End of August

Good morning again! It’s ten thirty and a particularly chilly morning for Malawi. It’s windy and drizzly. Rain is rare outside of the rainy season but it reminds me of home so I am relishing it by putting off the painting I was intending to do in favor of some jazz and a cup of the India tea Gelby sent and the Rum & Raisin chocolate Haakon forgot when he moved out (thanks, and thanks).  I’ve been thinking a lot about my first day of school at good ole Beech. It’s a story I know I have told a disgusting number of times but I think it’s a good one so I think I will tell it now and then try to relate it to Malawi. Ok? ok.

My beautiful sisters and I grew up in that charming region of Washington state just north of Seattle where the population is both infused with an affinity for hiking mountains, swimming rivers, and scouring garage sales as well as the culture of a city preoccupied by books, coffee, and brunch. Seattlites called us redneck and although we did have some less sophisticated tendencies like rehabilitating injured turtles in the bathtub or caroling in trailer parks for the elderly, we were also close enough to the city to enjoy the occasional symphony or play and once we were old enough to take the bus Saturdays in the city were frequent. Also, thanks to a trust fund left by my great-grandmother the Dixon girls were also spared those lowly public schools and I spent ten years in well-respected Catholic schools. So, when during the summer following my sophomore year Papa Dixon announced that we would be moving to Goodlettsville, Tennessee and attending a local public school my shocked friends attempted to prepare me for the worst. Some of my friends had especial expertise having experienced public school –shudder-

“Oh gosh Becca, you’ll have to stop praying before you eat.”

“Oh yea, or at least stop crossing yourself, I can’t believe you actually still do that anyway.”

“Definitely, and you’ll also have to start swearing.”

“Hmm, you might want to start practicing now, it sounds really weird when you say swear words.”

“Yea, and you’re going to have to change the way you dress, no more of these tee-shirts with the cartoon characters on them.”

“Oh Becca, they’re going to eat you alive.”

With these encouraging words buzzing in my ears I set off for Tennessee and began my career at Beech High School expecting a special breed of cowboy hoodlums. I was shocked the first day by the sheer size of the school (around 300 per grade) and its extreme level of filth (people actually smoked in the bathrooms). I found myself jostled around in the crowd as I looked for the first class on my schedule. Due to an administrational mistake my schedule had teachers’ names but no classroom numbers so my map of the school was useless. Fortunately an older student noticed my disorientation and asked if she could help. Bowled over by the friendliness and evidence of “southern hospitality” I explained my predicament. She whisked the schedule out of my hand,

“Mrs. Word first. Oh she’s great, you’ll love her. She is so nice. Come on I’ll show you. My name’s Stacy. What did you say your name was? Oh, Rebecca? I have a friend named Rebecca. She’s the best, you’d love her, she’s so nice. Where do you go to church?”

I had noticed that she was carrying a bible with her, stacked neatly on top of her binder. I had assumed it was for some sort of summer reading. While I doubted Beech  offered Theology as Archbishop Murphy High School had, I thought perhaps it was for a literature class, or maybe sociology.

“Um, well, you see I just moved here on Thursday so I haven’t been to Church yet,” I was still very religious and embarrassed that I had missed mass the day before, but also afraid of giving the wrong impression that I was too religious as my friends had warned me against. Religion at my other school had been considered very private so I thought maybe she was asking because she wanted to know where exactly I lived. In the Catholic school systems of Seattle proper you might ask where someone goes to church because unlike the school, which you chose, churches were divided by district so you went to the nearest one.

“Oh. Well I go to Long Hollow Baptist. It’s just right down the road and I love it. You should come see it sometime, I’m sure you’d love it too. It’s really a great church, the people are all so nice and everyone would love to see you there.”

Presently we arrived at Mrs. Word’s room for Anatomy and Physiology.

“Rebecca!” Stacy greeted another girl who was already in the classroom. “I was just talking about you, this is Rebecca too! She just moved here. How are you, girl?”

“I’m great,” Rebecca answered. “And guess what.”

“What?”

“This morning, I witnessed to,” dramatic pause, “thaareee people!”

“Oh. My. Gosh. That is incredible. Way to go Rebecca.”

And then there was a high five.

“Thanks girl. It was amazing, I wasn’t nervous at all. I just went right up to them and I said, ‘Have you heard about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?’”

“Wow, you are so brave. Way to go.”

Thankfully they were excited enough they had stopped paying attention to me because if they had looked they would have seen me gaping at them in astonishment, waiting for the cowboy thugs to jump out from behind desks and bookshelves and say ‘Gotcha!’ But that never happened. Not then, not when a teacher invited me to bible study, not when friends expressed their concern that I would find myself eternally damned, not ever. And the thing was that although I was overwhelmed, confused, and often offended they were unfailingly sincere. They just wanted to share what, in their minds, was the best they had to offer.

It took me a long time, too long to accept Tennessee. I still cringe when I reflect on my poor attitude. I viewed Seattle as a golden wonderland and Tennessee as a miserable exile I had done nothing to deserve. It’s a gleaming reflection, really, on the many people that were still willing to be friends with me despite my ungracious demeanor. In a way I was doing the exact same thing I complained they were doing to me—insisting that my point of view was correct, instead of accepting that it was just my point of view—but I was doing so without any of the generosity that was behind the many attempts to “show me the way.”

By the end of my years in Tennessee I felt almost as at home there as in Seattle. When, without knowing my circumstances, Lindsey Smith called me a little Southern lady, my surrounding friends smiled into their beers knowing I would give her a snappy response, and indeed I forced a smile and answered that, “I was not from the South.” Unphased, she shrugged, said “Well you are now,” and took another sip of her beer. Everyone laughed, and I did too because by then I was, and I finally realized that’s it was not an insult, but actually an honor to be claimed.

Once again I am faced with a culture that it would be easy to dismiss as somehow inferior to my own. Yes, it is labor-intensive to start a fire and grind beans with a mortar and pestle if I want coffee, and sadly vegetables do not stay fresh as long without refrigeration, and true it can be frustrating to have little to no idea when you will be able to get transport, and maddening that vendors will always try to charge you more because they assume white people are rich. But that just makes it all the more moving when a woman with five kids cooks for you, when children wait with you at the bus stage for the two hours it takes to get a bus, when a neighbor searches the village for competitive prices on your behalf because they are just as bothered as you that you would be overcharged.

Like in Tennessee, I know I will reach a certain level of exasperation living in a new culture. It is certainly difficult to affix a sunny disposition when the neighborhood children start calling your name outside your window at six am (my name which they pronounce Lebek) but they are just children and want to welcome me to the neighborhood. And use my bao board. And when my new friend Judith comes over and says, “Let’s go to the garden,” then drags me off to weed and till her onions for three hours it’s ok to think wistfully of afternoons in Seattle where Taylor would say “Let’s go to the movies,” but it’s crucial I remember an invitation to the garden is just as friendly as an invite to the movies and though not as…obviously fun, it is certainly a worthwhile cultural experience, and also horticulturally educational.