7 - Culture

School started in late August and I got to meet all of the three year olds I would spend the year with. I’d never taught preschool before and I was excited to meet all of my students. I had 13 three year olds and worked with a co-teacher, Shireen. She had worked with preschool age kids before and taught me so much. I had the youngest kids in the school and none of them spoke English. It was a tough first few weeks. This was their first time in school and most of their first exposure to English. We taught English by immersion and I only spoke English to them. 

It was amazing what my kids could pick up.  It didn’t take them long to learn that I was the English speaker and Sharien was the one they could understand. They knew if they wanted to communicate with me, they had to use the few English words that they knew. Shireen would leave me alone in the classroom many times so the kids were forced to use their English skills.  

One day, one of my students picked up a dead caterpillar from the playground and brought it up to me. He held it in my face and said, “Miss, it’s broken.”  Laughing, I corrected him, “No, it’s dead. Mat. ‘Dead’ in English.” I’m not sure he understood but he repeated, “Dead.” and ran off.  That was how most of the language learning was happening for both them and me. 

I was learning so much Arabic by listening to my students.  My Arabic skills were at about a three year old level, so it worked out well.  Whenever I would pick up a new phrase from my kids and try it out, Shireen always said, “It’s so cute!'' She said I spoke Arabic “cute”.

Shireen was like a Palestinian mother to me while I lived there. She taught me how to make Palestinian food, drove us to work everyday, worked by my side in our classroom, taught me how to engage three year olds, and brought me into her life with grace and understanding.  

Working side by side, cross-culturally, can be a challenge and I feel so blessed that I got to do that with Shireen. She not only accepted me as a co-worker and friend but worked hard to understand my American way of thinking. What made our friendship so sweet was that we were both doing our best (most of the time) to understand each other and our cultural differences. Being the outsider, I was working all day and night to understand a different culture and the way Palestinians think and act.  My expectation was not for them to act like or understand me, but for me to act like them. This was their home. I was a guest. Shireen was a local and didn’t have to try to understand me, but she put in the effort to understand, and for that, I am so grateful. It made our friendship so much deeper. 

She was very helpful to me in my language skills too.  She would speak Arabic often to me even though she was wonderful at English. When I didn’t understand her, she would say it again slowly and with hand motions. If I still didn’t understand she would shake her head and say, “lazam tarfii, habibti!” which means, “you have to know this'' and wouldn’t translate it. I started doing the same thing to her in English when she didn’t understand a phrase. I would shake my head and say, “lazam tarfii, habibti, lazam tarfii.” 

Living and working cross-culturally was not always as picturesque as it may sound. I remember getting frustrated when I was corrected again and again on normal tasks. One day I was sweeping the classroom after the kids had gone home and Shareen walked in. She looked at me, smiled and said, “Don’t let anyone see you sweeping the floor like that, habibti.” (this was her way of loving me and helping me out). However, it had been a long day and I was annoyed about being critiqued again. So, being the saved and redeemed person I am, I responded with, “Well, this is how everyone sweeps the floor in America.” Adding in my head, “I’m not an idiot.”  She gracefully smiled and said, “okay, habibti, okay.”

A few weeks later my roommates and I came home from school and our neighbors were all sitting together in the street outside our houses. As we passed by our landlady, Nour, called us over. She then explained in a loud voice, with the attention of all of the neighbors, that our electricity bill was apparently through the roof. She was just so shocked by how high our electricity bill was that she needed to make sure it was correct. It did not matter that she did this in front of everyone, that was normal to Palestinians. We, however, were mortified and did our best to keep our bill down so as to not shame all of America in front of our neighbors. 

____

Journal Entry - October 2014

It’s October 9th and I feel normal.  Nothing seems to be out of the ordinary to me anymore.  I feel comfortable here.  I am comfortable with the people I volunteer with, I know the things that are going to be different from America and they no longer surprise me.  I’m used to people looking at me and I know when and where I can walk around.

I know they say when you begin working cross culturally you go through a “honeymoon phase” where you think everything and everyone is great.  I think we skipped that phase altogether.  We landed in the middle of a war.  It was heavy, dark, and scary.  I never felt like I was on any type of honeymoon.  It was more like a nightmare.  Instead of thinking how wonderful it was, I was thinking, “get me the hell out of here.”  For a while, I was paralyzed with fear.  I never knew the meaning of that phrase until I got here.  I felt so weak and anytime I thought about the war I just shut down.  I couldn’t even look at the news. Fear of death gripped my heart the second day of being here.  They say homesickness is supposed to set in at about month 3, which would be right now.  My homesickness began the moment I left home.  I have never been as broken or had as deep an ache for home as I did then.  In both my fear and my homesickness, Jesus met with me.  He never leaves us alone and he didn’t leave me alone.  He was my strength and my song. 

________

“Hold on, my heart, in thy believing -

The steadfast only wins the crown;

He who, when stormy winds are heaving, 

Parts with its anchor, shall go down;

But he who Jesus holds through all,

Shall stand, though Heaven and earth should fall.

Hold out! There comes an end to sorrow;

Hope from the dust shall conquering rise;

The storm foretells a summer’s morrow;

The Cross points on to Paradise;

The Father reigneth! cease all doubt;

Hold on, my heart, hold on, hold out.”