Tag: little people

Goodbye for keeps

The living room was a disaster of misplaced everything. As if an unsupervised 1-year-old had been unleashed. Indeed, he had. After he  yanked the tablecloth off the coffee table, he came over for a hug and tickles. But he squirmed away when he glimpsed his juice box. Now was as good of a time as any to squirt the remaining contents onto the table and floor. 

But my mind was elsewhere and so was his mother’s. It was our last evening together before they moved away. Our last talk face-to-face. 

We were both pleased by the prospect of a promising future for the little family, but also stunned that this moment was a last. Our last conversation parked on our stained living room couches. The last time I could grin at her as I heaped her plate higher than she wanted. “Eat! Eat!” But she ate every bite of couscous tonight despite the protest that she wasn’t hungry. And she made a dent in the chocolate cupcakes I had made just for her. The ones with cream cheese in the center. 

Her son bit the couch cover with a mouthful of chocolate and left a reminder that I would have to scrub out later.

We both hated goodbyes. We talked about the past, the future, black magic, God’s power over Satan, and how God’s power is available to us. She let me pray for her–a long prayer in the name of Jesus. 

A spoon dropped over and over onto the accommodating tile until I realized the neighbors below might care and snatched up both little boy and spoon. He giggled as I tipped him upside down.

“I allow very few people to enter my heart, and you are one of them,” she said.

We didn’t cry as we hugged goodbye. Neither did I cry as I scrubbed at the stubborn chocolate stains and wiped up sticky juice puddles. Goodbye was too final to sink in. 

It still is.

Photo by Phillip Goldsberry on Unsplash

Overseas aunting

Family is such a part of who I have grown up to be that leaving home was like ripping out part of my inner being. Especially when I think of the little nieces and nephews who may never even know me well. They are the ones who don’t understand why they receive lots of cuddles one day and the next day  I’m gone.

Overseas aunting stinks. 

I miss birthday parties, new words, and pretty much everything else. And I become known as the person who talks to them on the screen. (Which they love because sometimes they get to hold the phone.) I read them books (especially when Albert and Clark beg for “more books!”). And I quiz them, “Where is Carissa’s hair? There it is! Where is Carissa’s nose?” We play hide and seek with a stuffed kitty. 

There is nothing quite like little people in your own family, knowing that their blood is also partly your blood. Knowing that they might have poor eyes or be tall just because it’s in the family.

But there is also something beautiful about being removed from a family–utterly alone in a great big world of strangers–that makes me open up my heart a little wider and allow for a broader definition of family. It may not be quite the same, but it’s still beautiful when:

  • I meet a friend at the market and look down to see her little girl throwing her arms open to receive me
  • A three-year-old invites me over for the evening
  • I wipe away toddler tears as I head for the door
  • Little children tell me stories like I’m an important part of their life
  • A one-year-old gives an excited “Ooh! Ooh!” when he sees me coming
  • Little people want me to babysit them
  • And…
  • And…
  • And…

And one day, my friend’s almost-two-year-old called me “auntie.” I couldn’t stop smiling all day because it felt like God had given me back a piece of the preciousness I’m missing at home. 

Photo by Krzysztof Hepner on Unsplash

When will summer come?

One of these days summer will come. I’m not talking about the heat; I’m talking about the time. Summer is the season I have been holding out for in the crazy March, April, May, saying, “During summer, I will finally get to this or that.” I had a list of goals: learn how to sew better, develop materials for an English curriculum, refresh my Arabic, houseclean, and other noble goals like that.

It’s July, but I’m still waiting, thinking that summer and its abundance of time must begin soon.

In the meantime, life is full. Full of time with friends. Visits. Meeting new babies, both here and via WhatsApp. Appointments. Meetings. And even a chance to be a witness for my friend’s paperwork-only wedding at the mosque.

Maybe I need to redefine “summer.” Instead of labeling it as “extra time,” I should just label it as “life.” “Life” is a more realistic expectation anyway.

Life and smelly summer laundry.

Reluctance and gratitude

9:30. All I wanted to do was get ready for bed and curl up with a book for an hour or two.

My phone buzzed. It was my friend: “My son is sick. I have to take him to the ER but I can’t go alone.”

“He’s sick? What does he have?” My mind was spinning with ways to get out of her indirect request. I’d had enough experiences with friends using the ER for an easy prescription for medication. Queasy stomachs, aching wrists, stuffy noses.

“He’s had diarrhea since yesterday. That is not good at all. It takes all of the liquids out of his body.”

I imagined myself tromping 40 minutes across town to sit in the stuffy ER full of others with similarly unimpressive diseases. I didn’t want to.

“Is he drinking water? Does he have a fever?”

“Yes, a lot of water like usual. No fever.”

It was sounding less serious, admittedly. But what kind of a friend was I? This friend was a first time mother, hours away from her own mother’s wealth of experience and advice. And her husband was less than helpful on most matters. She just needed someone to walk with her. So it was decided: for the sake of this relationship, I should slay my desire for relaxation!

I groaned. I know I did. And probably more than once. After a long day, this felt more like drama than reality.

Soon another message arrived. She was going to pharmacy instead. (Had she sensed my reluctance?) If it got worse, she would let me know.

“Let me know when you know more. Meanwhile, I’ll pray for him,” I told her, still wondering if I should be putting on sneakers instead of pajamas.

She came back from the pharmacy with a syrup. We discussed the case a bit more and decided to wait and see how he was doing in the morning. The case seemed to be more of an excuse to overreact than a real danger.

Her parting comment was, “Thank you for always listening to me.”

Suddenly, I felt guilty. Even after my less-than-compassionate response, she had come back to thank me. Her gratitude shone a light in a dark corner of my heart. 

Of buses

Long, long ago, I posted about the preferred public transportation of North Africa here and here. I guess it’s time that I gave you a better picture of the public transportation available here in southern Spain.

Within the last month, I have had strangers approach me at the bus stop to ask about bus schedules or destinations. I began to wonder if, somewhere along the line, I have become an expert of the local bus system. Or perhaps I simply radiate confidence as I perch myself on a grimy bus stop seat and become so engrossed in a book that a driver has to honk to make me notice the looming bus. (Really, that has happened only once.)

I used to be the one asking the “When does the bus come?” questions as I waited, peering down the street for the bus that must have already gone.

Well, I have learned a lot in the last year and a half, considering I knew nothing when I arrived: 

  • Buses prefer to be on time but usually come late, on rare occasions come early, and once in a while, don’t come at all.
  • There are certain bus drivers who let you disembark using the front door despite the sign above their heads that say “Disembark at the back door only.”
  • Going through tourist towns always warrant long stops for confused adults double checking that they’re on the right bus and counting out exact change.
  • Women bus drivers are scarier than men drivers. I’m not a fan of women driver stereotypes, but don’t remind me of that when I’m furiously crunching peppermints as we careen through roundabouts without slowing down and whiz down narrow roads lined with terrified pedestrians.

There are days I arrive late for appointments because of a late bus. Once, I missed my bus by one minute, arriving just in time to watch it pull out of the station. Passengers with glazed eyes stared out the windows, already settling into the dry boredom of public transportation. (I had to wait an hour for the next bus.) 

But bus rides cannot always be described as boring. I witnessed a yelling match between a passenger and a driver that ended with the driver threatening to call the police and the passenger calling him a– well, never mind what he called him.

Sometimes the smells–be it perfume or B.O.–are overwhelming and I pretend to rest my face in my scarf but really am just trying to coax myself to breathe.

One time, a man boarded the bus, his head wrapped tightly in a scarf. We didn’t have to wait long to discover why. Scratch! Scratch! Scratch! The furious scratching made me thankful for all of the passengers without lice.

I often meet up with someone I know who is taking the same bus.  I’ve bounced babies, played peekaboo, and given a mini English lesson.

I have also met some interesting people, struck up conversations with women, and fielded those invasive “are you married?” questions from men I would rather not meet. Once, I even got a bag of dripping fish plopped on my lap. Read about that here.  

But overall, when nothing is required of me, I offer nothing and just admire the scenery bouncing by the window.  I have spend hours and hours staring at the sea of white plastic of greenhouses and then the sea of blue blue blue Mediterranean. One time, I even saw dolphins.

And really, who can complain about public transportation with a view like that?

Just a normal day

There was still no glimmer of light between the slats of the blinds.

From the street below came the familiar creak of the neighbor’s metal garage door and the roar of the box truck. Greenhouse work doesn’t rest. A passing car dropped off noisy teenagers who were still on a high from their night-long partying.

It was like the morning exhaled and both happened.

I wrapped the covers over my head and tried to fall back asleep. Too late. Thoughts outside of dreamland had already kindled my consciousness:

  •    News from family.
  •    The Amazon order I just placed.
  •    The sense of standing on the brink of the unknown. And the accompanying senses of exhilaration and panic.
  •    The earthquake the other night that jostled me awake in a swaying bed.
  •    The moment when crying out to God for a definite answer, I only heard Him say, “You are my child.”
  •    I should get that birthday card written soon.

I finally crawled out of bed to welcome the morning with a steaming cup of coffee (special delivery from Nebraska). My quiet time was punctuated with an invitation to a spontaneous breakfast on the beach. Of course!

I caught a few moments of afternoon alone with David Copperfield and a nap long enough to let my body soak in the day off.

The evening brought what was supposed to be a literacy class. But when I arrived, alphabet flashcards in hand, my student and her neighbor were busy making shbekia.

I learned to roll out the speckled dough and run it through the press. I soaked the fried pieces in honey and picked pebbles out of sesame seeds. Literacy gave way to the urgency of Ramadan preparations.

One of the ladies went to pray. The other soon followed her. I was busy with the rolling pin when there was a burst of laughter. The first had recited her prayers facing the wrong way. She sighed, turned the rug toward Mecca, and started again.

We talked about prayer and food and family. And then a pair of women and a pair of children arrived.

One of the women was the female version of a man who had wanted to marry me. She had the same nose and the same intense eyes that sparkled but didn’t quite smile.

When they found out that I was an American to who spoke Arabic, one of them said, “Aaaah. She’s one that helps people.”

Thank you.

I played with the little girl while the women discussed which acne cream worked best for their teenagers, how many children was enough but not too many, how to make specialty Ramadan foods, and how the American prayed.

“She sits in a chair at the table and covers her head like this.” One of them made motion of draping a shawl over her head.

I smiled. “I can pray wherever I want. I can sit here and pray for you. Or I can bow down and pray. Or I can even pray while I am walking on the street.”

Blank faces stared back at me.

“God hears us no matter where we are.”

Yes, yes. That was true. And they all agreed and moved on to a discussion about their prophet.

The maghreb sounded. After a bit, I said my goodbyes and reluctantly took the proffered baggie of too-sweet shbekia.

I walked home in the dying light, smelling like old oil.

Her perception is her reality

It was happening again. Round two of the same problem, only this time her hurt was bubbling up in anger. As rage overpowered her tears, she clawed at her clothing as if wanting to rip it—to rip anything—to shreds.

But was her reality real? Ever since I had met her months earlier, I had never been able to determine exactly where reality and her misguided perception began to blur.

And yet, her perception was her reality because it was the filter through which she understood life. Pain and shame were just as real in both truth and misconception.

And the questions I have asking myself over and over are:

What does loving her look like? How can I help? How do I enter into her reality and walk with her through her pain to bring her to truth? What does that look like practically?

That night, I held her baby while she wept and spat out in anger. I prayed for her but after my amen, I still let her ask the question, “Where is God in this?”

When she had calmed down, she stood up to leave. Anguish still twisted her features into a frown, but she thanked me for listening and praying.

Most of the time, loving isn’t easy. I will probably spend the rest of my life learning how to do it well.

What’s been happening recently

A lot of time has passed since my trip to North Africa. Really, it feels like more than it was. Instead of trying to fill you in on all of the juicy details, here is a bullet list that might bring you sufficiently up to date:

  • Meeting a friend at the market to browse the various market stalls together and then walk back to her house for a relaxed visit. Recently, she told me I am a friend, not a guest.
  • Spending birthday/Christmas Kindle credit on books I had been drooling over for months.
  • Being stalked… and then protected by friends.
  • Post-Christmas candy-making and caroling.
  • New Year’s celebration complete with candles and fireworks.
  • Starting a hard copy recipe book that doesn’t include dusting my computer with flour every time I bake something.
  • A friend moving in about two blocks from our apartment which meant lots of pop-in visits at both my place and hers.
  • The same friend suddenly leaving town without any plans to return.
  • My Spanish teacher relocating to Madrid… resulting in my class being transferred to a teacher who uses “ustedes” instead of “vosotros.”
  • Crochet class morphing into knitting class against my will. (More on this later.)
  • Friends’ birthdays: small scale parties, a princess cake, and a photo shoot.
  • My friends’ children lighting up when they see me coming—it melts my auntie heart!
  • Blue Hat, Green Hat over and over again as dark, serious eyes soak it all in, even the title page.
  • A friend giving me two flowers she had planted at work. “No!” I cried, since I am a terrible plant keeper. “I’ll kill them!” “Look, you keep two and I’ll keep two and we’ll see whose dies on them first,” she said. The race is on. But, contrary to all reason, mine are BLOOMING!
  • Lots of book reading with children.
  • Helping a friend withdraw money from the ATM… an endeavor that had us laughing ourselves to tears.
  • Walking 45 minutes with a friend to the ER.
  • Anticipating visitors in March!!!
  • Lunch with a friend who started food preparations at 6:30 a.m. What an honor to be her guest!
  • Spending time with American teammates who belong to my culture and speak my language.
  • Trying out a few North African recipes, with moderate success.
  • Making copies at the African store down the street and being asked to run the copier myself since they were understaffed. I enjoyed watching customers’ eyes bulge when a pale face greeted them from behind the counter. The owner even gave me a discount because I had done the work myself.
  • Branching out a little with crochet patterns.
  • Attempting to grasp that God’s promises are for me and that my identity is, above all, a child of God.
  • Finishing up my visa paperwork! Lord willing, all that’s left is to pick up my residency card in March.

Christmas this year

Christmas this year looks different. There is a usual busyness, made busier by a short trip to Africa wedged in between full weeks (more on that later).

It’s my second year of celebrating Christmas in Spain. But unlike last year, this year I have the opportunity to be with friends that don’t celebrate Christmas.

I love Christmas: lights, carols, gifts, markets, chocolates, roasted chestnuts, scarves and winter coats. It gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling.

This year I want to indulge in that warm, fuzzy feeling. I want to enjoy the celebration of Christmas. And primarily, not secondarily, I want to experience a fresh joy and excitement of the Messiah’s birth. A Savior, born into the world, a light born into thick darkness.

He’s still shining.

Sometimes, surrounded by people who know the Christmas story by heart and perform it every year, I forget to savor that first Christmas joy.

My sister has been telling my 1-year-old niece the Christmas story using a miniature nativity set (minus the minor character sheep which may have gone out with the trash).

Telling the story to someone who has never heard it makes the story exciting again. What would happen in my own heart this year if I could share the wonder of Christmas with those who have never heard?