Culture shock, with textas too.

It is exciting being here, and we have been thankful for many friendly exchanges, yummy food, beautiful scenery and perfect weather. At the same time, we feel quite stressed and at times overwhelmed by everything being so different. We don’t know how to talk to people (even when they speak English we often miss communicate because the culture is so different – “Oh, Andrew is going to lend me the scissors I asked about and here they are brought by the cleaner; I thought by his response they must be at his home far away”), we don’t know what to expect (Do you help yourself in the bakery section or does someone serve you? We are welcome to use the kitchen to cook dinner so is Andrew in here cooking us breakfast or waiting for us to cook our own? Should we ask or wait and see? The ladies here are helping me do our washing; is that part of their job or should we pay them extra? Should we give them a tip even if it is part of their job especially because they’re washing Hannah’s nappies? They’ve used the wrong detergent on the nappies, how should I explain this without offending or seeming ungrateful? This man is asking us for money for bread even though he works as a church gardener, should we give him money or some of our bread or a job or nothing?). Constantly not knowing how to behave is stressful and we’re looking forward to every day tasks and exchanges feeling easy and normal. It will take time.

Yesterday afternoon while Hannah slept I sat with Will on the luscious back lawn. We were colouring in an activity book with his textas and pencils. One of the two cleaner ladies, Jane, came to watch intently. After a little while I offered her some textas and gestured to invite her to join us. She thanked me for the textas and walked away with a happy smile. Hmmm, that had not gone how I intended. Oh well, at least she was happy, Will didn’t seem to have noticed half his textas were gone and maybe her children would enjoy them. I noticed her showing them to those in a small staff meeting she had wandered from. The other cleaning lady came to hover and watch intently. I knew she was hopeful for some textas too but couldn’t give away all Will’s textas without asking him. After a while she left. When we were packing up I asked Will if he would like to give his textas to the lady, because she doesn’t have any, and that we would buy him some more one day soon. His reply, “Why doesn’t she have any textas?. I want to give her the new ones and keep these.” A few minutes later I raised it again, reassuring him that it was his choice but we would buy him some more if he wanted to give them to the lady. He said yes he did want to, and I placed them in his hand. When we found her, she was sitting quietly alone reading her bible. When Will held out his textas to her her whole face lit up with excitement as she thanked him. Will looked at the ground not knowing what to do. When we returned to our room I told him I was very proud of him.

I was feeling very good about coping with all the unknowns yesterday, until Tim got home and said that our house would not be ready for two months. Where will we live? Suddenly the whole day seemed terrible, and it was clear that I was quite close to not coping after all. William noticed I was feeling down. He came over with his drink bottle and said, “Here you are Mummy, I brought you a drink to make you better. A drink makes me feel happy.” That drink helped a lot.