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The deer are waiting, two of them, lying near a dirt path near the edge of McDowell Park. A buck and a doe, about 110 pounds and 80 pounds. "They sure are pretty," Rachel Humphries says.
Her Chevy pickup is backed up to the path, and two men begin to haul the deer to the truck bed. She tells them that the deer's lives are ending well. She asks: "Do you know the Montagnards?"
Earlier this year, Humphries learned that Mecklenburg County hosts two deer hunts each year to thin a troublesome overpopulation at three of its parks. Earlier this Monday morning, more than 90 hunters arrived at those parks. Whatever deer they bagged wouldn't be counted against their annual limit. Whatever deer they didn't want could be donated to Rachel Humphries, who would bring them to her friends, the Montagnards.
They are refugees from the Central Highlands of Vietnam, with a story somewhat the same as Native Americans here. Persecuted by settlers. Land taken. Religious activities banned. Now thousands are in North Carolina, many with limited language skills and little idea how life works here.
"There's so much they need," says Humphries, and honestly, deer isn't really one of those things. But deer meat is a delicacy to them, she says, and it's something more.
"Let's go," Humphries says, pulling the pickup truck down the path, back toward Charlotte. She is a mother of three, a part-time teacher at Central Piedmont Community College. She has never hunted big game before. She has never dressed a deer, much less driven a pair of them up N.C. 49. But this is what happens when you become an advocate. You become comfortable with discomfort.
That journey began about four years ago, when Humphries was teaching English as a Second Language for CPCC. One class, off campus, included a group of Montagnards. "They brought much more than their language learning needs," Humphries remembers.
Most had followed a similar path to Charlotte - from Cambodian refugee camps to U.N. placement in U.S. cities. Hundreds of Montagnards have settled in Charlotte, where resettlement agencies help with the initial transition. Within a year, however, the refugees are largely on their own, struggling to assimilate.
And so, Humphries helped a few, then helped a few more, and eventually it became clear the need wasn't going to go away - and neither was she. The refugees called her "Teacher," because that was her first title, but she quickly became their surrogate social worker, their one-woman support network. Need to pay a utility bill? Teacher will show you how. Had a car accident the night before? Teacher will tell you who to call.
Now she has assembled a small battalion of volunteers - church members who donate clothes and time, American families that befriend Montagnard families. Each Wednesday, she gathers some of those volunteers at an apartment office near Central Avenue, where they solve computer problems and read to Montagnard children while Montagnard parents have their mail read and explained to them.
"There are days that are hard," Humphries says, but in return she learns, too - about culture and customs and differences. "They make us richer and smarter," she says. "It makes us better."
An example: Unlike most Americans, Montagnards eat all of the deer except the brain and large intestine. That includes the lungs, which are best wrapped in cooked skin.
Alex told her this. He has been in Charlotte for five years after fleeing his village. His wife is still back home, tending the farm he doesn't want to give up. "I think he wants to go back," Humphries says, but it is unlikely to happen.
Alex is reluctant to talk about this, or much else, but when he is asked about deer, he smiles. "I go with my dog," he says, and he talks about how the pair went into the forest near his village, how the dog would sniff out a deer, then chase it. "Six hour. Eight hour," he says, until the deer collapsed and Alex pounced with his hunting knife.
He would bring the deer back to share with family. A small deer, like the doe coming his way, could feed 15-20 people, he says. "It is very good," he says, and Humphries nods. Later, she will say: "This helps them feel like they're in the mountains again."
By the time the two-day hunt is over, Humphries hopes to bring more deer to the Montagnards. Most will go to Alex to distribute, including the doe, which Humphries drives into the apartment parking lot. The men are waiting. "Good," they say, and they explain how they'll prepare the deer on the patio behind the apartment.
One man, Tul, pulls a wad of money from his pocket and pushes it into Humphries' hand. She tries to give it back, explaining that the deer is not a transaction. Finally, she says, "You cut the deer. I eat some, and it is a gift to me." He begins to nod. "Brua Guyut," she says, and Tul opens his hand. "Brua Guyut," she says again, then translates. The job of friends.
