That Recently Happened to Me in English

So, a lot has happened, and it’s been… a lot of things:  exciting, overwhelming, challenging, eye opening and a million other describing words.  Let me try to bring you up to speed really quickly.

I had a week-long orientation in Chicago, where the group of 50 of us, who are now currently dispersed in various parts of the world, had the opportunity to get to know each other better and learn more about ourselves, our places in the world, and our faith in a broader spectrum.  Then, I traveled with the other 4 girls in my Argentina/Uruguay group to Buenos Aires where we had another week-long orientation.  At the end of this orientation, I was sitting with two of the other participants, and we were discussing what our actual placements might be like and what we were anticipating.  The 3 of us were sharing our concerns about using Spanish and were agreeing that, if worse came to worse, we could rely on the “smile and nod” technique.  This eventually led to the conversation about when that doesn’t work;  when you’re sitting there, nodding, smiling, and hoping that it’s just a yes or no question, and then you realize that people are staring at you, looking for a better answer, and you are completely lost.

“You know,” said Katie, one of my fellow participants, “that recently happened to me in English.”  To which we all had a good laugh.

Ok, so fast forward to a couple days ago.  I’d been going to my placement site just to observe for the first week, and to get there, I needed to take a bus.  Well, I’m not really accustomed to taking buses in the U.S., but this system is pretty straightforward, so it hasn’t been too tricky.  I was standing at the bus stop, along with a couple who were busy sharing some romantic, bus stop kisses.  I saw the bus approach, and I waved it down, as did the female component of the embracing couple.  The bus pulled over, slowed down a bit (i.e. didn’t really stop), and the girl got on the bus.  Being the polite Wisconsinite I am, I waited for her counterpart to follow.  Unfortunately, the guy didn’t follow.   Instead, he settled for one last embrace and then walked away from the door -  and the bus drove away.  And all I could do was watch it drive away from me.  Needless to say, I felt a little stupid and frustrated; I’d have to arrive late that morning, having missed a bus that I’d flagged down.  And my Spanish skills are not adept enough to be able to tell that story in a way that doesn’t make me sound like an idiot.

 I was standing at the bus stop (alongside the now solo component of our couple) feeling simultaneously sorry for myself, frustrated, anxious, and annoyed with the conduct of the buses, when Katie’s words hit me- “That recently happened to me in English”. 

Just about two weeks before I left to start this program, I was supposed to help some of the St. Matthew’s youth get on a bus to go to the Wisconsin State Fair.  In Wauwatosa, I hadn’t had the proper bus etiquette either, and the bus just drove right past us, leaving 13 of us gawking in disbelief.

Ok, so what is the point of these long, drawn out, random stories?  Buses just aren’t my thing, and I’m going to need to start collecting funds to buy a car to use here.

 Kidding.

Here’s my point.  That little saying of Katie’s keeps flowing through my head.  When I get overwhelmed here, it helps to be able to remind myself that overwhelming things happened to me at home, too.  Conversely, when I’m missing the really awesome people I know at home, it’s nice to realize that those types of conversations and relationships can happen in Spanish, too (and, they do).  Doing everything in Spanish here and having everything happen to me in Spanish is a bit of a challenge, and my reaction times have definitely slowed; it takes me about a minute and a half to process what people are saying to me, and at least that long to respond.   But, I would have to say that my appreciation and gratitude for any type of kind gesture has grown exponentially.

A further example of this happened today.  Apparently, I can’t say the word bag correctly in Spanish, and a couple of the kids at the community center have been getting a kick out of it, asking me to repeat it and imitating how I say it.  Today, a little 8 year old girl took it upon herself to teach me how to say it correctly.  She slowed down each sound, had me repeat, and then had me say all the sounds together.  Then she had me try it a little faster, but she made sure to remind me not to be afraid to slow down and take my time with it and get it right.  Eventually, her face lit up and she announced to her all friends that I’d learned, and she invited them over to hear.  The thing is, I can’t really hear what I’m doing wrong, but, as I’m from Wisconsin, I’ve had the way I pronounce bag corrected in English, as well.  The biggest difference?  The extreme thankfulness I feel towards this little girl and her encouragement and patience with my ambling Spanish.  It is so awesome.

Ok, so that’s what I have to share this time.  It’s a little silly, and maybe just another way of saying “wherever you go, there you are”.  But, it’s helping me not find a corner to cry in when I get overwhelmed or frustrated.  And it’s reminding me to stop and be able to laugh at myself and get perspective when I make a mistake.  My life could be happening in English right now, but I’m lucky enough for it to be happening in Spanish.

The Beginning

Ok, so, I would just like to start this out by saying that I'm incredibly nervous about writing this blog.  I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself when trying to articulate my thoughts in a written manner, but, I will do my best.

For those of you who don't know, I will be spending a year serving in Montevideo, Uruguay with the Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM) program through the ELCA. While my adventure has not yet started in my country of destination, there has been a fair amount of buildup to it starting in my country of origin.  I've known for a long time that I wanted to do something international after graduation.  I can't pinpoint exactly where this idea came from, but I'd have to place most of the blame on my hippie mom and worldly grandparents who have instilled in me the idea of a "worldwide community".  And I would have to thank my mom and my church for exposing me to El Salvador through relationship-building mission trips.  These trips and the people I have met there are invaluable to me, and have steered my interests and passion towards Latin America, something that I would not have predicted about myself 5 years ago.

Speaking of directions in which I hadn't expected my life to go, I have to say that 8 months ago, I would not have envisioned myself going somewhere through the church, as a missionary.  So perhaps I should explain how that all came to be.

I graduated in December from UW-Madison, and really wanted to spend a year somewhere in Latin America, but I really had no idea what venue to go through.  I wanted to go with a trustworthy program, but when you're googleing "abroad placements", it's pretty tricky to know which program really is reliable, and what I really wanted was for someone to just tell me "I went through this program, it was awesome, you will love it."  Enter El Salvador (again).  I went to El Salvador again in January.  Through these partnership trips, my church has been lucky enough to meet a missionary of the ELCA, Dan, who served two years ago and whom we now take back with us as our interpreter.  So, I decided I would ask him for any suggestions.  Not too surprisingly, he suggested Global Missions through the ELCA and told me they had various programs, some shorter than others.  I guess that wasn’t really the answer I was looking for, so I asked him if he knew of any other programs.  I think he briefly mentioned maybe the Peace Corps, and then went back to explaining the benefits of going through the ELCA and how they really take care of you.  I have to admit, I kind of wrote it off;  going through the church just didn’t seem like the right fit for me.

When I returned home from El Salvador, I continued running my mouth about this grand idea I had to go abroad.  I stopped in to my mom’s work, and started talking about what I wanted to do with one of her co-workers, and he also mentioned ELCA Global Missions. (Note:  my mom works at a church; the aforementioned co-worker is my pastor; in particular, he is Pastor Gary).  So, I kind of looked at the program then, but I wasn’t fully convinced.  About a week later, I got a letter in the mail from Pastor Gary that included an article about a girl who had served in Malaysia for a year through the YAGM program.  After reading her story, I realized it did sound like what I wanted.  After that, I started working on the application, which asked some questions that initially seemed pretty daunting.  They were questions that forced me to articulate powerful experiences I’d had, but that I hadn’t yet been able to adequately explain.  So, after mulling over the application for weeks, and with a fair amount of help from my mom and Dan, I turned in the YAGM application approximately 2 hours before the final deadline. 

A short while after turning in the application, I learned that as a part of the process, I’d have a phone interview with a past alumni.  I got on the phone with the alumni, and she introduced herself and started telling her story.  She explained that she had served with YAGM in Malaysia and had worked with kids.  Sound familiar, anyone? She eventually asked me how I’d heard about the program.  All I could say was, “Um, I’m pretty sure I read an article about you”.

 Following the phone conversation, I told Pastor Gary about this coincidence.  “Well,” he said, “that certainly seems like a sign for those of us who are in the business of reading signs”.

After that, everything with the program just kind of fell into place.  The rest of the process, including the 4 day long discernment weekend, proved both challenging but also strengthening and eye-opening.   Now, I’m about a week away from officially beginning my journey with a week-long orientation in Chicago.  I can’t quite know what to expect next year, which is mildly terrifying, but I am also looking forward to this opportunity.  All my life, I’ve enjoyed hearing a good story, so now I’m preparing myself to go to a new place to experience the story of another land, another people and another community.  I’m hoping that this blog will serve as an outlet to share those stories as well as my own.