I just finished reading Anthony Doerr’s Four Seasons in Rome. Someone discarded it, and I picked it up, curious. This isn’t a book recommendation unless you happen to know that you like Anthony Doerr, but Doerr’s descriptions of life on the outside of a culture cut me wide open. I didn’t know there were words for these “in but not of” feelings.
Apartness and perpetual humiliation are part of daily life for those living overseas. Sometimes we talk about it too much. Often we don’t even acknowledge it but let our frustration become part of the existing barrier, like a thick moss growing over a wall we’re trying to ignore.
We are outsiders, always outsiders, chipping at the barrier that stands between us. And there are successes! Moments when a chunk of the wall falls away and we glimpse the other side…only to find razor wire.
“To be a nonfluent foreigner is to pass through one gate only to find yourself outside two more,” writes Doerr (p. 46). “We are humbled over and over–humility hangs over our heads like a sledgehammer… Oh, you think you’ve been here long enough to barter at the street markets? Guess what, you just spent €8 on three plastic clothes hangers” (p. 76).
After nine months in Rome, Doerr walks into a grocery store and makes an order without messing up a single syllable. “What happens?” he writes. “I get my groceries. No streamers drop from the ceiling, no strobe lights start flashing. The grocer doesn’t reach across the counter and take my face in her hands and kiss me on the forehead.” Instead, the grocer asks about his boys and speaks so quickly he can’t keep up. “…I miss 80 percent of it and sheepishly, stepping down from my throne of fluency, have to ask, ‘I’m sorry, more slowly, please?’” (p. 168)
For some, eventually the barriers do not loom so large or feel so insurmountable. But for many? “I know nothing… I never made it through the gates between myself and the Italians. I cannot claim to have become, in even the smallest manner, Roman” (p. 201).
True. Despite my efforts to integrate into the culture around me, my North American worldview remains mostly intact, placing me decidedly on the outside.
But if we let it, doesn’t living on the outside help us accept who we are? After all, like it or not, we cannot cease being a part of something. Not being a part of the culture we’re living in is because we’re part of another, or even several. Being on the outside can help us identify our own “inside.”
Apartness and perpetual humiliation are hard, but they are also opportunities to learn and grow.* And we need these opportunities to understand ourselves.
So I will try to be grateful. Even as my neighbor gives me a list of what is wrong with my couscous. Next time, it will be better. I can promise.
Doerr, Anthony. Four Seasons in Rome. Scribner, 2007.
*Thank you, J, for your positive spin on life to remind me to keep on growing!
J and I spent almost a week in Mytown. He stepped into my life and met my people. Yes, I continued to feel the emotional dissonance of my meshing worlds, but assigning a name to the feeling seemed to rob it of its power.
“Does he have money to take care of you?”
My friends and neighbors invited themselves into the particulars of our relationship. They all had advice about where we should live, how soon we should get married and start a family, etc.– but they always expressed their approval of J in the end.
We found park benches to sit on and people-watch. We discussed things we hadn’t thought to discuss on the phone or through emails and messages. Sometimes we didn’t bother to do anything except “be” with each other.
But that’s not all we did. We had British breakfast at the port. And on the beach, I collected broken shells while he went for a jog along the shoreline. A teammate borrowed J for morning bike rides, giving him the chance to burn off some of his morning energy before I even rolled out of bed.
Late one morning, we bussed to a neighboring town’s restaurant where my friend cooks. She gave me a tour of the kitchen, lifting kettle lids and describing everything inside. She heaped our table full of food we hardly made a dent in: chicken with rice, lentils, beef and prune tagine, salads, fries, bread, vegetables, and tall glasses of orange juice. “I was so happy when you said you were coming that I cried,” she told me later. She expressed her appreciation for our visit by making sure that we were taken care of… right down to ordering our pirated taxi ride home.
We delivered birthday gifts to my neighbor boys. We went to the market and bought a buffet of olives and other pickled delights. And J chatted with the various Chinese store owners around town. His Mandarin was typically met with surprise and guarded curiosity… or even an expletive.
We spent a warm afternoon volunteering with the Red Cross, entertaining a group of children while the village women studied basic Spanish. The director had brought puzzles for the children, but the puzzles were too advanced for their ages. One little boy leaned into an open puzzle box and scooped the pieces to his mouth, pretending to eat them: “Om! Om!” he said over and over again. The other children weren’t too concerned as long as his appetite didn’t extend to their puzzle. There were some wild moments, some tattle-tale stories, and a mini lesson on forgiveness. A volunteer from another district had brought virtual reality glasses which entertained a few adults and children at a time.
Over the course of the week, we spent a lot of time at the center where J was staying, learning how to bump around in the same kitchen together while on task. J faithfully washed the dishes after our meals; I could probably count on one hand the number of dishes I washed when he was around. Our team met on Sunday and for a few other activities scattered throughout the week.
In the evenings, J would walk me home. And in the mornings, he would usually meet me on my way to the center. In fact, there was rarely a time that I walked that three-minute walk entirely alone. A delighted smile to greet me on the street was one of those small things that made me miss him terribly when he was gone.
And then, on Thursday evening, we finished our laundry, packed our backpacks, and attempted an early bedtime. The next morning, we left for North Africa.
This morning, a friend sent a voice message that ended with “Much blessings!”
Her non-native English made me smile; I love the way she talks. “Many blessings” is grammatically correct–my work email even signs off with that–because blessings are individual and countable. Or are they? We count our blessings, the many ways which we are thankful for what God has given us, but can we really count them all?
I’m pondering this on after saying goodbye to visitors who celebrated life with me. We toured an Arab fortress, a cathedral, and a greenhouse. We strolled the beach, picnicked by mountain springs, housecleaned, marketed, and tasted lots of foods. And my favorite parts were the conversations, prayers, and laughter woven through all of it. My friends brought gifts and letters from home. On the board above my desk, hang two letters from a nephew and a niece who are big enough to write in beautiful cursive and sign their letters, “Yours truly” and “Love.”
And this week, I have another visitor–one I’ve been looking forward to seeing since… well, since a long time.
With all of the extra activity infused with normal life and work, I sometimes struggle to keep up. Yet, I am filled, sandwiched here between the goodness that was and the goodness that is to come.
“Much blessings” describes this perfectly, I think.
For the past 10 days or so, I have been enjoying a dear friend’s visit…and then savoring the lingering memories. Below are some of the photos from our time together. But remember that photos don’t capture life. Not really.
We spend a few wonderful days in rainy Córdoba. We wore plastic bags on our feet to keep out the puddles and streams and broke into delighted gasps whenever the valiant sun peeked through the gray clouds. “It hasn’t rain all this time, and then you came and it rained,” laughed my Cordoban friend when we met for coffee and then an Indian dinner.
Photo credit: M.B.
Photo credit: M.B.
Photo credit: M.B.
Back in Almería, we went up the mountain with teammates to watch the sun set, sifted through produce at the market, ate churros and pastries, enjoyed a British breakfast and crashing waves on one the windiest days of the year… and a gorgeous, sunny beach just 24 hours later. We also climbed Almería’s alcazaba and spent an afternoon admiring pottery in the town of Níjar. On her last evening, three of us celebrated Valentine’s Day with cheese fondue.
Photo credit: M.B.
Photo credit: M.B.
Photo credit: M.B.
Photo credit: M.B.
But we don’t have pictures of those long heart-to-hearts or the laughter that erupted from just being together. Those are the real memories.
When I walk down the street, more often than not, I find myself walking behind someone with a smoldering cigarette. If I can’t speed around them, I try to get out of their wake but end up bumping into oncoming pedestrians.
Why does this happen so often, you ask? It’s not Murphy’s law, so don’t bother blaming it on him. Actually, it’s because so many Spaniards smoke.
One of the first things I noticed when I returned to Spain this fall was the smells. Cigarette smoke, cologne, cigarette smoke, body odor, cigarette smoke, car fumes, cigarette smoke–oh, and to break it up a little, weed.
I was walking home from the market one morning when a middle-aged lady stopped me and asked for a light. I was curious; did I look like I smoked? Or was it an assumption given my geographical location?
Last week, a group of us huddled in a bus stop, trying to hide from the chilly breeze within the three protective walls. Without warning, two of the ladies lit up, forcing the rest of us to choose between the chill or the fumes. Rude? Well, I’m in Spain and this is how it’s done among the young, old, rich, poor, and everything in between.
Until I start carrying my own tank of purified air, I suppose I will continue inhaling secondary smoke. It’s life here, for better or for worse, and I’m the one who chose to live here. I’m just saying that if I get lung cancer someday, it’s probably Spain’s fault!
The Spanish classes of our language school took a day trip to Granada to visit the Alhambra. It was a gorgeous day and we had our own guide, which made the experience more memorable. My souvenir was two strips of bright sunburn on the back of my neck where I had missed with sunscreen. Hooray.
A Japanese classmate made me an incredible array of sushi. “You can pay next time,” she said with a smile. I went straight home and savored every bite.
A teammate and I redeemed Adra. (Read about our previous trip here.) We went without much of an agenda and ended up doing little, but enjoying it more. The fishing museum, the tunnels, the beach, and the baked cod with pisto were perfect.
I was tired on the day I went to visit friends in the countryside. The visit overwhelmed my senses and my language abilities. It was hard not to fantasize about going home and flopping down on the sofa for the entire next week. Then, I came back to a town gone crazy with Noche en Blanco and streets that were almost impassable even on foot and a stranger who thought it would be nice to take me out for a drink. Yep. Those are the moments my nightmares consist of.
Several months passed as I dreamt of a morning trip to a nearby beach town. I erased it from my schedule every time something else came up, which it inevitable did. Until one day… the chance came and I grabbed it. While waiting on the bus, I spontaneously invited a teammate and she came too! We delighted over our British breakfast. And then there was a second-hand shop and the stroll along the port before coming home to real life.
Kicking a ball around in Plaza Mayor with my neighbor boy brought a few other littles to play too. It was quite a lot of fun because these under-5-year-olds were about my skill level for soccer.
Our Spanish class met to buy our teacher a gift to celebrate the end of the school year. Someone had the bright idea of getting a classy looking bag for her teaching materials. Great idea! Except that I was completely exhausted by the time I got home. “How are we so indecisive?” I wondered. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it wasn’t indecision as much as overstated opinions. Most everyone said precisely what they thought and then acted like they expected everyone else to agree with them.
Stopping by to visit a friend turned into helping her pack her things for a sudden trip to North Africa.
The dentist charged me half price for my cleaning just because. I know I saved just over 20 euro, but with all of the other extra costs that come with returning to the States, it felt like a hug from God.
My baby neighbor boy has grown a delightful little smile that just charms the socks off of people. Well, off of me at least. 🙂 I’ve started wearing sandals.
A friend send me two bags of Barry’s Irish tea. Oh, how I savored those two cups of rainy Ireland memories!
I hauled almost 50 euros worth of olives back from the market last week. I did it with the assurance that my family will be beyond grateful.
That’s all for right now. The rest would probably bore you if you’re not bored already. 😉 My teammates have all gone back to the States and soon I leave too. You may or may not hear from me for the next three months. Probably many of you will see me instead. I’m looking forward to seeing you!
If you have the time and energy, check out part 1, part 2, and part 3 before reading this final part of my family’s visit.
Somewhere along the line, the family travel journal petered out. It may have been due to the fact that Spain felt like coming home to me, not another adventure. Or perhaps it is was due to my sister’s stomach bug which made her less ambitious. Or–ahem–simply due to a lack of discipline. Regardless, some of the details of our time in Spain are fuzzy. So I’ll stick to the things that I remember…
After a teammate picked us up from the airport, we ran out to get chwarmas for supper. Sure, we could have cooked something, but none of us felt like generating any more excitement that day.
The next morning, after first breakfast at home, we strolled down the street to a café for second breakfast. My family enjoyed their tostadas, even if they didn’t enjoy the booming café music. “THIS IS SPANISH CULTURE!” I bellowed over the din.
A few of us zipped around town with a grocery cart, buying most of what we needed for the next week. Mom exclaimed over each new load of groceries we brought home but dutifully put everything away while we went out for another load. (Let the record show that we ate almost everything we bought and had to buy more!) Our shopping trip ended just in time to race–somewhat disheveled at this point–to my teammates’ place for a yummy lunch.
I tried to whip up soup for dinner but mostly just whipped up a giant disaster, which Mom cleaned up while we raced across town to pick up the rental car. The soup, partially cooked, was put on hold until the next night.
Photo credit: R.K.
Wednesday was market day. Everyone had been looking forward to the market, but with PEOPLE EVERYWHERE it was much more stressful than they had anticipated. Before long, I deposited them in plastic chairs by the churro stand and finished the shopping on my own. It’s strange, I thought, how much I’ve adjusted to living in a crowded space, to waiting in line or catching the vendor’s attention to get some service, to holding my ground when people get pushy and reaching around people when they’re in the way. New experiences quickly become normal life.
That afternoon, we went on a greenhouse tour. Our enthusiastic tour guide showed us the variety of methods they used for planting, ventilation, and pest control. After pigging out on the samples and buying a bag of produce to take with us, we spontaneously slipped over to the beach to watch the sun set and dip our toes in the chilly Mediterranean.
We finished the evening with the North African soup I’d tried to make the night before.
Thursday consisted of mostly cancelled plans, due to my sister’s stomach bug. No couscous with my friend and no drive up the mountain. Mom and I slipped out to some North African stores. My usual shopkeepers were delighted to meet my mother. I should have brought Dad along too because they probably were wondering how the American giant belonged to a woman half her height. 🙂
My sister was busy being sick so the rest of us took it easy, putting a puzzle together, reading, and the like. My brother-in-law cheerfully fixed my leaky washer, changed out the dorky bedroom light fixture, and reassembled a malfunctioning drawer. Meanwhile, my adorable and unsupervised nephew amused himself by dropping things from the balcony, as we discovered later.
Our big outing of the day– “Come on guys. We have a rental car. We HAVE to use it.”– was going to two grocery stores: Aldi and Mercadona. Since there is a tiny piece of Roman ruins right next to Aldi, I led my family there to see it.
Photo credit: N.H.
Dad stared down at the puny wall. “Oh wow.” Mom didn’t say much of anything. I’m not sure she even saw the wall because she spent the whole time trying to avoid the dog piles. My brother-in-law dutifully snapped a photo. At Mercadona, Dad disappeared for a bit and then came sidling over with a guilty grin and a container of pecan praline ice cream behind his back.
We tried to fuel the car, but due to the confusing labels, had a hard time deciding which was diesel. The guys stood at the pump, sniffing the dripping nozzles. Finally, I went inside the station to verify that they guys’ noses were accurate after all.
By the time we got home from our mini-adventure, my sister was feeling a little better. But she was not feeling good enough for pecan praline ice cream. So the guys took care of it for her…and for the rest of us, come to think of it.
The next day, we took the rental car up to the mountain lookout. We bounced all of the way up, the guys discussing the quality of the tires and such. We got out and admired the view of the sea of white plastic greenhouses before heading back down. By then, the clouds were moving in and visibility was limited.
My downstairs neighbor brought up a big plate of couscous, which hit the spot. Besides wandering over to the Spanish pastry shop and the nearby park, we didn’t accomplish much else that day.
I guess we were storing up energy for the next day. Saturday we went hither and yon–to Immigrantville to visit friends, to Almería to climb up the Alcazaba. Then back to Immigrantville for tapas in a loud and crowded tapa bar. Then to visit another friend who insisted we come in for tea and sweets. Then finally, home.
I whipped up a pot of puchero and then a few of us returned the rental car. Handing over the keys was melancholy, like our time was winding down too quickly. And it was. Sunday was our last day together. We were in charge of team lunch, so late morning we worked on food prep and then spent the rest of the day with the team for lunch and a church service. I was pleased to see my worlds unite: some of the people I know best in the world getting to know each other.
By Sunday evening, part of me was ready to get back to real life, but the larger part of me was trying to hold on to every single minute.
They left early Monday morning. I came home from the airport to wash a load of sheets. But I chose to leave the tiny fingerprints on my windows at least for a few more days.
“I would like five carrots,” I told the market vendor as he weighed the other produce I had collected from his stall.
A moment later, he breezed back with a bag bulging with considerably more than five carrots.
“No.” His coworker pointed to the bag and looked at me. “That’s too much, isn’t it?” He had overheard my tiny order.
I remembered the first time I had bought produce at this stall. It was the coworker who had pretended to forget to give me my change and then came back, minutes later, surprised that I was still standing there–neither oblivious nor angry. He quickly handed over the correct change without my reminding him of the amount.
Now I found it refreshingly ironic that he was the one looking out for me.
Long ago, I wrote about how I tend to be a loyal shopper, shopping in the same places, even when I know other places have better prices. I still do that today. On market morning, I make sure to stop at my normal vendor stalls first before picking up what I couldn’t find at other stalls.
You may think my loyalty is blind, but that’s not fair. And this is why…
One day I was meticulously selecting the brightest pomegranates from a pile. My produce vendor noticed what I was doing and slipped over to show me how to tell when pomegranates are ready–and it has nothing to do with how rosy they were!
Sometimes I’m offered samples of special fruits. And when I ask if new apricots are sweet, they answer honestly because they know I’ll be back even if they’re not.
The first time I made puchero, I ordered my bones and cuts of meat. The shopkeeper happily filled me with advice on preparing the dish. “Boil these bones for 15 minutes before putting them in your soup or they will make the soup too salty.”
One day I bought semolina flour for harcha. “You like harcha?” the shopkeeper asked. At my happy sigh, she disappeared to the back of the store and came back with harcha, still warm from breakfast. More than once, she has given me handfuls of mint leaves from her personal stash when there wasn’t any to sell.
Another shopkeeper refused to sell me a lone chicken breast. He quietly shook his head until I understood that it probably wasn’t the freshest chicken breast north of the Mediterranean.
Sometimes when the fabric vendor sees me coming, he pulls out the bolts he’s pretty sure I’ll like. And if I stroll into his stall wearing something homemade, he spots his fabrics with delight.
Just the other week, my shower curtain rod was repeatedly falling down. Finally, after several days of clattering, banging, readjusting, and scratching my head, I decided a new rod was in order. But the store down the street didn’t have any. “Come back this afternoon,” he said. But that afternoon, he still didn’t have any. So he opted to get to the root of my problem–what was the problem exactly?
As I was still making feeble attempts to explain without the proper vocabulary–”The thing in the middle of the stick…”–he began to work on something he had dug out of the dusty depths of his under-counter. Then–pop!–out came a yellowed suction cup and he told me precisely how to position it to keep the shower rod up. “You can even trim around the edges if you don’t like how it looks.” And my curtain rod has stayed up ever since. The yellowed lip of the suction cup is a happy reminder of the resourceful people who are looking out for me.
My meager loyalty has been rewarded so many times over that it has been crowded out by their generosity. In fact, I’m not even sure that my loyalty has much to do with it at all!
I have to remind myself of that. The other day during our team lunch, I declared with a sigh, “I’m so glad it’s March!”
They all laughed at me. Or with me, because I laughed too, even though I was startled. Was I really an entire month off?
You may wonder why I feel like I already have one foot in March. Because a few family members have tickets to come to this side of the world. Yea!! It has been a long time since the last “exclusively-mine” visitors, especially family. Long, as in, 2019.
But it’s still February, and that is a good thing. More time to anticipate my visitors, yes. But also more time to just plunk myself down right here in the middle of today. To study elusive Arabic vocabulary, to take a spontaneous walk with my neighbor, to attend Spanish class, to plan and teach English lessons, to stand in the middle of the market listening to a soul’s sad story, to spend an hour orienting myself at my new job as a space heater thaws my feet, to bake a batch of granola, and even to reheat leftover soup and eat it straight out of the kettle (*cough* Yes.).
Meeting her was like being handed an armload of bricks. Surprising, heavy, and requiring concentration to keep the bricks from tumbling everywhere. She was sturdy and strong. Like she was giving the world the finger, and the world was cowering. And yet… and yet, her inner chaos spilled over on everyone she touched.
I had noticed her for years, only ever at the market. She was eye-catching: tall, broad, non-conformist, and always purposefully raiding booths at the traveling market.
Then one day, we crossed paths. Literally. And she stopped me. “Who are you?” she asked with bright eyes.
She was thrilled with my stumbling Arabic, my height (we stood eye-to-eye), and my nationality. We exchanged numbers and parted ways. I walked home, a little dazed by my ability to attract strong women who longed to take me under their wing. How many times had this happened before?
She and I messaged back and forth for a couple of weeks. She had a situation costing her a lot of time and energy. “Pray for me,” she said.
Last week, I messaged her. “Are you going to the market? Can we meet for churros?”
I found her at the market, rooting through piles of merchandise, somehow sniffing out deals I had already walked by once.
When she reached out to hug me, body odor clogged my throat and I tried not to breathe. It wasn’t her, but her clothes, I thought. She might not have access to a washer. “SHE’S AMERICAN!” she blared at the market vendor in a voice as big as she was.
She insisted on paying for the churros. “It’s all the same.” She waved me off as I fought back. We found a table and she started talking. Loudly. As she told me her problems, neighboring tables shot us glances.
I was hyper-aware of the intrusive volume as I munched on churros and wiped my fingertips on the gray churro wrap, but it took most of my concentration to follow her story. I felt like I was juggling those bricks now, trying to keep all of my senses from screaming at me while I focused on her words. There were a lot of them. Both senses and words.
When she told me why her marriage had crumbled, she shrugged. “We get along fine now. But you know, we were too young to know how to solve our problems.” Another shrug. Another middle finger to the world of pain.
An airborne brick was about to land on my foot. What should I say? Was she anything but “fine”? Even with all of the pain she had just detailed? Had anyone in her life ever let her be anything but “fine”?
I pressed my greasy fingers against the paper again, admiring the pristine fingerprints I left behind, dark against the pale gray. My fingerprints. Beautiful. Special.
And the woman sitting beside me left her own greasy fingerprints on everything she touched. Also beautiful. Also special.
“Was it hard to relate to his family?” I asked finally.
And when I looked up from our fingerprinted churro paper, my breath caught. This “load of bricks” in front of me was dabbing her eyes. She wasn’t crying. Not quite. But I had touched something still raw. I sat quietly, ignoring the cooling churros. Ignoring the eavesdroppers around us. She didn’t say more, and I didn’t pry. Our friendship was too new for that.
But I walked home with this God-given reminder that I had just had greasy churros with God’s image bearer, His beautiful creation. Her wounds and scars would never be able to disguise that.
My Thoughts From Afar | 