Being a missioner in a new land and new culture transforms one into a child in so many ways. In our orientation in New York my fellow missioners and I discussed the reality of this statement. However, now that I am living this truth I find it both challenging and amusing.
To be like a child means to learn again how to eat, how to speak, how to read, how to walk, how to sleep, and how to go to the bathroom. Yes, I have been working on all of these. If only I had a Dick & Jane book in Portuguese. Perhaps the hardest thing for me is the inability to communicate with others. Imagine every time you need something you have to think about how to say the words to express yourself. It is one thing to be in a restaurant and for the waiter not understand when I order a Coke Zero. Really how wrong can my pronunciation be that I cannot be understood to order a Coke? (No worries I have learned how to order it now, could not let too much time slip by on that one). But imagine riding a bus and trying to ask for directions, and needing to go to the dentist (thank God my Maryknoll Family went with me), and now think about all the little things we need daily, like toilet paper. It is humbling to have to think about how to ask for a roll, then most likely to have to explain it a couple of times (this is one that it is best not to explain with too many hand gestures). I think about children who speak but cannot be understood. I understand how frustrating that must be for them; at least I have Google translate.
Communication seems to be a challenge in more ways than just a language. In language school I live with religious men and woman from all over the world. During the last week I have been in a couple of situations where it was clearly stated that woman in some countries are not equal to men. Women are to do what the man says and not to have an opinion. You can imagine how well that has gone over with me. Most of you know I usually have an opinion and believe that people have the right to share their opinion as long as it is done so with respect. I have been working to navigate these relationships where I feel like I am suppose to be lesser than the man, it is a bumpy road but I am working on it. In the US I have felt like I was treated as a lesser because I am not a man, but this is a whole different level. I am trying to understand it as a learning experience because so many women in this world experience a world where their voices are not heard.
The challenges at times can be overwhelming, however, the amusing part comes in discovering things again or for the first time. New tastes, new smells, new ideas, and new places. It is an amazing experience to achieve something for the first time, even if it is just riding the bus or figuring out how to use the phone. Some day I am going to figure out how to mail a letter Today I got a towel that had been in a dryer. It was amazing. Towels that dry on a clothes line just never seems to get completely dry.
To be a child is to be full of possibilities, it is to be open to discovering the world around you. It is to fall and then get back up again. It is to be humble, pure hearted, and to trust and rely on others. It is not to be afraid to fail. And so I try to put my pride on the self and to embrace my world as a child would. I just hope I can set aside my pride, my fears, my embarrassment, in order to relearn how to live in the world. This can be exhausting, I understand now why children take naps. I need to start giving myself permission to do the same.
