A week ago I was on another continent and today I was driving down the same Midwest roads I've always driven on. I went to another school to fill another subbing position at an elementary school and guided the students through a phonics lesson. I ate lunch in a teacher's lounge and small talked with a few people. Then I drove home, cooked dinner and watched a little t.v.
It's amazing to me that life can be back to "normal" just like that. If I'm not careful, I'm going to fall right back into my regular way of life and forget my North Africa trip all together. I don't want that. It's the last thing I want right now, actually. This trip was such a life-changing thing for me and I don't want to devalue it by a simple, "It was great!" when someone asks how my trip went. We went through debriefing together as a group at the end of our trip while we were still in the country. It was a great time to really think through what we had experienced that week. How we felt about the things that we experienced. We had the chance to categorize our experiences into a Top 4 so that when people do ask how the trip was, we can give them more than just a quick, "Great".
My top four consisted of these things:
1. Spending the night in a family's home in North Africa. This included them giving us their 4 children's' beds and cooking us all a delicious dinner (that they started cooking around 9:30p.m. and was served to us around 11:00pm). We also had a super fun time of dancing, singing, and playing games. It was amazing! The hospitality blew me away. They wanted to give us the best of everything that they had. What was even more amazing, was that only 1 of the girls spoke English. We had such a good time, and the majority of that time was spent acting out things and laughing. It was wonderful!
2. Visiting abandoned babies in a hospital. We walked into this hospital and made our way to the floor with the abandoned babies. What we found was astonishing. The first thing we heard was a few of them crying. We walked into a closet-like room that was stuffy and had poor lighting. On either side of the room were bassinets lined up one after the other. Each one holding a precious little one that had been abandoned by their mother. When I first got into the room, I just started crying. I couldn't stop. I couldn't believe that all of these babies were not wanted. I couldn't fathom the thought of NOT wanting such a precious little one. And there were 17 babies in there. 2 of them were twins that were born the day before we had gotten there. We spent the next 3-4 hours bathing them, feeding them, changing their diapers, clothes and bed linens. It was so hard to tear ourselves away from them. We were able to stop by this hospital one more time before we left the country last Friday. It was nice to go and see them again. On the 2nd day that we went there were 21 babies there.
3. Harassment by the locals. We're white. That's just a fact. And when a group of white WOMEN walk around an Arab country, there's trouble to be had. We got so many comments you wouldn't believe it. It really was crazy. I got really good at looking straight ahead, making no eye contact, and acting like I didn't have a clue what they were saying. It was ridiculous. We kept a running list of things that were said to us while we were walking. Now, I say all of this because it was funny. I don't want anyone to get the impression that I'm being rude about this group of people. I mean no disrespect to them...(even though they kind of disrespected us.)
Here are a few of my favorites:
- Oh, you look very nice. Are you from Jamaica?
- Can I help you? ....For sex?
- Oh my god, you are such a flower.
- Sex
- Lovely face, lovely hair, lovely body
I think I'll just leave it at that.
4. Taxi Rides. These were a highlight in the week. You never knew what you were going to get. Some loved you, some said 2 words to you. (All in Arabic, of course) My sister, Annie, knew a little of the language and she always sat up front and talked to them and told them where we needed to go. The conversation always went like this: Oh, you speak Arabic? You lived here? Ah! Are you from England? Do you speak French? (we'd tell them we only spoke English) Then they'd start telling us all the words/phrases that they knew in English. "Hello" "What is your name?" "How are you?" "My name is..." It was great. We have some hilarious video footage of these interactions. I can't wait to watch the video again.
So that's my top 4. It's a mix of emotions - I feel like the whole trip was. Some things were hilarious, some were heart-breaking, some were so spiritually heavy that it made us turn straight to God when we'd go into a place. This is what I liked most about the trip. The total dependence on God. In a place that is completely Muslim, I leaned towards Him even more. It was good for me to be in that type of setting and to need Him. I don't think I do that enough here.
We're so comfortable in our little lives. People say they believe in God, but they don't feel or talk strongly about Jesus. Why don't we do that more? Why don't we profess our love for Him more? After a trip like this, I feel like I can be bolder in my faith. What do I have to lose? I mean, there, we had to be so careful about what we said, but here - we don't have to. We can say anything we want. It took me going to a Muslim country to realize that I don't do near enough here to sing His praises to people that I interact with each day.
