"The LORD said, 'I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land....'"
-Exo. 3:7-8
"But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why it says:
'When he ascended on high,
He took many captives
And gave gifts to his people.'
(What does 'he ascended' mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.)"
-Eph. 4:7-10
"It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. But there is a place where someone has testified,
'What is mankind that you are mindful of them,
A son of man that you care for him?
You made them a little lower than the angels;
You crowned them with glory and honour
And put everything under their feet.'
In putting everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them. But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. ... Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of death -- that is, the devil -- and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. ... For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a faithful and merciful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people."
-Heb. 2:5-17
I wonder if Jesus ever felt culture shock.
Abraham. Isaac. Jacob. Joseph. Moses. Joshua. Ruth. David. Jonah. Jeremiah. Ezekiel. Esther. Daniel. Nehemiah. All these individuals, and many others both before and after Christ, were called in some measure or another to sojourn in alien lands, to cross linguistic and cultural barriers, in order to fulfill God's will for their lives. They ALL left their home city, their home nation, their home language, their home culture, their home religion, etc. at some point in their lives, and many of these individuals never came back. Abraham never went back to Ur of the Chaldees (which was NOT in Mesopotamia, by the way, but inland near the middle of modern-day Syria). Joseph never returned to Canaan. Moses never returned to Egypt. Ruth never returned to Moab; or at least, I think it's a pretty safe assumption. And the list goes on.
In fact, this command to leave is the first thing God ever says to Abraham. Have you ever pondered the enormity of that? Check it out, in Gen. 12:1-3. Then verse 4 says, "So Abram went, ...." Wow. I'm not sure I have that kind of faith in me. I mean, I had been a Christian for nearly twenty years before I thought God was calling me to go to another country, in another part of the world, for the purpose of fulfilling His will for my life. I'm not sure I would have done it on the very first go-round. But from what is written in Scripture, it seems that Abraham did exactly that.
But it took me a long time, and the help of professors and scholars, to see that the Scriptures explicitly declare that God Himself is a cross-cultural traveler. And I'm not talking about God's plan throughout history to bring His gospel to all nations, although that is certainly true, and it's one of my favorite topics in studying biblical literature. I could go on and on about it -- like in Genesis 11, or in Exodus 19, or in Deuteronomy 32, or in 2 Samuel 22, or in 1 Kings 8, or in Psalm 67, or in Psalm 96, or in Isaiah 66, or in Ezekiel 36, or in Zephaniah 3, or in Matthew 28, or in Acts 1, or in Romans 15, or in Ephesians 2, or in Revelation 21 -- oh sorry, I think I got carried away just then. My apologies.
But that's NOT what I'm talking about here. No, I'm talking about God Himself leaving His home and going to a foreign land. I'm talking about God crossing not only national, cultural, and linguistic borders, but cosmic barriers in order to fulfill His own mission. I'm talking about God leaving heaven and coming to earth: the Invisible becoming visible, Spirit becoming flesh, Life becoming death. The cross-cultural experience -- living, working, ministering, and everything else that comes with it -- was God's idea, an idea for which He was willing to die, and He did.
This idea of a heavenly God willingly coming down to earth was unthinkable to the ancient worldview. This is why the exodus event was so powerful, not just to the Israelites but to all the other nations who quaked in fear when the Israelites came up out of Egypt. Israel's God had actually come down and performed signs and wonders among them, resulting in the complete and total devastation of the Egyptian army whose bodies were strewn along the shores of the Red Sea.
Wait, what is His name again? Yahweh. And what is His Son's name? Jesus.
Of course, Jesus is the answer to the Cosmic Riddle. He did the impossible in ascending to heaven, but only after doing the unimaginable in descending to earth. Very God in mortal flesh, the God-Man, fully human yet fully divine. God the Son left His perfect dwelling, where there was perfect unity, perfect harmony, perfect peace, perfect joy, perfect bliss, perfect everything. He left all that to come be one of us ... sinners. Well, Jesus wasn't a sinner, but you get my point here.
Perhaps it's more accurate to wonder if Jesus ever didn't feel culture shock.
[to be continued]
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Thursday, March 20, 2014
A Long and Boring but Important Cross-Cultural Story
So I've had an interesting experience this month trying to renew our vehicle registration. It's been both frustrating and gratifying, actually. There are so many interesting aspects to tell (well, I find it interesting, anyway), I'll start at the beginning and tell as much as I can. Last week I went to the revenue office to renew our vehicle registration. I waited in line for an hour, then finally got up to the desk. The woman looked at my paperwork and said that she couldn't renew my registration because the blue book (the "title" of the car) wasn't in my name. I was confused and a little upset, because I didn't have a problem last year. She looked at my paperwork and said that I was missing a vehicle roadworthiness form in order to transfer the vehicle to my name in the blue book. If I had that, then she could renew my registration.
Well, to get a roadworthiness certificate, you need a police clearance form that authenticates that you did not steal the car. I had completed this process last year together with the woman from whom I bought our car, but at the time I did not realize that this was NOT the last step in vehicle transfer process! Now, my police clearance form was expired, so it was looking like I might have to start the process over. Only I couldn't do that, because the woman I bought the car from is not in the country anymore. Grrrr.
At this point, I need to say that our car has a headlight out (yes, the same one as last year ... another "grrr"), so I was starting to feel concerned that the vehicle may not pass the roadworthiness test. In which case, I could have a big problem because I need to have the registration renewed by the end of March, and it will take me longer than that to get the parts I need.
Back I went to the police station to see what I could sort out. I can't relate all the conversation I had with the gentleman there, but the substance of that conversation is incredibly important for understanding this story in its entirety. I explained to him my situation, and his first response was to say exactly what the woman had said at the revenue office, that I would need to start over. I explained that the woman wasn't in the country anymore, and he softened a bit. I then explained that I had a headlight out on my car, etc., etc. I think he was a little confused by my frustration, he kept saying that this was not a "big problem." Of course, this did not reassure me at all. In fact, I corrected him to say that it would be a "big problem" if I was not able to renew my vehicle registration on time. He kind of ignored me and moved on to his next task, and I remained sitting in the chair in the office. He waited an uncomfortable second or two, then asked me if there was anything else. I was about to say that my first thing wasn't taken care of yet. I hadn't even gotten the words out when he asked me, "Are you satisfied?" I said, "No, I'm not satisfied." Then he nodded to one of his assistants, and I sat wondering what in the world was going on.
Here's what was going on. He was telling his assistant to check the ID numbers on my car and prepare for me a new police clearance form since the old one had expired. If he had followed the letter of the law, he should have made me go back to the revenue office and pay E50 (about $5) because that is the fee for the police clearance form in the first place. But because I was upset, and because no one in his office had communicated to me last year that I needed to complete more steps in the process of registering my vehicle in my name, he let it slide. For the next 30 minutes I was whisked around a little, opening the hood of my car so that the woman could check the numbers, then filling out forms shoved in front of my face, duplicating other forms that I had filled out the year before ... the whole time feeling really confused about what exactly was happening. Then, magically it seemed, I was handed my blue book and papers with a new police clearance form attached and stamped "Mar 2014." Ah, one step completed.
The manager made sure to tell me clearly that I must go to the CTA to have the roadworthiness test completed. I told him that I understood that, NOW. I mentioned to him that I might have a problem with the roadworthiness test, and I asked him if there was something I could do to complete my registration paperwork even if the car did not pass. He seemed really dismissive in response, saying, "Just go to the CTA." I interpreted this to mean that there was nothing he could do about my problem. I was a little annoyed, but I got the point.
From here the story starts to turn around. I was venting my frustrations about this whole situation to my good friend Matthew, who is a white Swazi and has lived here almost his entire life. As I got to the part about sitting in the police office and not leaving when I wasn't satisfied, he started to laugh and said to me, "Joel, you're turning into a Swazi!" He explained that what I had done was the Swazi way -- you get a little upset, and if that doesn't work, then you fight a war of attrition by simply waiting until your problem gets resolved. I actually found some comfort in his affirmation, even though I was still worried about my potential "big problem" on the horizon.
On Tuesday morning, I made arrangements for William's child care until late in the afternoon, so that I would have plenty of time to do whatever I needed to do at the CTA to get the roadworthiness issue taken care of. This day was an thoroughly African experience. I knew the CTA was in Matsapha, which is the industrial hub of Swaziland and about a 30 minute drive from Mbabane. But I had no clue where it was in Matsapha, and I knew that if I tried to ask someone in Mbabane, they would give me directions like, "Go a ways down from the Spar, then turn right, go around the curve, and then it will be on your left after some meters." Here's the African way to navigate this situation: 1) drive to Matsapha; 2) stop somewhere in Matsapha and ask for directions; 3) follow those directions as best you can, and if you get lost on the way, stop again and ask someone else for more directions; 4) repeat step 3 until you reach your destination. Which is exactly what I did, getting directions three different times along the way before I finally reached the correct building. There was no sign on this building, no official reception area, nothing like that. Just a somewhat run-down building with a bunch of people milling around in a seemingly random fashion. This also is the typical African way. Anyhow, I was really proud of myself because I went through this whole thing without an ounce of frustration. I knew what to expect, and I did it. [In retrospect, it occurred to me that the only real substantial difference between this process and an American process is the dependence on receiving information from others more or less every step of the way.]
In that last paragraph, there's one small phrase that is pregnant with meaning to the cross-cultural experience: "just a bunch of people milling around in a seemingly random fashion." This is, of course, merely an American interpretation of what I saw. But that's a grossly inaccurate description of what was actually happening. In fact, there was a plan and purpose to what everybody was doing; and part of the process of assimilating into another culture is acquiring a new set of eyes in order to look past surface appearances and see the cultural norms that are driving the actions that appear perplexing. I'm excited about what happened the other day because, in the span of about 90 minutes, I watched myself go through that very process. And when I left that building, I understood clearly what was happening and my part in the whole dance. And rather than being frustrated at people whose words and actions I couldn't understand, I was actually very grateful for the tremendous help I had received! Not only this, but I was able to express my gratitude in a way that was warmly received by the very people who had helped me the most!
First, I approached the building, found an "official-looking" man, then proceeded to explain my situation and what I was doing there. I told him that I might have a problem with the headlight that would prevent it from passing inspection, and he said that he would look at the car. If it was only a headlight problem, he said it might be OK. He told me to circle my car around the building and put it in line with the vehicles waiting to be inspected. He pointed out another "official-looking" man, saying that I needed to get paperwork from him and then pay my money. No sweat. So I pulled my car around, but by this time the man had disappeared. No problem, I figured. Either he'll come back and I'll talk to him then, or I get the papers from him after the car is inspected. Well, my turn came up before he came back, and when I got there, the inspector (the same man I had talked to in the first place) asked me where my papers were. Of course, I didn't have them. He asked me, "Why didn't you see the man I told you to?" [He wasn't upset or anything, he was just asking. It was clear to me by this time that I was holding up the line. Thankfully, there weren't that many cars at this particular moment.] I mumbled something in reply, and I think it was then clear to him that I had no clue what I was supposed to be doing. He told me to wait while he went off somewhere. Now the second guy appeared again, saw me waiting with things being held up, and he asked me why I didn't get my papers from him. Again, not knowing exactly how to respond, I said, a little mournfully, "Oh sorry, I thought I was doing things right, but obviously I wasn't." He smiled and laughed a little but didn't say anything, and went about his business.
OK, so while I was standing there relatively dumbfounded and very self-conscious, they were getting the papers I needed and filling them out for me! Then someone (I don't remember exactly who) pointed me toward a window and said, "There, pay your money there." Which I did, dutifully. Then the first guy told me to pull my car forward while he performed the inspection. After he was done he said to me in a straight face, "Ah, you have so many problems with this car." [This was a joke! Delivered in a Swazi way. It took a while to realize it.] Then he directed me to an unmarked office and told me to wait outside there, where a few others were waiting as well. I could see my papers sitting on the desk along with several others, and a man working not quite furiously but ardently to fill out the proper forms for everyone, stamping them, etc.
It took nearly an hour for my set of papers to get signed and stamped, and it was during that time that I was able to really observe the "seemingly random milling about "of everyone. Things started to take shape before my very eyes - it was amazing, actually, like watching something invisible fade in to visibility. There was one guy responsible for giving the proper forms to people who came to get their cars inspected. He had an office with a desk that was kind of out of the way, and he was continually coming and going out of his office alternatively giving forms to people and then bringing them back. But he was doing it in an African way, which means he was always talking to people, greeting them, laughing and joking; so he didn't look "on task" on the surface, but he was. People who came would put their car in line and then sometimes leave their car in order to take care of their forms. There was another guy (who I assume was either an employee or a guy working for tips) who was helping people drive their cars in the line while they were taking care of their paperwork, and doing other various things around. There were two more guys performing inspections on vehicles and assisting customers as they needed help. There was another guy in an office behind a one-way glass window taking money and giving change. There was a group of people hanging around doing nothing but talking, and they were customers like me, waiting for all their forms to be signed and stamped so they could be on their way. Everything made perfect sense.
Now in an American context, things would be organized very differently. All the employees would either have name badges or uniforms so you would easily tell who they were. There would be signs on offices, designated waiting areas ... again, basically everything would be set up for "do-it-yourself" completion involving the fewest possible personal interactions for the purpose of getting/sharing information. As an American, we are so dependent on these information systems (not necessarily in a bad way, it's just the American way of doing things) that when they are removed, it's extremely unsettling and confusing. We feel lost and helpless.
Which is exactly how I had felt through the process. Then it dawned on me, the full impact of what the CTA staff had done for me. They saw that I was lost and helpless, not knowing what to do next; so they simply did things for me so that I wouldn't be shamed in front of everyone. They weren't trying to make me feel uncomfortable, they were looking out for me! Again, this isn't the American way, of course. In America, someone would have explained it to you so that you could do it right the next time ... but in Africa, that would be shaming. In Africa, it's assumed that you can use your own two eyes and figure things out for yourself. Which is exactly what happened with me. Next time I have to go through that process, I'll know exactly what to do. [Maybe my friend Matthew is right, perhaps I am turning into a Swazi.] After everything was finished, I specifically found both of the men who had spoken with me and said in a heartfelt tone, "Thank you so much for helping me." Both men smiled warmly (and knowingly!), and I left feeling like I had made a real human connection. It felt really good.
Not only this, but my frustrating conversations at the police station also made sense. The first police official was not invalidating my situation at all when he said that I didn't actually have a "big problem," nor was the manager being dismissive when he told me to "just go to the CTA." They were simply communicating in the best way they knew how that the staff at the CTA could work around my issue. Probably, the CTA staff are not really supposed to do that, so the police guys can't admit it straight out. I probably looked really silly at the police station getting all hot and bothered about it. When I left, they probably all had a good laugh about the American (again with these Americans!) who got all upset for no reason. And I laughed at myself, too.
Well, to get a roadworthiness certificate, you need a police clearance form that authenticates that you did not steal the car. I had completed this process last year together with the woman from whom I bought our car, but at the time I did not realize that this was NOT the last step in vehicle transfer process! Now, my police clearance form was expired, so it was looking like I might have to start the process over. Only I couldn't do that, because the woman I bought the car from is not in the country anymore. Grrrr.
At this point, I need to say that our car has a headlight out (yes, the same one as last year ... another "grrr"), so I was starting to feel concerned that the vehicle may not pass the roadworthiness test. In which case, I could have a big problem because I need to have the registration renewed by the end of March, and it will take me longer than that to get the parts I need.
Back I went to the police station to see what I could sort out. I can't relate all the conversation I had with the gentleman there, but the substance of that conversation is incredibly important for understanding this story in its entirety. I explained to him my situation, and his first response was to say exactly what the woman had said at the revenue office, that I would need to start over. I explained that the woman wasn't in the country anymore, and he softened a bit. I then explained that I had a headlight out on my car, etc., etc. I think he was a little confused by my frustration, he kept saying that this was not a "big problem." Of course, this did not reassure me at all. In fact, I corrected him to say that it would be a "big problem" if I was not able to renew my vehicle registration on time. He kind of ignored me and moved on to his next task, and I remained sitting in the chair in the office. He waited an uncomfortable second or two, then asked me if there was anything else. I was about to say that my first thing wasn't taken care of yet. I hadn't even gotten the words out when he asked me, "Are you satisfied?" I said, "No, I'm not satisfied." Then he nodded to one of his assistants, and I sat wondering what in the world was going on.
Here's what was going on. He was telling his assistant to check the ID numbers on my car and prepare for me a new police clearance form since the old one had expired. If he had followed the letter of the law, he should have made me go back to the revenue office and pay E50 (about $5) because that is the fee for the police clearance form in the first place. But because I was upset, and because no one in his office had communicated to me last year that I needed to complete more steps in the process of registering my vehicle in my name, he let it slide. For the next 30 minutes I was whisked around a little, opening the hood of my car so that the woman could check the numbers, then filling out forms shoved in front of my face, duplicating other forms that I had filled out the year before ... the whole time feeling really confused about what exactly was happening. Then, magically it seemed, I was handed my blue book and papers with a new police clearance form attached and stamped "Mar 2014." Ah, one step completed.
The manager made sure to tell me clearly that I must go to the CTA to have the roadworthiness test completed. I told him that I understood that, NOW. I mentioned to him that I might have a problem with the roadworthiness test, and I asked him if there was something I could do to complete my registration paperwork even if the car did not pass. He seemed really dismissive in response, saying, "Just go to the CTA." I interpreted this to mean that there was nothing he could do about my problem. I was a little annoyed, but I got the point.
From here the story starts to turn around. I was venting my frustrations about this whole situation to my good friend Matthew, who is a white Swazi and has lived here almost his entire life. As I got to the part about sitting in the police office and not leaving when I wasn't satisfied, he started to laugh and said to me, "Joel, you're turning into a Swazi!" He explained that what I had done was the Swazi way -- you get a little upset, and if that doesn't work, then you fight a war of attrition by simply waiting until your problem gets resolved. I actually found some comfort in his affirmation, even though I was still worried about my potential "big problem" on the horizon.
On Tuesday morning, I made arrangements for William's child care until late in the afternoon, so that I would have plenty of time to do whatever I needed to do at the CTA to get the roadworthiness issue taken care of. This day was an thoroughly African experience. I knew the CTA was in Matsapha, which is the industrial hub of Swaziland and about a 30 minute drive from Mbabane. But I had no clue where it was in Matsapha, and I knew that if I tried to ask someone in Mbabane, they would give me directions like, "Go a ways down from the Spar, then turn right, go around the curve, and then it will be on your left after some meters." Here's the African way to navigate this situation: 1) drive to Matsapha; 2) stop somewhere in Matsapha and ask for directions; 3) follow those directions as best you can, and if you get lost on the way, stop again and ask someone else for more directions; 4) repeat step 3 until you reach your destination. Which is exactly what I did, getting directions three different times along the way before I finally reached the correct building. There was no sign on this building, no official reception area, nothing like that. Just a somewhat run-down building with a bunch of people milling around in a seemingly random fashion. This also is the typical African way. Anyhow, I was really proud of myself because I went through this whole thing without an ounce of frustration. I knew what to expect, and I did it. [In retrospect, it occurred to me that the only real substantial difference between this process and an American process is the dependence on receiving information from others more or less every step of the way.]
In that last paragraph, there's one small phrase that is pregnant with meaning to the cross-cultural experience: "just a bunch of people milling around in a seemingly random fashion." This is, of course, merely an American interpretation of what I saw. But that's a grossly inaccurate description of what was actually happening. In fact, there was a plan and purpose to what everybody was doing; and part of the process of assimilating into another culture is acquiring a new set of eyes in order to look past surface appearances and see the cultural norms that are driving the actions that appear perplexing. I'm excited about what happened the other day because, in the span of about 90 minutes, I watched myself go through that very process. And when I left that building, I understood clearly what was happening and my part in the whole dance. And rather than being frustrated at people whose words and actions I couldn't understand, I was actually very grateful for the tremendous help I had received! Not only this, but I was able to express my gratitude in a way that was warmly received by the very people who had helped me the most!
First, I approached the building, found an "official-looking" man, then proceeded to explain my situation and what I was doing there. I told him that I might have a problem with the headlight that would prevent it from passing inspection, and he said that he would look at the car. If it was only a headlight problem, he said it might be OK. He told me to circle my car around the building and put it in line with the vehicles waiting to be inspected. He pointed out another "official-looking" man, saying that I needed to get paperwork from him and then pay my money. No sweat. So I pulled my car around, but by this time the man had disappeared. No problem, I figured. Either he'll come back and I'll talk to him then, or I get the papers from him after the car is inspected. Well, my turn came up before he came back, and when I got there, the inspector (the same man I had talked to in the first place) asked me where my papers were. Of course, I didn't have them. He asked me, "Why didn't you see the man I told you to?" [He wasn't upset or anything, he was just asking. It was clear to me by this time that I was holding up the line. Thankfully, there weren't that many cars at this particular moment.] I mumbled something in reply, and I think it was then clear to him that I had no clue what I was supposed to be doing. He told me to wait while he went off somewhere. Now the second guy appeared again, saw me waiting with things being held up, and he asked me why I didn't get my papers from him. Again, not knowing exactly how to respond, I said, a little mournfully, "Oh sorry, I thought I was doing things right, but obviously I wasn't." He smiled and laughed a little but didn't say anything, and went about his business.
OK, so while I was standing there relatively dumbfounded and very self-conscious, they were getting the papers I needed and filling them out for me! Then someone (I don't remember exactly who) pointed me toward a window and said, "There, pay your money there." Which I did, dutifully. Then the first guy told me to pull my car forward while he performed the inspection. After he was done he said to me in a straight face, "Ah, you have so many problems with this car." [This was a joke! Delivered in a Swazi way. It took a while to realize it.] Then he directed me to an unmarked office and told me to wait outside there, where a few others were waiting as well. I could see my papers sitting on the desk along with several others, and a man working not quite furiously but ardently to fill out the proper forms for everyone, stamping them, etc.
It took nearly an hour for my set of papers to get signed and stamped, and it was during that time that I was able to really observe the "seemingly random milling about "of everyone. Things started to take shape before my very eyes - it was amazing, actually, like watching something invisible fade in to visibility. There was one guy responsible for giving the proper forms to people who came to get their cars inspected. He had an office with a desk that was kind of out of the way, and he was continually coming and going out of his office alternatively giving forms to people and then bringing them back. But he was doing it in an African way, which means he was always talking to people, greeting them, laughing and joking; so he didn't look "on task" on the surface, but he was. People who came would put their car in line and then sometimes leave their car in order to take care of their forms. There was another guy (who I assume was either an employee or a guy working for tips) who was helping people drive their cars in the line while they were taking care of their paperwork, and doing other various things around. There were two more guys performing inspections on vehicles and assisting customers as they needed help. There was another guy in an office behind a one-way glass window taking money and giving change. There was a group of people hanging around doing nothing but talking, and they were customers like me, waiting for all their forms to be signed and stamped so they could be on their way. Everything made perfect sense.
Now in an American context, things would be organized very differently. All the employees would either have name badges or uniforms so you would easily tell who they were. There would be signs on offices, designated waiting areas ... again, basically everything would be set up for "do-it-yourself" completion involving the fewest possible personal interactions for the purpose of getting/sharing information. As an American, we are so dependent on these information systems (not necessarily in a bad way, it's just the American way of doing things) that when they are removed, it's extremely unsettling and confusing. We feel lost and helpless.
Which is exactly how I had felt through the process. Then it dawned on me, the full impact of what the CTA staff had done for me. They saw that I was lost and helpless, not knowing what to do next; so they simply did things for me so that I wouldn't be shamed in front of everyone. They weren't trying to make me feel uncomfortable, they were looking out for me! Again, this isn't the American way, of course. In America, someone would have explained it to you so that you could do it right the next time ... but in Africa, that would be shaming. In Africa, it's assumed that you can use your own two eyes and figure things out for yourself. Which is exactly what happened with me. Next time I have to go through that process, I'll know exactly what to do. [Maybe my friend Matthew is right, perhaps I am turning into a Swazi.] After everything was finished, I specifically found both of the men who had spoken with me and said in a heartfelt tone, "Thank you so much for helping me." Both men smiled warmly (and knowingly!), and I left feeling like I had made a real human connection. It felt really good.
Not only this, but my frustrating conversations at the police station also made sense. The first police official was not invalidating my situation at all when he said that I didn't actually have a "big problem," nor was the manager being dismissive when he told me to "just go to the CTA." They were simply communicating in the best way they knew how that the staff at the CTA could work around my issue. Probably, the CTA staff are not really supposed to do that, so the police guys can't admit it straight out. I probably looked really silly at the police station getting all hot and bothered about it. When I left, they probably all had a good laugh about the American (again with these Americans!) who got all upset for no reason. And I laughed at myself, too.
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Lenten Meditations on the Cosmic Riddle, Part 2
"Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, 'Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so that we may obey it?' Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, 'Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so that we may obey it?' No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so that you may obey it."
-Deut. 30:11-14
"When you ascended on high,
You took many captives;
You received gifts from people,
Even from the rebellious--
That You, LORD God, might dwell there."
-Ps. 68:18
"By faith [Abraham] made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. ... For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come."
-Heb. 11:9-10; 13:14
Home.
What is it, really?
"The place where one lives permanently, esp. as a member of a family or household."
OK. Or perhaps you prefer this one:
"A place where something flourishes, is typically found, or from where it originates."
Hmmm, this is interesting. It seems that I have asked the wrong question in the first place. If we listen to the New Oxford American Dictionary, home is not a "what" at all, but a "where."
Reset.
Home. Where is it?
As I've already stated, planet earth is home. But that's pretty general, isn't it? I mean, everyone's from "earth." This doesn't really tell you much about ME. I had a difficult time with this question for a while, because my family moved around when I was a kid. I was born in Wisconsin, spending some years more or less in the "big woods" area of the state (in an itty-bitty town between Eau Claire and Superior, if you're up on your Wisconsin geography). We moved from there when I was 7 years old, crossing the big lake to Grand Rapids, Michigan. We lived in Grand Rapids for 10 years, until 3 days before I was to start my senior year of high school. [It's a long story, but moving away was a good thing, not a bad thing.] My dad took a job pastoring a church in Central City, Nebraska, which is almost as "nowhere" as you can get in the US. The town started as an Oregon Trail outpost on the Platte River, being called "Lone Tree" because it was the only tree for miles and miles and miles. (There are lots of trees there now.)
Here's the thing for me. Even though I lived in Michigan for 10 years of my childhood, it never felt like home to me. It still doesn't. I used to ride my bike all over that town, and I know that place like the back of my hand. But after having spent my youngest hours out in the country, the city never quite felt like "home." When we moved to Nebraska, I felt very much like a fish out of water at first, but only at first. I graduated from high school and went away to college. And even though I had grown up mostly in Michigan, I called Central City my hometown, because of all the places where I'd lived, I discovered that Nebraska felt the most like "home" to me. And it's true, Heartland culture suits me much better than anywhere else I've lived in the US. Although my name is Irish, my familial cultural identity is definitively German. I value precision, stoicism, and hard, hard work. I have a vomit-like hatred of hypocrisy and phoniness (even if that means being a jerk sometimes). In my natural state, I have a propensity to drink too much alcohol. Even though I'm not sure I would ever want to live in Nebraska again, I still have an emotional tie to the Great Plains that is not the same anywhere else in the world. I'm an American citizen; and for me, Nebraska is home.
But not everyone is in the same kind of situation. I have some good friends, including my wife, who never grew up in any specific "home" culture. People who grow up in this situation are often called "third culture kids" (3CK), but a better description is probably "no culture kids." 3CK's grow up in a different cultural environment than their parents did, and so end up caught "in the middle" between the cultural they know from experience (but is ethnically different) and the culture to which they ethnically ''belong" (but is practically foreign to them). I've heard 3CK's say that they actually feel most "at home" when they are in transit from one place to another ... in essence, the airplane becomes home. Now that I've been married for a while, I've heard Allison say at different times that, for her, "home" is wherever I am as her husband. One of my 3CK friends is getting married this summer. I wonder if he will have the same experience toward his wife?
So maybe I still haven't asked the right question yet. Reset again.
Home. -- Who is it? -- What is His name, and what is His Son's name?
I feel jealous of 3CK's sometimes. Allison has contemplated the reality of heaven much more deeply than I have, and I think it's for this exact reason. I am still locked into a place where I belong, both geographically and culturally, a home. But she isn't, and as a result, she is much further along the road than I am in terms of finding her identity in eternal things instead of temporal things. But one of the things that I'm looking forward to in terms of this whole cross-cultural experience is (hopefully) eventually being free of this concept of a cultural "home."
Who knew we had to cross the sea to ascend to heaven?
[to be continued]
Thursday, March 13, 2014
a blog about life in Swaziland that I maybe shouldn't write
When we moved to Swaziland 16 ½ months ago, I (Allison) had aspirations of writing all kinds of pithy, heart-warming, interesting posts about life in Swaziland, the kind that fit the “isn’t cross-cultural living great” narrative. That hasn’t happened. And I’ve tried to sit down and write about why several times (beyond the fact that I have an unfortunate tendency towards unachieved blog aspirations), and I end up with pages of gut-spilling that I’m not quite willing to share with the world. Because the why question touches on the very complicated question of how I feel about Swaziland. I guess I could write about the 90% of life that is utterly mundane (I took my child to play group and talked about recipes with the other moms! grocery store out of sour cream again! you'll never believe what the world’s two cutest children did today! guess what we all have the flu!). Or I could post pretty pictures of animals and landscapes, which I should do more often because I like sharing pretty pictures. Although I have issues with any portrayal of Africa that makes it look like a continent of astonishing beauty and wildlife (which it is) while strangely devoid of people, and too many portrayals of Africa go that way of focusing on the natural beauty while ignoring the people and societies that are actually Africa. Or else I could delve into stories of the actual people and politics and culture and life and death, and that is where things get tricky, in the “if I don’t have anything nice to say maybe I shouldn’t say it” way.
But today I’m home with the kids (guess what we all have the flu! And Joel is out teaching and our helper went home sick) and so it’s just me and the kids in this house of infirmity, and I have nothing else to do but try to make sure we’re all still alive by the time Joel comes home, and think sad thoughts. I’m sure my disposition is not being helped by the fact that my head feels like it’s going to split open any second. Inhibitions that maybe should stay in place, and make me bite my tongue, are perhaps a little weakened by that Tylenol with codeine I dug out of my stash of prescription drugs I should have thrown out long ago (and which is now making me feel a bit loopy). So be it.
I am not having a good “Swaziland week,” as I sometimes say. It’s more than just cross-cultural stress and the thousand things that are different about being here. The fact that the internet doesn’t work and trying to Skype a friend in the US involves multiple dropped calls and rounds of “Can you hear me? Can you hear me NOW?”. Or that I can’t get corn tortillas or good ice cream. Or that there are no county fairs, or any of the other pieces of Americana that I secretly love. (I was watching Charlotte’s Web this morning with William, and it was making me somewhat weepy, which was probably just the Tylenol 3 talking. But I was also getting very nostalgic for county fairs.)
What’s wearing on my soul today is that this country breaks my heart. Let’s just take the past week. A Swazi friend has told me about a loved one who has been diagnosed with HIV (and the fact that 1 in 4 adults here are infected doesn’t make this any less devastating, for each person who gets the diagnosis). Our helper has told us the terrible tale of her brother’s widow, who I was feeling so sorry for six or eight months ago when I heard she had lost her husband and been left with five kids, the youngest just nine months old. This week Lindiwe told me that the mother collected her husband’s pension and then took off to locations unknown in a Prodigal Mother maneuver, leaving her children with an elderly great-aunt who is in poor health and in no shape to take care of five children. The children are apparently doing badly and are sick (to say nothing of being severely traumatized, I would imagine). I don’t know why this story even surprises me, as I have heard many equally sad stories of parental abandonment during my time here, but I can’t get it out of my head. Yesterday I was reading a report that said two-thirds of “orphans and vulnerable children” (which is a whole lot of kids here) don’t have the basics of life, which is defined as one meal a day, two pairs of clothes, and one pair of shoes. (How many of you U.S. parents would feel your kids were doing okay if they had that little?)
And today I opened a newspaper from a few days back, from one of the piles that collect in drifts around our house, to read about the opening of the new airport, just pages away from an article about how 63% of Swazis live on less than a dollar a day. I hope the construction of this airport goes down in history as one of the stupidest, most misguided projects in the history of development. The old airport, which has only 5 flights a day (the same little plane that flies back and forth to Johannesburg), works fine. Those flights are usually not even full; most of us just drive to South Africa. I simply cannot fathom by what logic the king thought it was a good idea to spend hundreds of millions of dollars (20% of the national budget last year), in this tiny country of a million people, to build a new airport (and name it after himself, naturally), when 63% of his subjects live on less than a dollar a day. (Yes, we have a king here. The powers that be like to prattle on about “monarchical democracy,” but really, it’s Africa’s last remaining absolute monarchy.)
Draw your own conclusions about the airport. I see leadership that is drunk on the need for power, significance, and on an obsession with being perceived as “first world,” and chooses to build a glittering edifice that at present doesn’t yet have a single flight, rather than serve the needs of the majority of the population that are outside the king’s circle of power (and frankly, it seems to me beyond the bounds of his concern). The part of the glowing newspaper coverage about the airport that really made me want to vomit was the pictures of the Swazi socialites in their fancy clothes, along with captions about how much they had spent on their dresses, shoes, and handbags. This is a country obsessed with fashion, and every day’s newspaper contains a hefty section filled with pictures of this beauty queen or that socialite, posing provocatively in tiny dresses and high-heels, talking about how they just love being in pageants and their favorite singer is Beyonce and their favorite novel is Shades of Grey (another gem from last Sunday’s paper). Wonderful role models for the nation’s youth, these. I am constantly amazed at how such a tiny country can manage so many beauty pageants and beauty queens and kings. The women who have never won a beauty pageant must feel really bad about themselves. Sometimes just to spice it up, the paper profiles women who are businesswomen or lawyers, but the focus is still invariably on their sex appeal, not their brains or accomplishments. (The point that the U.S. also has a lot of such "journalism" isn't lost on me.) And the major story from any important event, whether the opening of Parliament, a university graduation, or the opening of an airport, is always what people wore. Sex sells, I get it, as do glittery aspirational lifestyles. But how could I not be nauseated at pictures of so-and-so in his $800 shoes or Ms. Blahblahblah in her $350 dress, at the opening of a ridiculous vanity project, when I only had to flip a couple pages of newsprint to read about the desperately poor, who could eat for months on the price of those shoes or that dress.
I have no idea if I have the right to even raise these issues, to criticize. I take seriously the fact that every human society, left to ourselves, is equally far from and equally near to God’s values of justice, righteousness, and peace. In some ways U.S. culture is very far from God’s ideals (we certainly have our share of leaders who are drunk on power and greed), and in some ways Swazi society is very near (being here makes me recognize that American society is really, really not very much into sharing). When we succeed in reflecting the shalom of God’s ways, it is only because He has been at work, and is nothing for us to feel proud or culturally superior about. I also take seriously Jesus’ admonition to recognize the plank in my own eye (it’s not just that America has a plank but *I* have a plank) before I tell my neighbor about the splinter in his.
So I guess I am just expressing that this is the place that I live, and this is the injustice that I see, and sometimes it makes it hard for me to “like” living here very much. It is hard to see people suffering, and to see the rich oppress the poor. It is hard to see so much death. Mixed into all this is my guilt that I am a rich person living in a poor country and really not doing very much about righting the wrongs here. I know that God loves Swaziland, and that He calls me to seek the good of this place as passionately as I seek the good of my country, my hometown, my family and friends. I believe that love must involve action. But I don’t know how to squeeze time out of my schedule that is already so full with being a mom, wife, and PhD student, to do something, besides giving a little money here and there. I don’t know how to leave my comfortable, wealthy white enclave to engage with people who are different than I. The family of widows and orphans that we have tried to build a relationship with has lied and stolen from us, and we’ve effectively ended the relationship. I don’t know if that was the right thing to do, I just know that helping real widows and orphans is a lot more complicated in real life than it seems it should be in the abstract.
There’s this homeless man who can often be found wandering the streets around my office (which is not far from our house). He dresses in raggedy clothes and has grizzled hair and I’m pretty sure has serious mental health issues. My heart hurts every time I see him, and although I don’t feel safe talking to him (if he even understood English), I usually pray for him as I pass. A few days ago it was cold and drizzly, and I saw him out roaming the streets as I was driving home from my office to the house. Joel was going to get right back in the car to go somewhere, so I very quickly threw together a jar of hot tea with milk and sugar, and a couple sandwiches, for Joel to give him. I just wanted to do something small to make his day less bleak, and recognize his humanity. But in the five or ten minutes between when I saw him and when Joel drove back down the same road, the man disappeared, and in spite of driving around the neighborhood for a few minutes, Joel never found him. This pretty much summarizes how I feel here. I don’t know what to do to help my neighbor.
A Swazi who I like and respect asked me today if I liked Swaziland, and I stumbled a little as I usually do because I can’t just give a simple “yes”. I can say that it’s been a wonderful, slow-paced place to be a family with small children, in our comfy expat bubble. I can say I’ve made some true Swazi friends, and met a lot of people I deeply admire and respect. People like a friend in our Bible study, who sat there a couple weeks ago and told us about how he was a different kind of father and husband than his father, who had seven wives and fifty-two children who he had no relationship with. Our friend has chosen to make his wife his best friend and “soulmate”, to support her in her career, to wash the dishes and care for his children, in spite of pressure from elders in his family that he’s not being a true Swazi man. So please know that for every mother who abandons her children there is a father who is resisting family pressure and generations of precedent to be an everyday hero to his wife and kids.
Please don’t take this as a call to think about Swaziland in a negative light; if that’s your reaction, sit yourself down for some plank-spotting in your own heart and backyard. Please do take it as a call to pray for righteousness, justice, and peace to come to this nation, as a call to be grateful for the prosperity and security you enjoy (which you largely did nothing to deserve or earn for yourself), and even as a call to find practical ways to help people who have less than you do. And please pray for us, that we would find ways to contribute to the good of this society where we’ve been planted for a little while, and learn to love Swaziland as much as God does.
And if you waded through all of that, you definitely deserve some pretty pictures.
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view from our yard-- there are so many beautiful flowering trees this time of year double rainbow! |
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| on a Saturday hike |
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Lenten Meditations on the Cosmic Riddle, Part 1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
-Gen. 1:1
Praise the LORD from the heavens;
Praise Him in the heights above.
Praise Him, all his angels;
Praise Him, all his heavenly hosts. ...
Praise the LORD from the earth,
You great sea creatures and all ocean depths, ...
Young men and women,
Old men and children.
-Ps. 148
I have not learned wisdom,
Nor have I attained to the knowledge of the Holy One.
Who has gone up to heaven and come down?
Whose hands have gathered up the wind?
Who has wrapped up the waters in a cloak?
Who has established all the ends of the earth?
What is His name, and what is His Son's name?
Surely you know!
-Prov. 30:3-4
Do not be quick with your mouth,
Do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God.
God is in heaven, and you are on earth,
So let your words be few.
-Eccl. 5:2
Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy Name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven....
-The Lord's Prayer
Now you're going to have to bear with me for a minute, or two, or ten, or a few weeks ... because I'm a theologian, and an engineer, so everything I think about has layers upon layers. I promise, it will all make sense eventually--
When I was growing up, I was taught that the ancient Hebrew language did not have a word for the "universe" or "cosmos;" therefore, when the author of Genesis wanted to say that God created the "universe," they wrote "the heavens and the earth" to communicate that idea. Kind of like we might say, "the whole kit and kaboodle" (but not exactly). There's a literary term for this kind of expression; it's called a "merism," meaning the enumeration of parts in order to communicate the concept of the whole.
I have now learned enough about ancient Hebrew to conclude that this understanding of the phrase, "the heavens and the earth," is not accurate. Instead, I am convinced that when the ancient Hebrew authors said "the heavens and the earth," they literally meant "the heavens" and "the earth" -- i.e. two distinct spheres, or dwellings. In short, "heaven" is the dwelling place of God, and "earth" is the dwelling place of humanity...
...and never the twain shall meet. We are here; God is there. This is one of the most fundamental problems of the Hebrew Bible. One cannot fully understand the Scriptures without understanding this basic conflict in the biblical story.
The passages I've listed above demonstrate this cosmological worldview of the ancient Hebrews. They were preoccupied with this great gulf between heaven and earth, and specifically, how one might get through from one side to the other, either from us to God or from God to us. I have a term for this dilemma of the ancient Hebrew worldview: I call it, "The Cosmic Riddle." Who can ascend from earth to heaven? And who would descend from heaven to earth?
[Now, if you're a Christian, you know the answer to this riddle. But if you're reading this, please try to forget that you know the answer, but rather enter into the Hebrew mindset. You would like to get to God, but how? And more importantly, how can God get to you? No, scrap that. God can get to you if He wants to. The real question is, "why would He want to?"]
God created the earth for us; it is our proper dwelling, our habitation. The earth is where we belong, it is our "home." But one of the fundamental lessons of the Torah (the first five books of the Bible, and the bedrock of the ancient Hebrew worldview), and especially the first 11 chapters of Genesis, is that the earth stands under God's wrath because we humans have messed it up. The ancient world was judged once by water, and one day the present world will be judged again by fire. So why should God take thought of the earth?
And therefore, why should God take thought of us? After all, we are made of the stuff of earth. We are but flesh. We came from dust, and to dust we shall return. Sure, God is good and kind and loving and patient and gentle and faithful and meek and temperate, but He is THERE. And I am here, an earthen vessel.
I, Joel, am at home on earth. Particularly, in an expanse of fertile plain that stretches outward from the middle of the North American continent among a community of stoic and precision-minded white-skinned immigrants transplanted from a middle-European nation with a somewhat sordid history of political ambition, Reformation Christianity, and beer-brewing.
Yes indeed, even though I don't live in that place anymore -- on earth, I ... no, we ... are home.
[to be continued]
-Gen. 1:1
Praise the LORD from the heavens;
Praise Him in the heights above.
Praise Him, all his angels;
Praise Him, all his heavenly hosts. ...
Praise the LORD from the earth,
You great sea creatures and all ocean depths, ...
Young men and women,
Old men and children.
-Ps. 148
I have not learned wisdom,
Nor have I attained to the knowledge of the Holy One.
Who has gone up to heaven and come down?
Whose hands have gathered up the wind?
Who has wrapped up the waters in a cloak?
Who has established all the ends of the earth?
What is His name, and what is His Son's name?
Surely you know!
-Prov. 30:3-4
Do not be quick with your mouth,
Do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God.
God is in heaven, and you are on earth,
So let your words be few.
-Eccl. 5:2
Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy Name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven....
-The Lord's Prayer
Now you're going to have to bear with me for a minute, or two, or ten, or a few weeks ... because I'm a theologian, and an engineer, so everything I think about has layers upon layers. I promise, it will all make sense eventually--
When I was growing up, I was taught that the ancient Hebrew language did not have a word for the "universe" or "cosmos;" therefore, when the author of Genesis wanted to say that God created the "universe," they wrote "the heavens and the earth" to communicate that idea. Kind of like we might say, "the whole kit and kaboodle" (but not exactly). There's a literary term for this kind of expression; it's called a "merism," meaning the enumeration of parts in order to communicate the concept of the whole.
I have now learned enough about ancient Hebrew to conclude that this understanding of the phrase, "the heavens and the earth," is not accurate. Instead, I am convinced that when the ancient Hebrew authors said "the heavens and the earth," they literally meant "the heavens" and "the earth" -- i.e. two distinct spheres, or dwellings. In short, "heaven" is the dwelling place of God, and "earth" is the dwelling place of humanity...
...and never the twain shall meet. We are here; God is there. This is one of the most fundamental problems of the Hebrew Bible. One cannot fully understand the Scriptures without understanding this basic conflict in the biblical story.
The passages I've listed above demonstrate this cosmological worldview of the ancient Hebrews. They were preoccupied with this great gulf between heaven and earth, and specifically, how one might get through from one side to the other, either from us to God or from God to us. I have a term for this dilemma of the ancient Hebrew worldview: I call it, "The Cosmic Riddle." Who can ascend from earth to heaven? And who would descend from heaven to earth?
[Now, if you're a Christian, you know the answer to this riddle. But if you're reading this, please try to forget that you know the answer, but rather enter into the Hebrew mindset. You would like to get to God, but how? And more importantly, how can God get to you? No, scrap that. God can get to you if He wants to. The real question is, "why would He want to?"]
God created the earth for us; it is our proper dwelling, our habitation. The earth is where we belong, it is our "home." But one of the fundamental lessons of the Torah (the first five books of the Bible, and the bedrock of the ancient Hebrew worldview), and especially the first 11 chapters of Genesis, is that the earth stands under God's wrath because we humans have messed it up. The ancient world was judged once by water, and one day the present world will be judged again by fire. So why should God take thought of the earth?
And therefore, why should God take thought of us? After all, we are made of the stuff of earth. We are but flesh. We came from dust, and to dust we shall return. Sure, God is good and kind and loving and patient and gentle and faithful and meek and temperate, but He is THERE. And I am here, an earthen vessel.
I, Joel, am at home on earth. Particularly, in an expanse of fertile plain that stretches outward from the middle of the North American continent among a community of stoic and precision-minded white-skinned immigrants transplanted from a middle-European nation with a somewhat sordid history of political ambition, Reformation Christianity, and beer-brewing.
Yes indeed, even though I don't live in that place anymore -- on earth, I ... no, we ... are home.
[to be continued]
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Ash Wednesday, 1981st edition (Mbabane, Swaziland: American-African Press, 2014).
We landed in Swaziland on October 27, 2012. Today is Wednesday, 5 Mar 2014, the start of Lent. Calculating ... that's 1 year, 4 months, and 6 days. Just about right.
Moving to another culture is one of the more significant stressors that a person can go through. I'm not sure exactly where it is on the list, but it's in the top ten. [If I'm not mistaken, having a child die is #1, and having a spouse die is #2.] The thing about culture stress (or culture shock, as it is often called) is that it takes time to hit you. I'm not talking about the kind of culture shock that you experience when you travel overseas for a week or two, or even more a few months. That kind of culture shock is real, and has some profound implications. But it is not the same as the stress experienced when you have left your own culture for good and are attempting to assimilate into a different culture where things are really different -- the language is different, the food is different, people's mannerisms are different, social norms are different, etc., etc., etc.
The reason why this particular kind of transition takes time is because, at first, all the differences seem like a big, grand adventure. And it is! All the differences are really fascinating, I've written whole blog posts about them. But after a while, all the differences start to be overwhelming, and the longing for the familiarity of your own culture (i.e. "home") grows. Usually it takes somewhere between 6 months and 1.5 years for this process to run its course, usually ending in a precipitous crash. Which is what has happened to me.
I noticed it starting about a month ago. I was feeling some culture stress when we were in France over Christmas, Europeans are so different than Africans in seemingly endless ways. Everything in France was SO EXPENSIVE, and everyone was SO SERIOUS compared to Africans. The day we went to the Eiffel Tower I was climbing over a metal barrier to get some food, and I lost my balance and fell down. In Africa, everyone around would have said, "Oh, sorry!" and laughed to ease the tension. But in France, no one said a word ... of course, the people around didn't want me to feel embarrassed, so they pretended that nothing happened. But at that moment, it really hit me that I wasn't in Africa anymore. And to be honest, at the moment I wished I had been!
It took a few weeks, but once we got back I started to recognize the signs of the "culture crash" (that's just my own term). It started out as more intense sugar cravings, then I noticed myself starting to miss the US, which I never did all last year. Then I started being conscious of feeling like an outsider in certain social situations, especially in cases where people were speaking siSwati and I really wanted to join in whatever they were doing or talking about. And now, the last couple weeks I've been feeling sad in the evenings, and sometimes it's been hard to force myself to go to bed. I haven't had any insomnia, I can sleep fine. It's just that getting myself to bed has been hard some nights.
Tonight, I'm feeling really sad. It's hard to read the newspapers here, because people are truly suffering. It's hard not to be angry at the king, who seems to rule this country unwisely. It's hard to drive over terribly maintained roads, then cringe whenever you hit a pothole. It's hard to be an outsider. It's hard to keep a good attitude when things don't work right, and everything is slower, and everything is harder, and everything is just so ... well, different.
I knew this was coming. I had good cross-cultural training, and I had been preparing myself for ten years to move to another culture. I'm OK. But I'm sad, and for probably the first time in my life, I feel truly and thoroughly homesick. And actually, the fact that I feel all of these things is GOOD. It means that I'm doing what I'm "supposed" to do when making the transition to another culture -- the key now is to not stop, but to keep on rather than giving up or settling into a pattern of complacency toward the new culture.
For now, I'm concerned about myself, that this particular crash doesn't bring about a lasting depression. I mention that it's Ash Wednesday because I've been trying to figure out what to do this year to observe Lent. And I think I've discovered the answer. At times when I've gone through depressive episodes in the past, I've often found it helpful to force to write out what I feel each and every day, and to do so past the point of being comfortable. One time I forced myself to hand-write 3 full pages every day for multiple weeks (don't remember exactly how long it was), because I needed to do that to get out the deeply-internalized feelings that were buried deep inside my heart.
The Rule of the Third Order of Franciscan Friars, that's the one for laymen, prescribes that each monk examine his conscience every day. This will be my ascetic discipline this Lenten season, to examine my soul every day, pen in hand. And when Easter comes, I will say, "Alleluia!"
Moving to another culture is one of the more significant stressors that a person can go through. I'm not sure exactly where it is on the list, but it's in the top ten. [If I'm not mistaken, having a child die is #1, and having a spouse die is #2.] The thing about culture stress (or culture shock, as it is often called) is that it takes time to hit you. I'm not talking about the kind of culture shock that you experience when you travel overseas for a week or two, or even more a few months. That kind of culture shock is real, and has some profound implications. But it is not the same as the stress experienced when you have left your own culture for good and are attempting to assimilate into a different culture where things are really different -- the language is different, the food is different, people's mannerisms are different, social norms are different, etc., etc., etc.
The reason why this particular kind of transition takes time is because, at first, all the differences seem like a big, grand adventure. And it is! All the differences are really fascinating, I've written whole blog posts about them. But after a while, all the differences start to be overwhelming, and the longing for the familiarity of your own culture (i.e. "home") grows. Usually it takes somewhere between 6 months and 1.5 years for this process to run its course, usually ending in a precipitous crash. Which is what has happened to me.
I noticed it starting about a month ago. I was feeling some culture stress when we were in France over Christmas, Europeans are so different than Africans in seemingly endless ways. Everything in France was SO EXPENSIVE, and everyone was SO SERIOUS compared to Africans. The day we went to the Eiffel Tower I was climbing over a metal barrier to get some food, and I lost my balance and fell down. In Africa, everyone around would have said, "Oh, sorry!" and laughed to ease the tension. But in France, no one said a word ... of course, the people around didn't want me to feel embarrassed, so they pretended that nothing happened. But at that moment, it really hit me that I wasn't in Africa anymore. And to be honest, at the moment I wished I had been!
It took a few weeks, but once we got back I started to recognize the signs of the "culture crash" (that's just my own term). It started out as more intense sugar cravings, then I noticed myself starting to miss the US, which I never did all last year. Then I started being conscious of feeling like an outsider in certain social situations, especially in cases where people were speaking siSwati and I really wanted to join in whatever they were doing or talking about. And now, the last couple weeks I've been feeling sad in the evenings, and sometimes it's been hard to force myself to go to bed. I haven't had any insomnia, I can sleep fine. It's just that getting myself to bed has been hard some nights.
Tonight, I'm feeling really sad. It's hard to read the newspapers here, because people are truly suffering. It's hard not to be angry at the king, who seems to rule this country unwisely. It's hard to drive over terribly maintained roads, then cringe whenever you hit a pothole. It's hard to be an outsider. It's hard to keep a good attitude when things don't work right, and everything is slower, and everything is harder, and everything is just so ... well, different.
I knew this was coming. I had good cross-cultural training, and I had been preparing myself for ten years to move to another culture. I'm OK. But I'm sad, and for probably the first time in my life, I feel truly and thoroughly homesick. And actually, the fact that I feel all of these things is GOOD. It means that I'm doing what I'm "supposed" to do when making the transition to another culture -- the key now is to not stop, but to keep on rather than giving up or settling into a pattern of complacency toward the new culture.
For now, I'm concerned about myself, that this particular crash doesn't bring about a lasting depression. I mention that it's Ash Wednesday because I've been trying to figure out what to do this year to observe Lent. And I think I've discovered the answer. At times when I've gone through depressive episodes in the past, I've often found it helpful to force to write out what I feel each and every day, and to do so past the point of being comfortable. One time I forced myself to hand-write 3 full pages every day for multiple weeks (don't remember exactly how long it was), because I needed to do that to get out the deeply-internalized feelings that were buried deep inside my heart.
The Rule of the Third Order of Franciscan Friars, that's the one for laymen, prescribes that each monk examine his conscience every day. This will be my ascetic discipline this Lenten season, to examine my soul every day, pen in hand. And when Easter comes, I will say, "Alleluia!"
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