It’s probably good I didn’t write this story a few days ago. I threw a tantrum. A big one. Not the first since we moved here, and realistically, probably not the last. I realized that it had been over a week since I’d been out of our house (except for a trip 3 doors away for a meeting). Anyone who knows me understands how much of a challenge that might be for me. Some people are home-bodies. They like to be within the confines of their own homes. I’ve never been one of those people. Even when Jed was a little baby, I’d just bundle him up and take him on walks, run errands, visit friends, and we had a revolving door of guests. I was sure that I would be able to continue the same lifestyle even while moving overseas. Oh, silly, little Emily.
Last week, one of my single friends came to visit. We went out a lot. Well, at least it was a lot for me. In one week, we visited the ladies in the tent community, hopped an auto-rickshaw downtown with Lucy and tried to meet up with a friend I met in the flood, and went for a walk on the mountain behind our house. Jam-packed week! For me, anyway. I think she was used to being out and about a lot more. I was reminded, though, how hard it is for me to get out of the house.
In our new home, there aren’t rickshaws that come by to take us places for pennies. The auto-rickshaws here are unpredictable and are twice as expensive as those in Delhi and 5 times as expensive as those in our old home. We still don’t have a car -- a decision we made when we saw how unpredictable these months were going to be. We’re waiting until our return from a trip to the States before we look into a car again. Chris has his motorcycle, but we can’t very well zip around on that with all 5 of us in this city, either. The traffic is bigger and moves faster and the authorities are more watchful. One other thing is the age of my kids. 5, 3, and 1 aren’t the optimal age to just tote them around to whatever. Sometimes they’re dealing with culture stress. Sometimes they aren’t paying attention to their surroundings and can get into trouble. (Think open gutters, lots of animal poo, no sidewalks, crazy traffic, lots of hills because we live on the side of a mountain.) Sometimes they need a diaper change in a land of no pubic bathrooms -- and definitely no little pull-down tables with straps and a place to hang the diaper bag. Besides all this, I have a wonderful lady that comes every morning around 9:00 to take care of my dishes and floors and ironing. Then, there’s homeschool. And naps. And early morning bears and leopards. Okay, have I grumbled enough yet?
So, with all these strikes against leaving, I end up staying home. A lot. In talking with other Moms-of-Young-Children-Living-Cross-Culturally, I hear many of the same concerns. We’ve moved all this way to make a life in this new home, to learn a new language and culture, to make a difference with our new neighbors. But, the demands of our young families are so real and so overwhelming in a new culture, that we end up mostly coping. Is this wrong? Is there time for coping? No and yes. If God wanted me to move here without a young family, he wouldn’t have given me these amazing kids. He wanted them here, too. So, here we are. We spend a lot more time trying to settle down to do a short homeschool lesson than figuring out how to meet our next door neighbor. We eat our meals in our kitchen and rarely have tea outside our 4 walls. Unless we have it in the yard. (God’s blessings are good, we have a yard!)
Thankfully, before I moved here, I had some wonderful ladies who raised their families overseas reassure me. I am not failing just because my language learning is limited. I am not failing just because I don’t know all my neighbors’ names and don’t have them for tea on a bi-weekly basis. I am not failing if I can’t get around this city I’ve lived in for 6 months like I’ve lived here my whole life. My job is to live life here. Not conquer every aspect of here in my first few years. So, I continue. Even if a few tantrums escape because I haven’t been out of my yard for over a week. Maybe I need to suck it up and find a way out. Maybe I need to ask for help. Maybe I need to learn how to live within my walls before I can learn how to live outside of them . . .
I feel like I’ve written some of this before, but if so, I’m writing it again. I feel part of my being here is so that I can experience a bit of what women in this community experience. Most women -- especially mothers of young ones -- rarely leave their homes. If they do, it’s to the bazaar to pick up vegetables or something like that. But even then, many times others do this for them. Maybe they will travel, with a chaperone, to a relative’s house. On the streets here, the guy-to-girl ratio is easily 10 to 1. And most of the ladies you see are working cutting grass or something like that. I have to remember that I’m in a new place with new rules. I am not going to pull down these walls -- literally or figuratively -- in a few short months. Again, maybe I need to learn how to live within my walls before I can learn how to live outside of them . . .
Thankfully, I have a husband who sees this struggle. He looks for ways to get me out of the house. He looks for ways to bless me. He looks for answers to the obstacles. Right now, he admits, there aren’t many. We are both feeling that we’re in a time of refining. I think that’s what these first years should be about. God is working on our patience level, our contentment level, our commitment level, our dependance on Him. All at once. Again, I don’t think this is anything new for those in our shoes. Just writing it down. Someday, God willing, I’ll be forgetting what these first years were like and feeling much more at home in my foreign surroundings. God willing.
The kids and I -- out and about in Delhi. Woohoo, Dunkin' Donuts!
Last week, one of my single friends came to visit. We went out a lot. Well, at least it was a lot for me. In one week, we visited the ladies in the tent community, hopped an auto-rickshaw downtown with Lucy and tried to meet up with a friend I met in the flood, and went for a walk on the mountain behind our house. Jam-packed week! For me, anyway. I think she was used to being out and about a lot more. I was reminded, though, how hard it is for me to get out of the house.
In our new home, there aren’t rickshaws that come by to take us places for pennies. The auto-rickshaws here are unpredictable and are twice as expensive as those in Delhi and 5 times as expensive as those in our old home. We still don’t have a car -- a decision we made when we saw how unpredictable these months were going to be. We’re waiting until our return from a trip to the States before we look into a car again. Chris has his motorcycle, but we can’t very well zip around on that with all 5 of us in this city, either. The traffic is bigger and moves faster and the authorities are more watchful. One other thing is the age of my kids. 5, 3, and 1 aren’t the optimal age to just tote them around to whatever. Sometimes they’re dealing with culture stress. Sometimes they aren’t paying attention to their surroundings and can get into trouble. (Think open gutters, lots of animal poo, no sidewalks, crazy traffic, lots of hills because we live on the side of a mountain.) Sometimes they need a diaper change in a land of no pubic bathrooms -- and definitely no little pull-down tables with straps and a place to hang the diaper bag. Besides all this, I have a wonderful lady that comes every morning around 9:00 to take care of my dishes and floors and ironing. Then, there’s homeschool. And naps. And early morning bears and leopards. Okay, have I grumbled enough yet?
So, with all these strikes against leaving, I end up staying home. A lot. In talking with other Moms-of-Young-Children-Living-Cross-Culturally, I hear many of the same concerns. We’ve moved all this way to make a life in this new home, to learn a new language and culture, to make a difference with our new neighbors. But, the demands of our young families are so real and so overwhelming in a new culture, that we end up mostly coping. Is this wrong? Is there time for coping? No and yes. If God wanted me to move here without a young family, he wouldn’t have given me these amazing kids. He wanted them here, too. So, here we are. We spend a lot more time trying to settle down to do a short homeschool lesson than figuring out how to meet our next door neighbor. We eat our meals in our kitchen and rarely have tea outside our 4 walls. Unless we have it in the yard. (God’s blessings are good, we have a yard!)
Thankfully, before I moved here, I had some wonderful ladies who raised their families overseas reassure me. I am not failing just because my language learning is limited. I am not failing just because I don’t know all my neighbors’ names and don’t have them for tea on a bi-weekly basis. I am not failing if I can’t get around this city I’ve lived in for 6 months like I’ve lived here my whole life. My job is to live life here. Not conquer every aspect of here in my first few years. So, I continue. Even if a few tantrums escape because I haven’t been out of my yard for over a week. Maybe I need to suck it up and find a way out. Maybe I need to ask for help. Maybe I need to learn how to live within my walls before I can learn how to live outside of them . . .
I feel like I’ve written some of this before, but if so, I’m writing it again. I feel part of my being here is so that I can experience a bit of what women in this community experience. Most women -- especially mothers of young ones -- rarely leave their homes. If they do, it’s to the bazaar to pick up vegetables or something like that. But even then, many times others do this for them. Maybe they will travel, with a chaperone, to a relative’s house. On the streets here, the guy-to-girl ratio is easily 10 to 1. And most of the ladies you see are working cutting grass or something like that. I have to remember that I’m in a new place with new rules. I am not going to pull down these walls -- literally or figuratively -- in a few short months. Again, maybe I need to learn how to live within my walls before I can learn how to live outside of them . . .
Thankfully, I have a husband who sees this struggle. He looks for ways to get me out of the house. He looks for ways to bless me. He looks for answers to the obstacles. Right now, he admits, there aren’t many. We are both feeling that we’re in a time of refining. I think that’s what these first years should be about. God is working on our patience level, our contentment level, our commitment level, our dependance on Him. All at once. Again, I don’t think this is anything new for those in our shoes. Just writing it down. Someday, God willing, I’ll be forgetting what these first years were like and feeling much more at home in my foreign surroundings. God willing.
The kids and I -- out and about in Delhi. Woohoo, Dunkin' Donuts!
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