5/6/2440 8:00
Associated Press
ARROW ROCK, Mo. , The first thing many residents of North Park Apartments noticed about their new V’ren neighbors was not the green skin, the translators or the long line of jeepneys and cargo vans.
It was how tired they looked.
“They were just normal people,” said Dale Meyerhoffer, a North Park resident who helped carry bundles and boxes for several families who arrived Tuesday evening. “They had kids. They had bags. They were exhausted. The kids liked jellybeans. One guy who moved in next door helped haul for other families even though he was just as tired as everyone else.”
About 285 V’ren were placed in 100 apartments at North Park on Tuesday, part of the first large movement of alien refugees into civilian housing in and around Arrow Rock. The group included families, couples and single adults, according to apartment staff and residents who helped with the intake.
Eric Garcia, the complex manager, said the first hours were mostly practical.
“Keys, beds, food, translators, making sure people knew where they were supposed to sleep,” Garcia said. “That was the job. Most of them didn’t need a speech. They needed a door they could close and a place to sit down.”
Some communication was easier than expected. Several residents said many V’ren knew at least some English, often learned from human entertainment broadcasts that had leaked into space, been captured, curated and eventually sold back through a V’ren service residents jokingly translated as “Netflix Galactic.”
The apparent top five human shows among the V’ren arriving at North Park: Friends 1993, The Twilight Zone in all iterations, The Great British Bake Off, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and The High Republic: A Star Wars Saga.
“That helped more than people think,” said Maggie Garcia, who helped coordinate local teenagers guiding families to apartments. “If someone knows what a couch is because of Friends, that is one less thing to explain. If they know baking shows, they understand a kitchen is not magic. It gives you someplace to start.”
Outside one building, residents shared beer, Thai green curry and Filipino lumpia after the last deliveries slowed. Children moved between benches and open doors. Some V’ren adults sat quietly. Others asked questions through translators. A few helped unload supplies for neighbors they had only just met.
Tell Rarz, a V’ren woman assisting Garcia, said the most important thing Tuesday was not comfort but movement.
“People wanted to know they could sit outside,” Rarz said through a translator. “They wanted to know they were not being confined.”
By nightfall, the complex still looked like a place under emergency intake. Boxes sat in corners. Mattresses were still being sorted. Children carried welcome bags from apartment to apartment.
But residents said the atmosphere changed once the first families were inside.
“They stopped being aliens pretty fast,” Meyerhoffer said. “They were neighbors who needed help moving in.”
Social Media Responses:
@MarcyAnnBoone: This is the first thing I’ve read today that made sense. Not policy. Not panic. Just tired people helping tired people. Kids liking jellybeans is the most normal thing in the world.
@TruckStopTerry: I hauled two pallets of blankets into Marshall this afternoon and saw the same thing. Everybody looked dead on their feet, human and V’ren both. One green guy still helped me get a busted jack unstuck. People are people.
@RuthieInColumbia: Thank you for saying this. The feeds keep trying to make it either miracle or invasion. Sounds more like neighbors moved in after a disaster and everyone had to figure out dinner.
@JanelleMeyer1979: My son came home talking about V’ren kids trying sour candy and asking if every dog in town was in charge of traffic. I don’t know what tomorrow looks like, but today they were children.
@OzarkLefty: Beer, curry, lumpia, and hauling boxes sounds about as Missouri as anything I’ve ever heard. If the man next door helped after the trip he just had, I’ll take him over half the people already here.
