A Week in the Life - Episode 2

On Sunday, I was invited to my first wedding. You can read more about that in my next post. On Monday I found out that my country had yet ANOTHER holiday the following day which meant no class for me. Every time my class schedule changes unexpectedly, it FEELS more stressful than almost anything else in my new culture. In America, I would have welcomed an unexpected break from class but here it feels like someone pulled the rug out from beneath me. I think part of the reason it feels so stressful is that my classes are the only consistent thing in my life. It also feels stressful because everyone else around me knows it’s a holiday, have plans, and know it's coming. I’m the only clueless one.  

Since I was feeling stressed, I decided to see if my expatriate friends had ideas for how I could spend my time. I decided to join one family with some of their local friends on a picnic. Before going, I went to the corner market to pick up a few things for the picnic. On my way back into my building, I chatted with my security guard for a while. He has learned a couple English words to say to me. A lot of people here know at least a few English words but it is all new to him. So far he has learned “thank you” and “hello.” I think it’s sweet he is trying to learn for my benefit. I learned from that conversation that his daughter is one of my friends at the furniture store. How crazy! 

We drove about half an hour to a gorgeous, out of the way, green area with a creek for our picnic. I loved taking in the greenery of the countryside. I live in a beautiful place for which I am thankful. I think it was my first picnic with sheep nearby. 

Sheep!

After we ate, I played some wiffle ball with the older boys which was fun and filled my American tank a bit. Because I could consistently hit the ball, one of the boys said I could play in a tournament I was so good. On the way back home, the youngest boy asked me at least 50 times where the moon was. Over and over and over he asked the same question and occasionally he would pat my face if I didn’t answer him quick enough. He’s too cute to be annoying.

Who could get annoyed with 50 
questions from this cute face?

In class on Thursday, Captain called me lazy because I had forgotten one word we had discussed the previous week. I think he was half joking but the other half was serious. I only half wanted to punch him in the face. I got over it quickly because I had class with Favorite Teacher afterwards. He is so good at what he does and helps us laugh amidst the learning process. He also takes time to speak slowly, enunciate, and can even resort to some English if I still don’t understand. He had given us 2 homework assignments during our previous class but all of us only understood that we had 1 assignment. Since we had only done half of our work, he decided to give us a penalty assignment sending us home with 3 assignments and silently snickering about our misery. Captain had also given us an assignment as well bringing our total to 4. 

After class I visited a friend of mine at her home. We chatted for a couple of hours. She is so easy to be around and is so gracious with me when I don’t speak well or understand cultural customs. I had a headache while there. Actually I had an almost non-stop headache for about 5 days. She offered to massage my neck and shoulders for me. It felt so good and I realized my Father knows what I need even before I do and had made a way to provide for that need. From there I went home and spent over 3 hours working on homework assignments. 

I awoke Friday with yet another headache and was grumpy about it. It’s never a good sign when I wake with a headache. I made it to class and Captain came in all smiles as usual. He is always so chipper that it’s hard to be frustrated with him but frustrated I was. He’s supposed to be teaching us grammar but for some reason he thinks that’s not what we really need. Instead, we spent an hour on Friday talking about courtroom terms like lawyer, judge, jail cell, innocent, guilty, hanging, etc. I didn’t know any of these terms but my Arabic speaking classmates did because they have many of the same or similar words in Arabic. For an hour Captain would ask if we knew a word. They would nod in assent and I would say no. He would then speak really fast trying to explain the word in my new language. 

During class, Captain explained a situation where a boy was alone in a room with a glass vase. The vase broke and when confronted the boy said someone else had done it. Captain asked what that is called. I said, “Lying?” He said, "No, it’s called denying." Interesting.

Between my head hurting, his nonstop talking, and my incredible annoyance that he was wasting my time teaching me words I could care less about, I had a hard time focusing. He finally asked me a word that was vaguely familiar but my head had had enough. I finally blurted out, “My head hurts so bad!” He burst out into laughter. I fully wanted to punch him in the face. Laughing, he said, “That’s what the African students say when they don’t have their homework finished, when they are late to class, or when they don’t understand something. Hahahaha!” Through gritted teeth I said, “Yes, but my head REALLY hurts.” 

I prayed all the way to my second class that the Father would help me love Captain because I was not feeling love for him. Favorite Teacher read homework assignment #1 on one of my favorite films. I wrote about the Italian version of Pinocchio. He read through it and said I did a pretty good job, it wasn’t perfect but good. I asked what could make it better. He pointed out a couple of spelling errors (oops), a place where I used present tense instead of past tense (sheesh), and then a place or two where what I wrote made sense but it’s not how they would say it. I explained I had been working on homework late. 

He then launched into a grammar lesson after I had some questions on assignment #2. I realized that I wasn’t irritated with him for taking my “writing” class time to teach a grammar lesson. I also realized that the Father was making sure I learned grammar somehow. I let go of some of my irritation with Captain since I had a double standard. It’s okay to use writing time to learn grammar but not grammar time to learn vocabulary or practice speaking. 

In the middle of class, out of nowhere, Favorite Teacher asked if I smoke, drink, or gamble. I think people here are really curious about me, the single American girl. Their perception of Americans (even believers) is what they see on TV. They expect me to be a wild woman who drinks, smokes, and has sex all the time. Since I dress modestly, don’t spend time with guys here, don’t drink or smoke, spend time reading the Word and praying, they just don’t have a category in their minds to put me. 

After this discussion, Favorite Teacher gave an example of a child breaking a window with a ball. He explained how to use a suffix to conceal a person’s identity. Rather than saying, “I broke the glass” you can say it another way to simply communicate, “The glass broke.” It reminded me of what Captain had said earlier. It’s an interesting look into the culture. Locals adopt a different worldview than what we’re used to in the West. We look at the world through a lens of right/wrong or innocent/guilty. Those in the East look at the world through the lens of honor/shame. Something is ok as long as you don’t get caught. If there is no dishonor, there is no wrong. This is why it’s not seen as lying to deny or blame someone else. The worse sin is getting dishonored by getting caught no by lying.

When we were wrapping up class with Favorite Teacher, Captain and Mr. A came in to talk with Favorite Teacher. We practiced what we had just learned on them. Afterwards, Captain made fun of me again for saying my head hurt in class earlier in the morning. He also made fun of me not knowing that "rol" meant "role" in English last week. Ok, so that was funny. After that, Favorite Teacher was saying that the male Arabic student is doing well in class. He then looked at me and the other girl and said we were only mediocre before laughing. These guys... if they only knew how vulnerable I sometimes feel, they wouldn’t make these jokes. 

On Friday afternoon, I decided to go to the Fair that is in the location where I usually buy my produce. I found a booth from my favorite Furniture store and chatted for a while with some of the folks I had met at the picnic. It’s so fun that those folks keep showing up in my life. Afterwards I saw a booth with a lady making one of my city’s famous handmade carpets. It was fascinating and gave me a new appreciation for the beautiful carpets. 

Video of woman making a carpet. 

I suggest muting the volume.