Settling

I can get most places now without using GPS.  That might not sound terribly impressive, but this is a city where street names change often and unpredictably, and you have awesome places with Queens Road and Queens Road W. paralleling each other, and then smashing together at an intersection with both the Queenses and also a Kings Drive, where Queens Road then becomes both Kings Drive and East Boulevard, while Queens Road W. turns into Providence (which is actually Highway 16 on maps, although no one calls it that aloud) and Providence turns into Queens Road and then a couple blocks later splits again into Queens and Morehead.  And then Kings loops around from a north-south road to an east-west road, and becomes Central.  Got that?  So, yes.  Be impressed.

I found a grocery store that is not only affordable but sells quirky international products and—best of all—my tea!  My tea from Kenya, which I have only been able to find sporadically available online since I visited and got hooked.  It's right there, on the shelf, available for purchase any time.  (Granted, this store also sells cans of "No Sugar Added Pears, Artificially Sweetened"... Not really sure how that works, but it seems to defeat its own purpose.)  It's a store that fits right in with the America/not-America theme of my life here.  Those of you who have shopped in other countries' grocery stores, particularly in non-Western countries, will understand—it just doesn't feel quite like an American store.  It's hard to explain exactly why: the products are almost the same (although a lot of unidentifiable ethnic ingredients are mixed in there, too), all the signage is in English, it has the "big supermarket chain" architecture and aisle signs.  But there's just something about the way it's organized (baking supplies sharing shelf space with baby products and cookies), and the slightly-different colors of the food packaging, and the hard-to-describe seafood-mixed-with-unfamiliar-spices smell of the place.  I'm also the only white person in there, and the produce has a much more "whatever happens to be available" stocking philosophy than the huge, thoroughly American supermarket across the street.  (The produce that is there, though?  Cheap, and good.  I'll take unpredictable for that.)

Some of the students in the English class where I volunteer know my name now.  (From the students' perspective, volunteers are in and out all the time, have unpronounceable names, and all look basically the same, so that—like not needing GPS all the time now—is actually a bigger deal than it sounds.)  My name is basically impossible for them to say, of course, being three syllables and ending in a "th," a sound which most of their languages don't even have.  They recognize me, though, and try.  I'm sure I'm terribly butchering their names, too.

I have made some good connections with other believers here; both those involved with the refugee community and just people who seem like they could become good friends.  I've been invited to a meeting on Saturday for many of the people here who have a heart for refugee ministry (and there are many, I'm finding), to come together in one room and share ideas and build unity.  I've met a few Christians in the refugee community itself, and hope to build those friendships more, too.

In short—although I still don't know how to balance all the new demands on my time—I am settling here.  I no longer have that slightly startled "that's right, I actually live here now" feeling when I pull up to my building.    

And God is at work here.  I don't know if or how I fit into that work, but he's doing it.  So it seems like a good place to be...

Who needs sleep, anyway?

Bang Bang Bang

Half-awake, I realize that the pounding I'm hearing is not just part of some strange dream, but an insistent knocking at my door.  Groggily, I try to figure out what time it is.  After midnight.  What the heck?

Then my phone starts ringing.  I see the caller is H., a refugee in the apartment complex here.  I had spent most of that morning helping him work out an issue he was having with his lease.  I happen to know that H. sometimes overreacts to things, and it wouldn't surprise me if he had some question about his lease or wanted to tell me some way he thought the office was treating him unfairly.

The battle begins in me: How horrible would it be to pretend I didn't wake up to the knocking?  What could he possibly need in the middle of the night that couldn't be resolved in the morning?

On the other hand, I came here to show the love of Jesus to people. That love doesn't leave a lot of room for hiding from people because I don't want to get out of bed.

But—the sleepy, looking-for-justification-to-ignore-him part of my brain says—H. is not only a guy, but a Muslim guy.  I'm a single woman. Maybe it would be improper to go downstairs.  Maybe I shouldn't.  

...I know I should get up and see what he needs, or at least answer the phone.

But maybe this is a time when I should "teach" American  customs by ignoring unreasonable requests.  Like ones after midnight.  

While this is going on in my head, the call rolls to voicemail.  Maybe my stalling had worked, and he'd go away?

Then the texts begin:

Bzzz  Mary r u slept I think today I give wrong key
Bzzz  R u wake
Bzzz  I'm sorry text u now but I can not open my apt
Bzzz  I give u wrong key
Bzzz  R u wake

Bah.  Is this really my problem?

The phone rings again.  The door banging resumes, this time with the doorbell ringing intermittently.

In the end, I don't know whether it was a genuine desire to help him or simply the knowledge that he wouldn't go away that motivated me, but I went.*

That morning, he had given me a key to return to the office, but he had accidentally kept that key and given me his only apartment key instead.  Of course, my sleep-dazed brain couldn't remember where I had put the key.  And, of course, H. is a talker, and continued to stand on my porch apologizing to and making small-talk with me for a full fifteen minutes after I had found and delivered it.  (I need to work on more obvious cues for "it's-the-middle-of-the-night-so-please-go-away"...he really doesn't pick up on the subtle American ones.)

...Life here doesn't follow a normal schedule, at least for me.

That morning, before the key-in-the-night incident, was my first time helping someone with a transaction with our leasing office.  My main purpose, in these cases, is simply to be there as a native-English-speaker presence to make sure everything is clear and fair.  It's really not hard.

When H. asked me to help that morning, though, I ashamed to say that my initial gut reaction was to say "no."  I thought of all the reasons I wouldn't be good at it, and the ways I could mess things up if I handled it badly.  Plus, it could take a long time and with the move and everything I'm behind on work hours.  But, why, then, did I come here?

I admit, I have still not established a sustainable rhythm for working full-time plus English classes plus ministry meetings plus trying to build relationships (refugee and peer alike) plus randomly helping with lease questions or trips to the Department of Social Services (picture the DMV, only worse).  Not with eating and sleeping and keeping my house reasonably clean in there, too.

I am not someone who thrives on incessant busyness.  I need at least a little quiet space in my day, or I go crazy.  Right now, I'm sacrificing sleep to get that, but I'm feeling that catch up with me, too (midnight visitors not helping).

It's going to take me a while to figure this out.  There are a lot of needs surrounding me.  I know I will not be able to meet them all, even if I want to.  There will be times I will (and should) say no.  However, I don't want fear or self-interest to dictate which times those are, but discernment of where God wants me to invest my time.  ...I wish that were more magically obvious sometimes.

*Note to all the mom-type-people reading: I would not open my home at midnight to just any random person (without really good reason).  H.'s sister is my friend, and by extension H. considers me part of his family.  He is extremely protective of me, as his "sister-friend."  I was in no danger.  Just for the record.

Outsider

In that drowsy interval between sleep and wakefulness, lying in bed with closed eyes, my lounging is interrupted by the charming squawk of a rooster.  It takes me a second to remember that it should be weird to hear a rooster.  That, in fact, I'm within the limits of a major American city, where we don't do roosters.

It's easy to forget that, because I also hear people talking outside, and I have no idea what they're saying, or even which language they're speaking.  I look out my window, and I don't recognize the clothes people are wearing.  I can't identify the smells coming from their open doors, or the foods they're drying out on their stoops, or the things they are doing.

There's the added complicator that I'm living among so many different languages and cultures that I can't just learn "here" in one fell swoop; it varies from house to house.

I try—and often fail—to figure out which people consider eye contact between strangers rude and which people find it friendly.  I wonder whether saying hello to that guy as I pass is fine, or a scandalous breach in gender-role etiquette that will be discussed for the rest of the day.  I'm never totally sure whether any given stare I'm receiving is because of my reddish hair, or because my shoulders (or knees, or head) aren't (or are) covered, or because I don't have a husband and kids, or because it's simply bizarre that a random American would choose to live in this little not-America.

Stared at, I am, though.  Always.  Through slats in mini-blinds or openly from doorways, my neighbors watch me.  It's not unfriendliness—just curiosity.  I am the outsider here.

I travel two blocks, and I'm back in America.  It's not quite my America, though.  Even there, the clothes, the accents, the driving habits, the expectations, the rhythm of life—they are different from what I know. There, too, I am an outsider.

The interesting thing—the tension I am experiencing—is that these two places are so different themselves that any attempt to fit into one takes me farther from the other.  I don't expect (or even want) to claim that either place is "mine," ultimately.  I can never "be" a refugee, and I have too much Northwest blood in me ever to "be" a Southerner.  I would like, however, to fit in, as the outsider-eventually-accepted.  I would like to figure out what my place is—as the mostly-monolingual white American amidst the refugee community and the crazy vegetarian Oregonian amidst the North Carolinans—in both "here"s at the same time.

And, while I am settling in fine and am at peace that coming here was the right thing to do, I'm still not exactly sure why I'm here.

"Okay, God, here I am."   - expectant face -

- long pause -

"... Now what?""

So far, there haven't been any visions or burning bushes, or even whispers (at least that I've heard).

I continue to wait.

While I wait, though, I am volunteering in a refugee ESL class twice a week, trying to make friends, and working crazy hours to make up for that expensive little vacation called "moving."

There are so many things to say and describe, and yet they are mostly still so unsettled in my own mind that I can't give them shape with words.  Know, though, there is more to come...

Pictures

Here are the promised pictures of my new home:

More photos are visible on flickr, but this is the idea.

It's old, and quirky, and I like it.

(Oh, and that blank picture frame hanging up in the second picture is a placeholder, not an expression of modernism or anything.  For the record.)

Settling

Lest you wonder, I did arrive safely at my apartment, and am settling in.

I will be posting pictures and giving more details soon!