Part II: It’s a jungle out there!

I wrote the other night about the diversity we find in the villages we work in.  My point (whether I reached it or not is unknown) was that we need to recognize the diversity of people that live closely together and not assume that they are all one cuddly community.  Rather we should understand what kind of people they are, and use varied approaches to urge them along in joining the work of becoming a community by definition.  Tonight I am again writing about the diversity of community, but this time it’s from the perspective of the outsider; that is, my own perspective, right here in my neighborhood.

In the time that we have lived in this city, we have experienced a wide spectrum of responses from our neighbors.  We have experienced genuine, humbling hospitality and Good-Samaritan-like kindness from strangers.   In the same time period we have also experienced hate-filled slander, curses, and all-out awful behavior.  It’s been such a wild, up and down spectrum that you cannot anticipate one day to the next which flavor of interaction you will experience.  It truly is a jungle, right outside our door! 

The experience that I describe above has taught me something important about myself.  I have learned that I like to be respected as a human, and when I’m not, it is a heavy burden on my heart and mind.  For example: when I cross paths with a stranger on the sidewalk and he hisses “infidel” in my ear as he passes, I don’t like it.  That word, to them, is the biggest insult they can utter; it is absolutely dehumanizing.  Every time this happens to me it takes at least a few minutes to put it out of my head and go on with my day.  Before I put it out, it threatens to ruin my day and my attitude toward people here for the day.  It is especially polluting because I think to myself, “I’ve done nothing to you and nothing to deserve being dehumanized.  Rather than give me any sort of chance, you immediately cut me down?  I deserve better!”  It has taken, and continues to take, a lot of work to be able to quickly say to myself, “I don’t have to be respected, to be effective at what I was called here for.” 

That short motto has become useful to me, which is good, because I frequently have to repeat it to myself.  It is disappointing to feel as if there has been an avalanche of negative sentiment towards foreigners altogether.  The negative sentiment manifests itself in a dozen different ways, all of which can ruin our days, if we let them. 

BUT, like I said, it’s a jungle out there, and that means you’ll find all sorts of animals out there.  We’re not here to wrestle with the tigers or even try to tame the donkeys, we are here to tend the goats, find the lost sheep, and bind up the brokenhearted.  If we get too scared of the tigers or too fed up with the lousy donkeys, and we stay out of the jungle altogether, then who will help the animals we were sent to help? 

Here’s another thing about jungles, a beautiful thing in fact: Sometimes you’ll even find animals that will take care of you in the jungle.  One of the best mental/emotional/spiritual exercises we started late last year was creating a list of great things that people here have done for us.  I call it the Good Samaritan list.  It always challenges me to be reminded that some people here have been Good Samaritans to us, even while we have come with the intent to be Good Samaritans to them (and so often fail to do so).  In order for someone’s action to make our Good Samaritan list, their action has to be completely empty of expectation of reward.  If we made a list of all the kind things people here have done for us WITH expectation of reward, that would be a LONG list.  Those that have done kindness or mercy without expectation of reward make a much shorter list, but it is a very special list to us.  Here it is:

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• Back in 2008 we were looking for a restaurant by ourselves in a city here that we had never been to.  Darkness fell before we found it, so we started to ask for directions from shopkeepers around us.  One of them looked at us caringly, walked with us to the street, hailed a cab, told him where we wanted to go, and paid the cab driver our fare.  He knew we would never see him again.
• -       In 2011 a neighbor boy gave our son his favorite rabbit, a beautiful angora long-haired rabbit that was as tame as could be.  A true sacrifice, simply because he saw how my son’s eyes lit when he saw it. 
• -       This winter we were bumping along in the muddy bazaar and our daughter wiggled out of her stroller straps and fell face first into the mud.  We were right there, but 2 men across the street got to our daughter before we could.  One immediately picked her up, another ran quickly for water to wash her up.  They washed her spotless before gently handing her back to her mother.
• -       My son and I were doing some shopping in the bazaar and he set his backpack down in one shop.  30 minutes later an exhausted old man finally found us, smiled and put my son’s bag back around his shoulders.  He wouldn’t accept a thing in thanks.
• -       One of the poorer staff in our office, a watchman, has a wife that is unable to bear children.  Rather than try to get a second wife that can bear children, he opened his heart and adopted the baby of a teen girl that was raped (this kind of adoption is absolutely unheard of here.  He’s the proudest father ever, and while this Good Samaritan act was not done for or to us, it was one of those remarkably genuine things that was done with such quiet humility, so we decided it had to make our list as well!

This is the conclusion of my thoughts for now on the jungle called diverse society.  We are not respected or appreciated by some number of people here, but that’s okay, we still have purpose in being here for those that are still open, still seeing us as humans, and still looking for light.