake used like a utensil to scoop up meat and vegetable dishes.
Miteku has been in the States for more than a year, staying in Park City with Jenny Schulman. Tadesse joined Miteku this August, arriving on a plane with the Mesgana Dancers, young girls touring the United States with the Children of Ethiopia Education Fund. Ethiopian Airlines sponsored the flight. Tadesse, who can speak five languages including English, was hand picked by the fund to come to the U.S. Like Miteku, Tadesse is entering the country on a student visa and does not to return to Ethiopia until she completes college.
Tadesse is staying with Kacy Quinley, also a Park City resident, and a candidate in this year’s Park City Council election.
“It’s a long-term commitment at least three years,” Quinley says. “But my husband and I already mentor two young girls at Rowland Hall, and we enjoy it.”
Quinley is helping to sponsor Tadesse at the Wasatch Academy, a private Central Utah boarding school that Miteku also attends, her education funded, in part, by a scholarship from the academy.
There’s a lot for the girls to get used to besides food and the way they walk: using forks and knives, computers and the Internet; the freedom and safety of traveling down the street without being supervised and overnight stays at each other’s houses (not usually permitted by Ethiopian parents); learning English and snow Miteku skied her first turn last year at Deer Valley Resort; Tadesse is counting down the days to winter.
A year and a half ago, Schulman, a Park City Realtor, met Miteku’s father, a school teacher, on a month-long vacation to Ethiopia. Shortly after Schulman’s return to the U.S., he sent her a letter, begging her to take his daughter.
“He said, ‘please save my daughter save her from what may befall her in Ethiopia,'” Schulman recalls. “It’s really a man’s society. There are no rules against incest or rape and it’s his only daughter. When you know these things, how could I say no?”
In Ethiopia, Tadesse and Miteku would likely be finished with school. As girls age, their responsibilities at home increase and their opportunities for a career diminish. Boys their age get more time on entrance exams for college, the girls say, and have a better chance at getting a higher education.
Like the girls, Quinley and Schulman admit they too have a lot to get used to. Old friends, the women already have grown children who have graduated college. In some ways, they say they find it’s like starting all over again — something they didn’t expect to be doing at this stage in their lives. Schulman’s friends have offered to offset the cost with donations, helping to pay for boarding school trips, some tuition and a lift pass or two.
Wasatch Academy teachers, where the girls will board this fall, have also lent their support, inviting the girls over to their homes. “Some are like my third mom,” says Miteku.
Despite the challenges, however, Quinley and Schulman remain confident about their decision.
“I’ve never had a daughter before and it’s fun to see her develop as a teenager she’s always smiling; I’ve never seen her cry,” Schulman says. “It’s just fascinating to get to know someone with such a different culture.”