Chapter 2 - summer treats sami well

With two months of summer left before school started, Sami quickly became best friends with Craig and Allison. Part of his academic visa meant that he could not work which meant that he often hung out at home when Craig and Allison were at their summer jobs. Craig worked at the Gorilla BBQ and Allison worked mentoring at risk youth at the community center. A big benefit of Craig's job is that he could bring home whatever leftovers they had at the end of his shift. This kept the family fridge fully stocked with some of the best food in town. Craig and Allison both had work schedules that let them lift weights at the gym after Craig's lunch rush. After their workouts, Sami would join them as they helped him learn to surf along the beach.

Allison realized that she needed to work on her strength to be fully competitive in the future. This means that she focused on having plenty of protein, and was pretty careful about her carbohydrates. She wanted to add some muscle weight before season started which meant eating at least her bodyweight in grams of protein. Craig encouraged her---calling her "chicken legs" and "skin and bones". Even though this was out of love, Allison did feel self conscious about her weight. As part of her own insecurities, she kept on remarking that Sammy was so much smaller.

One of the first rituals people go through in California is getting a drivers license. After Sami had been in America for a couple weeks, Allison brought him to the DMV. She giggled when he put his height at 5'7 and weight at 120 pounds because she had been taller at age 11. She joked that he if he could keep up with her in the kitchen he might put a little meat on his bones. This made Sami feel a little awkward, but at the same time he felt that as a guy he should at least be able to eat as much as a girl.

A big part of the beach lifestyle is wearing swimwear all the time, and going barefoot unless shoes were required. With no job and no school yet Sami spent most of his time hanging out on the beach, or playing video games at home. Allison would often join him for lunch, and after a bit of effort he learned to keep up with her. Sami quickly settled into a routine. Craig would get up early to head to work, and Sami would sleep in until about 9a. He would then have his share of the hearty breakfast made by Jennifer. After breakfast he'd typically take a nap to digest the food. Sami would then go play video games until whenever Allison returned home for lunch. He would then spend the afternoons hanging out along the beach or exploring the hills above Pacifica. Often he'd meet Craig and Allison after their workouts at the beachfront Taco Bell for a snack. All three friends would then go surfing for a couple hours until it was time for dinner, and they would then watch a Netflix movie. Craig and Allison usually went to sleep after the movie, while Sami would play DOTA late into the night.

After two months in America the summer finally started to fade. With the Labor Day holiday school would start the next week. Craig, Allison and Sami were all excited to celebrate their year together. Over the holiday weekend, everyone decided to go camping at Lake Tahoe. The whole family went hiking and Jennifer noticed that Sami was having a little trouble keeping up. Figuring it was the altitude, she did not say anything. The next day the family went to the beach, and she was impressed at how Allison had built up her strength that summer. She thought it was a shame that Sami still looked so malnourished and made a mental note that she should encourage him to enjoy more dessert.

Before school could start Sami had to have a medical check-up. For the first time in months he wore something other than pants or a sweats and tried to put on shoes, too. His size 28 pants which had been baggy before were now quite tight, and he could barely fit into his shoes. He went down the hallway to Allison and asked what he should do. She told Sami that the pants must have shrunk in the wash, and asked what size shoe he wore. He told her that his old shoes from home were size 39, but they could not fit his feet. She knew that her flats were a 44 or 45 in European (That's Women's size 13) which was not much larger. Allison had a pair of Classic Van's slip ons that were a little big on Sami, but they figured it was ok. At the medical check-up the doctor cleared Sami for class---and also said that he should continue exercising and eating because at just 135 pounds he was borderline underweight. Only knowing that he had weighted less than 55 kilos it did not occur to Sami that he carried an extra fifteen pounds on his slight 5'7 frame.