Finding My Place in the Family of Things

This is my final blog post, probably. I wrote it as a sermon for the Unitarian Church which I presented on June 28th.

 

I’ve lived in Northampton for as long as I can remember. I grew up with kale and rainbow crosswalks. I grew up being the majority. I had the same thoughts as everyone else; partially because I agreed with them, but mainly because everyone else had had them first. I was a cookie cutter. I was unique in the scheme of the world, but in comparison to everyone around me I was the same.  I defined myself off of the stereotypes surrounding my arts school. And Unitarianism. And Northampton. Partially because I wanted to be like everyone else. Partially because that’s who I was. And probably mostly, because it was easy. I could define myself based off of my sister as well. I’ve been living in her shadow my whole life. I’ve grumbled about it, but in all honesty I like it there. It was safe knowing that Lark did it first and that means I can do it too. After 15 years, I was ready for the next chapter.

Somewhere deep down I knew that while this was my whole world, Northampton isn’t quite The whole world. I knew that if I ever wanted to grow to be more. To learn how to be my own person. I had to leave Northampton.  And I knew I needed to see the rest of the world. The real world. Even if it was just to give context to the odd things in my life. Like overhearing conversations about the rejuvenating powers of quinoa. I never thought that was odd until I left.

And then I left. Distance is fickle. The world is immense and it did not take long to realize that home was very far away, despite how tantalizingly close it felt on skype. There were no hot chocolate runs or guerilla knitters here and I certainly wasn’t the majority.

Despite how different it was I was in a good place with my host family and at my school by November. My parents in America wanted me to check in everyday. It was for my own good. They wanted to know I was safe. It takes an amazing amount of courage to send your 15-year-old daughter to a foreign, scary place. They needed me to tell them I was alive. Simple enough. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t deal with the constant reminder of a home that was so far away, and an identity I couldn’t identify with in Muscat. Terse emails were exchanged. I stopped checking in every day.

I think leaving helped me figure out who I was without the constant reinforcement of beliefs I’ve had, all my life. I have always been Northampton. I have always been a part of the Wicinas family; I was a PVPA student, a feminist, a thousand other things. In Oman, I was just an American exchange student. With everything stripped away I was just Linden. I can’t truly say I know who Just Linden is. I am my core memories. If I was raised in Texas, or North Carolina, or even by a different family in Northampton, I wouldn’t be the same Linden. But all of that didn’t matter because as far as anyone in the Middle East knew I was just Linden the American exchange student. Just Linden. It was the first time in my life I couldn’t rely on my sister, or my background, or anything else to define me. And I learned how to define myself.

But it wasn’t easy. Somewhere along the way I lost my what I thought was a core sense of confidence. I stopped wanting to be the spokesmen of the group. Or approach host relatives I’d never met. I think my elusive confidence faded with my sense of belonging. I was home in Northampton, with my parents, and my quinoa. It was easy to be confident because I knew exactly where I stood. I knew everyone’s ideas and I agreed with them because that’s what I was taught. But in Oman they were taught different things, they don’t eat quinoa or even organic granola! Sometimes I didn’t like what they ate there, more often I just didn’t know what it was or I wasn’t used to it. Not knowing where I stood in the world or who I was, was heart breaking. I was sad for a long time. I couldn’t be happy but I couldn’t tell you what was wrong either. It was like a weight at the back of my mind- throwing me off balance. It felt stupid to say, “I don’t feel at home here’ because that was the whole idea behind going away. I didn’t want to tell myself that I couldn’t handle Omani culture. I didn’t want to be a failure.

By March, even though things were still hard, I started talking to my family every other day. I no longer felt the need for distance to figure out who I was or who I was supposed to be. Memories of home still ached and I clung to them until they grew sweaty in my palms. Even amid the pain they caused. They were comforting.  I grew closer with my sister then I ever had been in person and wrote long emails to my mum and dad. It took me a long time to realize that not all families have specific albums for specific meals. Or that many families don’t paint their favorite book bindings on their stairs. Or throw their cats bar mitzvahs when they turn thirteen. My family is special.

After a year of wanting, and missing my family, my town, my comfort zone. I’m back. Homecoming is delicious. I have clean sheets. I am surrounded with people that love me, and organic food. I am happy that I am home and more importantly I know that I am home. I am welcomed into the town with open arms and I know that I am privileged to be so welcomed. I am privileged to have a place that accepts me as one of them. The day the supreme court announced gay marriages was legal everywhere, not just in my state, my family went out to ice cream and I wore a huge rainbow silk scarf and people smiled when they saw me. I felt like I was radiating joy.

Mary Oliver says,

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely.

The world offers itself to your imagination,

Calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –

Over and over announcing your place

In the family of things.

I thought that by going away, I would find my place in the world. I thought that I would hear the wild geese and things would be simple. That’s not quite how it turned out. As happy as I am to be home I realized that discovering my place in the family of things will be a continuous project for the rest of my life. Oman is not My place, Nor is America. By going away I learned how to differentiate, what I was taught to believe in, from what I believe in. Surprise! I don’t actually like quinoa. However there are a thousand things that I identify with much more strongly now that I’ve been separated from the place I grew up. I’m a stronger feminist, I value freedom of speech, the right to marry, whoever I want to! In Oman I learned -among other things- the importance of having family and faith intertwined with your life.  My place in the family of things falls in between Muscat and Northampton, it’s not fully one or the other.

The place (disclaimer it’s not the Atlantic Ocean) is me. Linden, just Linden. Evolving all the time. And it’s a continuous. Messy. Joyful. And heartbreaking journey, discovering and puzzling out who Just Linden is and where she, I, fit in the family of things.

Blue Planets, Giverny, and Salalah

When I was six my family went to France for a couple of weeks. During all of elementary school I was obsessed with Claude Monet. I had books about him. Prints of his paintings hung in my room and at all the museums we went to I made a beeline for the impressionist gallery, making mad dashes for lily pads. It was only natural that we took a day trip to Giverny to visit his house and garden.

While we were there I tucked a little blue planet under a bunch of flowers.

The blue planet was one of hundreds hidden all over the world. Hand blown. Clear glossy domes with unique little worlds inside. Volcanoes and oceans, reefs and deserts. The maker of these exquisite marbles is Josh Simpson, a local glass blower. And the reason his planets are stashed in all corners of the world is the Infinity Project.

Josh Simpson started the Infinity Project years ago. His mission is to hide these little planets all over the world to be discovered tomorrow or lost for centuries. A way to ensure his art will never really be lost. Planets are dropped into volcanos or nestled under the ice in Antarctica. One was no doubt found by an unsuspecting gardener in France. Any child that wants to can write a letter requesting to hide one of his pieces somewhere and if the scholarship is granted you receive two planets. One to hide and one to keep. The planet I hid at Giverny was one of two that I’ve hid.

Right before I left for Oman- and I mean right before, about 48 hours pre-departure- my mother thought of Josh Simpson’s planets and emailed them without asking me. And a day before I left she presented me with a  globe to hide in Oman. Well for about nine months it lay hidden alright, in bubble wrap at the bottom of my suitcase. Then a week ago I fished it out and put it in my purse, hopped on a plane and flew to Salalah.

Salalah is the second biggest city in Oman, located in the south not so far from the border to Yemen. It’s about an hour and a half flight and I went with my YES Admin and the other girls. Our trip was only three days, but it was filled with small beautiful moments and large exciting adventures.

Salalah is known for its frankincense and our guide showed us how to harvest frankincense and he took us to the ruins of a fortress port that exported the incense all over the world 800 years ago. We went to one of Job’s tombs and the souq or market, hazy with smoke of burning frankincense. Salalah is a coastal city, and our hotel was right on the beach. We drank from coconuts in the sand. Camels walked alongside our car and the mountains glided past us. .

As well as being beautiful, Salalah is a refreshing change of pace from the hustle and bustle of Muscat. In Muscat things are being built or expanded or improved at all times. Salalah is much more conservative. Time meanders rather than going in a straight line, and with the exception of tourism and the oil industry, its forgotten by the west. Salalah was the perfect place for my planet.

 

I won’t say exactly where it is. What’s the fun in that? It’s peeking out from deep in a crevice on a cliff I climbed by the ocean. I don’t know who will find it, or if someone ever will. I’m assuming that it is still high up on the cliff, possibly covered in dust or bat guano. But I’m positive it’s out there, and it’s comforting to know that it will be for a long time to come.

Paper Cranes

The cranes were a part of my exchange before I knew I was going away.  On a Wednesday afternoon in February last year I wrote a story on paper cranes. They fascinated me. 2D becoming 3D. Squares turning into animals. They were magic. I didn’t know how to make them and that just added to their allure. They were mysterious and precious.

At the pre-departure orientation in June I sat next to a girl named Kenzie Bell. I gave her a stick of gum and five minutes later she gave me two tiny silver cellophane birds. I thought it was magic. Fate.

That night the two of us stayed up far past curfew talking about our lives, our families, our towns, our dreams. I fidgeted and played with the silver birds I had stashed in my wallet. The fluorescent lights flickered every few minutes. At around two in the morning, sitting across the carpeted hall from her, we became friends.

In October, for a number of reasons, I switched host families. It was a mutual decision. No one blamed me.

But I couldn’t help but think I had failed. If I had just been a better exchange student, or if I was just better at Arabic…The day I packed up my suitcase, Kenzie Bell, the girl who sat across the hall from me in June, gave me string of five blue and white cranes. To guard my dreams. I strung them over my bed the first night. They’ve hovered silently over me while I slept for the past six months. She has two of the same cranes above her bed.

I had stubbornly refused to learn how to fold the paper cranes despite my friend offering to teach me. I didn’t want them to lose their magic.

In December it was Kenzie’s birthday. I taught myself on YouTube with my little sister. My folds weren’t as crisp or even and unlike Kenzie’s my crane didn’t look like it was about to take flight. It looked like it might need to go to the vet, actually. I gave it to her for her seventeenth birthday and the next time she gave me a gum wrapper crane its wings still trembled with energy. They hadn’t lost their magic.

We started The Peace Cranes Project at my school in February. The Peace Cranes Project is funded by the UN and kids all over the world fold cranes and connect with other schools in the world via the Internet or mail. Over 84 countries are involved and together we helped Oman join the masses. Kenzie and I taught almost 200 6th, 7th, and 8th graders how to make paper cranes. Little kids craned their necks to view Kenzie’s cranes as she demonstrated how to fold the paper.  As Kenzie guided the children the teachers would lean over to me and tell me in hushed amazement how it wasn’t the best students that excelled at origami but more often the kids that had trouble focusing or sitting still. All I could do was smile. When the kids limping, bedraggled looking cranes were complete the children could only stare at them. “I made this, out of paper” they seemed to say with their glowing astonished  faces.

On April 2nd, Kenzie gave me 999 cranes. Boxes and boxes of cranes. Cranes that represented her past. Cranes that were our time here. Cranes that symbolized our future, together. There were so many. 16 of them held wishes and song lyrics. 150 of them had every single word of my crane story from last year. A word on each wing and a number to order them on their belly’s. Two tiny cranes whispered in my ears. 25 clung to Christmas lights as delicate as newborns and glowing with warm incandescence. A little over two hundred were gum wrapper cranes. Just like the first ones. They shifted restlessly in their box, impatient to take off.  The last box held a stick of gum. Wrapped. Smooth.

There’s an old Japanese legend about origami cranes. If someone makes 1000 cranes they get to make a wish or give that wish away. The last stick of gum is for me. When I need to use the cranes magic. When I need to make a wish. All I have to do is fold it. For now it will stay in its box. For now I don’t need anything else.

The cranes Kenzie gave me on my birthday

Teaching kids how to make cranes at school as part of the Peace Cranes Project

Leadership and Acceptance

One morning in the spring of last year four miscellaneous friends and I went to a local nature reserve to kill some invasive species. Besides my dad (ever the environmentalist) and us, there were a lot of other people my dad’s age. Before we started the instructor gathered us up to talk about the day while we shifted impatiently in our rain boots.

The guide that was in charge of the expedition noticed the age gap and, as so many well intentioned grown ups do, went out of his way to ask the five of us a question. Without even thinking about it all four of my friends turned to me and then I stepped forward and addressed the group.

It’s a year later and I have no idea what the question was. I don’t think I would have remembered the exchange at all, but later that day my dad pointed it out to me. He was proud of me for being such an obvious leader among my friends, but at the same time he was bewildered by how automatically all five of us assumed I would be the spokesman of the group.

*****

When I was in elementary school I strived for acceptance, but I rarely received it. When I found that acceptance in middle and high school I started to crave leadership. I wanted to be in control of my social environment. I never wanted to feel as powerless as I did when I was little. I have a vivid memory of my six-year-old-self crying because I didn’t have a play date.

In eighth grade I ran for student representative because I wanted confirmation of my acceptance. I didn’t want to become a dictator or anything, I just didn’t want to revolve around other people’s social agendas anymore. I’d already been there and done that. I was never a stereotypical popular girl, but in my small school I had friends everywhere. I was loved and people really did think of me as a leader.

I’m not a leader at school or with my family here. I’m accepted begrudgingly. I will always be an outsider. I’ll never be a full member of my family because of language barriers and religious barriers. Hell, even my skin doesn’t fit in with everyone else. My blue eyes are a novelty. I’m used to being different, but never unintentionally. I know the art of blending in and choose not too. Here blending in isn’t so easy.

I tower over Omani women. So I slump. When I walk with my friends I don’t lead the pack; I hang back and let other girls decide which direction we should go. In groups I rarely say more than a few words. In the first few months it was hard to swallow my orders. My instinct is to be at the front making decisions, but I don’t do that here. It’s not my place.

It’s not that I don’t have the confidence to step up anymore. If anything, I have become more confident in my sense of self. But I no longer obsess over leadership. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve reverted to a more primal need for acceptance, or if I just don’t need the constant ego boost of people seeking my advice. Being a leader was a huge part of my identity before I came to Oman, and I will never be the kind of person who follows easily. I am slowly learning that while leading is important, sometimes it is okay to take the back seat and just enjoy the ride.

Lark

One day in June last year I was driving with my sister. I knew I was coming to Oman and I was complaining about how all these grown ups and even a few of my friends kept calling me brave. I mean come on, sure I was going halfway around the world, but I was still being taken care of. I wasn’t going on adventures or doing heroic acts. I told Lark all of this assuming she would commiserate, but oddly enough she didn’t. She turned around and said,

“I think you are brave. I could never do it.”

Lark and I were never the type of sisters that told each other everything. We weren’t best friends or any of the other buzzfeed sister cliches that come to mind. We orbited in our own worlds and complained bitterly when the worlds happened to overlap. When we hugged good-bye at the airport mommy made fun of us for it being awkward. To be honest, I can’t remember the time before that when we hugged.

When she told me I was brave and that she couldn’t do what I was doing, I was floored. I thought about it for weeks. I still think about it. My whole life I’ve been following in my sister’s shadow. I’ve grumbled about it, but in all honesty, I like it there. It’s safe knowing that Lark did it first and that means I can do it too.

Sometimes I pushed myself in the exact opposite direction as her, to make sure everyone knows that we were different. Even when I was doing things Lark never did my choices were influenced by her.

People used to come up to me at school and say, “You’re sister is an actual goddess!” And I would stare at them in confusion. Do I know you? Are you scared of talking to her yourself? Do you want me to deliver a love letter for you? I was defined by being a little sister and I defined myself as a little sister.

And then I left.

Now I’m the one that sings annoyingly all the time, even though when we made up the rule “No singing at the table”, it was because of Lark. I make references and jokes about bands and movies and people just stare at me, even though she would have laughed.

But more importantly than having no one understand my references, I don’t have someone to fall back on to define myself. ‘Hi, my name is Linden, I’m Lark’s sister,’ doesn’t work anymore. I can’t gauge whether or not I can handle something based off of whether Lark could do it or not.

It’s really scary. Lark wasn’t a perfect sister, she wasn’t even always a great sister. She didn’t make me chocolate chip cookies and  bring me spoons with cookie dough and she never wanted to do the Sisters Act from White Christmas with me. But she was always in the next room over, making faces at me across the dining room table, acting like a cat on the kitchen floor and eating my action figures on long car rides.

She was always my big sister. The one that could, and did, do anything.

When I interviewed for this program one of the first questions was, “Who is someone that inspires you?” Before I could think of anyone actually worthy of my answer — like Malala Yousafzai or Nelson Mandela or Lincoln — I knew who it would be. I didn’t have to think at all really. My sister. She’s helped me figure out who I am my entire life, guiding me in the right direction just by going that way herself.

Now I feel rudderless without her and I’m scared of the power that comes with having something that’s completely my own.

Most of all, I miss my sister like crazy. I didn’t expect to. I don’t know what to do about it, but I miss my sister.

 

God forbid my sister actually reads this, I might shoot myself with embarrassment.

 

Dancing with the Ambassador

On Wednesday, the other YES Abroad girls and I were invited to a concert at the American Ambassador’s house. We didn’t even know what sort of music the band would play but we got all dressed up after our Arabic class and soon enough we were handing our invitations to the security guards at the door.

Everyone was at least three times our age and wearing suits that my Salvation Army dress couldn’t hold a candle to, the epitome of diplomacy, refinement, and poise.

And then there were us, mingling with ambassadors and mixing with military chiefs. Our heels sunk into the grass. Our laughter untrained by years of diplomacy rang out across the lawn. Our elbows leaned against the standing tables. Our feet shifted restlessly in anticipation of the music. The waiters quickly learned to make a beeline for our table and we lightened their load of mini quiches and tiny lemon bars.

They turned out to be an American country rock band and they were tight! There was a grassy area in which an optimistic party planner had hoped dancing would take placem but the concert goers clung to their tables like life preservers.

The dance floor taunted us. After half an hour or so I couldn’t take it anymore. Pulling my friends along, I kicked off my heels and started to dance. We were the only ones but people were far too well-trained to stare. At the end of the song they clapped half-heartedly and we continued to dance.

Dance is a loose description of what we were doing. When I was little my sister tried to teach me how to lindy hop but even though the dance and I share the same first syllable I can’t boast much about my dancing skills. If I was being honest I’d say I can’t even clap to a 4:4.

But I’m tall, and I was in high demand as a partner for the other four girls. I would have been embarrassed by my lack of rhythm if I wasn’t already too busy not caring. Braden tried to get me to waltz. Ginya taught us how to jazz square. Kenzie can do a remarkable impression of all the dancers in A Charlie Brown Christmas. We spun and spun. My cheeks turned red. We kept spinning.

After a while, we took a break from dancing. We wandered through crowds of wine glasses and ties sipping expensive bubbly water. We kept talking about meeting new ambassadors. We’d already met a handful – the Afghani ambassador recognized us from a few months earlier! Then in a clearing in the crowd I saw the American Ambassador, Greta Holtz, talking to the Japanese Ambassador’s wife.

I barely consulted my friends as I approached where the two of them stood, far enough away from the dance floor to show disinterest. I asked her to dance.

And we danced. A circle formed. All five of us girls and the American ambassador. More people joined the circle. We kept dancing, and spinning, and clapping; our cheeks getting red and our bare feet sinking into the grass

 

My Courtyard

I’m writing this from my courtyard. The table was rocking back and forth every time I shifted so I put my geography textbook underneath one of the legs. Like most afternoons I’m sitting behind my house writing and doing my homework. I’ll probably sit here until the afternoon light fades into dusk.

Every villa in Oman has a courtyard, separating the public world and the private one. Tall walls and gates divide the street and the home. Courtyards are important because they allow women to step outside without covering, something they probably won’t do if they go past the gate. My favorite place in the whole house is the courtyard behind my bedroom.

My host mother has worked wonders with the amount of space she has. Most of the space has checkered tiles but there are a few dirt patches and each one harbors at least one plant. There’s a towering papaya tree, multiple lemon tress, bushes I can’t recognize, grape vines, and pea vines.

Most of Oman is yellow or white. The sand, the sun, and the houses make the city translucent. I haven’t found anywhere in Muscat that’s green like Western Mass. My courtyard is the exception. The light coming through the leaves and dancing on the tiles is dappled and unmistakably green.

The weather is perfect these days. Actually it’s very similar to the weather in New England; right now the days are about 20 degrees. Except in New England it’s 20 degrees Fahrenheit, not Celsius, sorry folks.

The most beautiful part of the courtyard is the pomegranate arbor. The pomegranates are just starting to ripen now and they hang down around your heads like ruby orbs. Hanging from one of the posts that make up the homemade arbor is a swing made out of two plastic giraffes. It moans a little when you sit on it, and it’s clearly made for some one a third my age but that doesn’t stop me.

I’m planning on soaking up and gloating about the gorgeous weather for a few more months because by May I wouldn’t even consider going outside. I would melt in the heat before I’d go more than a few steps.

This is from my bedroom window

 

Pomegranates!

The papaya tree

This is my house from the outside

 

 

Hi My Name is Linden and I Have Culture Shock

Before I began my year as an exchange student in Oman, I waded through dozens of webinars and conferences, spent hours reading books like A Guide to the Ideal Exchange, This could be you!, and other alarmingly peppy titles.

Most of these sources said the same thing, and what I learned was this:

1.  There is a graph to Culture Shock. Here’s a stereotypical one that I pulled off the Internet. A variation of it can be found in any eager grad student’s prezi.                                                                                                
2. If every single prezi/book has the same graph and says the same thing it has to be that every exchange student in that country has varied but similar experiences.
3. Oh no! There’s an initial period that looks rough, but, never fear. Just as there is a graph to culture shock, there’s a formula for fixing it. By my rough calculations it’s 53% being involved in cultural activities, 12% not spending too much time talking to people back home!, 16% being open about your feelings, and 19% limiting the amount of alone time you have.
4. If culture shock is really getting you down, it’s because you aren’t good enough at applying the algorithm to your life.

I’m sure that those eager grad student presenters also said things like “don’t blame yourself if it isn’t easy” and “each exchange student has a different experience. Don’t fret if culture shock is affecting you differently.” However I don’t remember them saying that.

Before I arrived in Oman, I associated culture shock with the weak-minded. I am a strong young woman. While I was sure it would be hard sometimes and that I would occasionally miss home, Culture Shock (capital C, capital S) wasn’t going a problem for me. It was only a problem for the unadaptable people, the ones without liberal, accepting minds. I’m smart, worldly for my age, adaptable, and non judgemental. For me, culture shock would be a breeze.

Culture shock seems like something you admit timidly at an AA meeting. If I got this culture shock sickness I would be one of the weak-minded, I would be weak.

I’ve been in the Middle East for almost three months now.

Hi, my name is Linden. I live in a foreign country, and yes, I have culture shock.

It hits me at random moments. Maybe eating with my hands or being asked to cover my head is fine. Then someone says something in a language I can’t understand, and I start shaking, my vision starts to blur around the edges. I have to to go to my room and I hold onto the frame of the mirror, gasping and reassuring myself that while the world around me is rocking I’m the same.

Already, I’ve learned that there is no way to fix culture shock. There is no algorithm. Believe it or not, one traditional dance minus two emails to your parents times three new dishes for dinner does not negate culture shock.

On the other hand, overcoming culture shock is a long slow process. Sometimes you need help to make it through the day. Taking a shower (cold water, because there is no hot) and sitting on the floor letting the water run over you might be the very best thing you can do yourself. And by the way, you’re not breaking any laws by eating chocolate and Skyping your friends.

Once a month the admins of my program ask me to place my culture shock level on a scale of one to ten. This month I said three but that’s ridiculous, you can’t pin your culture shock. It fluctuates depending on the most random things. And that’s okay!

Everyone’s experience is unique. It’s okay that my exchange student friends don’t feel exactly the same way. It’s okay that at least once a day I wish I was home. It’s okay that I miss my town or that I wish Oman was more like America.

But most of all, it’s okay that I have culture shock.

We Are Weird clones- or maybe thats what friendship is like

On Thursday all of the YES girls went to dinner at the home of a local American family. We YESers spend a lot of time together but normally its just the 5 of us. It was only this past Thursday that  I discovered the effect of all of us being in the same room from an outsiders perspective. It’s a little overpowering.

I was talking to the mother of the family about this rowing tournament I was at. The boats were neck and neck when I noticed one of the charms on my necklace had fallen off. I pushed it from my mind and went to take another stroke – and that’s when I remembered…

I don’t row. This wasn’t my story. It was Karla’s.

Across the room Ginya was talking about Model UN with the father. “My mother-

“-is the administrator of Model UN at her school.” I already knew how she would finish that sentence.

We know each other’s lives forward and backward. I get confused about whose stories are whose. Are you telling me that I didn’t actually live in Cyprus when I was seven? That was Ginya? Oh.

Kenzie need only laugh quietly and I know immediately that she has no idea what people are saying. I can tell when Braden is fed up with a conversation from across the room.

Being on exchange, especially in a place like Oman, can be hard. The other girls are my lifelines. They deal with all my crazy/dumb stories about towns that guerilla knit and deliver milk to your front door. Some days they’re the only people I talk to.

I know a lot of trivial facts about the band kids in Texas. I wasn’t planning on thinking about college for a few more years but am discussing the pros and cons of Swarthmore with Karla daily. I can’t say these are things I wanted to know about, or care to discuss, but I don’t regret it for a second. I think it’s a pretty fair trade.

On the way home from Arabic we all pile into the same car and turn on Ginya’s portable speakers (a.k.a.the best packing decision ever). At this point we don’t need to talk, we can just lean against each other and listen to her music and each other’s breathing. And for us, that is enough.

Volunteering

This Monday the YES abroad girls and I skipped school and volunteered at the Omani Centre for Children with Disabilities. It’s the first clinic of this kind in Oman. It’s aimed at children from the ages of 0-6 and it’s completely free.

Before I went, I was nervous. We’d only heard good things about the clinic but the stigma around disabilities in Oman is very real. Or more specifically, disabilities are treated like they don’t exist at all. People don’t talk about disabilities. What if this clinic was a facilitator of that attitude towards disabilities? What if it was just a place to dump your kids when you get tired of them?

And what if I couldn’t keep my cool? I’ve babysat before. But I knew the kids. They spoke English!

We got a quick tour of the building. Finger-painted walls and tables that my knees certainly couldn’t fit under were explained with a gesture. All too fast we were being split up, one to a classroom. We exchanged panicked looks before parting ways and all of a sudden I was being ushered into a little playroom with five kids and two women.

They stared at the intruder inquisitively. I smiled awkwardly and sat down in a very small chair, my knees drawn up to my chin. I laughed nervously. Silence. And then a little boy brought a puzzle up to me. I took it and helped him put in the pieces. The spell broke. The women volunteers continued to chat in Arabic and the children continued to play.

It took maybe three minutes for the kids to forget that I was an outsider. They didn’t notice that I was white or that I wasn’t speaking the same language as the other grown ups in the room. The only thing they paid attention to was that I had the potential to be a fellow Lego engineer.

I spent three hours with the kids. Most of the time was used exploring the mysteries hidden in my scarf. Is it a tent? A lasso? A mask, or a basket? We made pillow forts and did puzzles just like I would with my babysitting clientele, only pausing occasionally to reattach a pesky hearing aid that kept falling out.

The kids were bright eyed and playful and not frightened of me at all. For me, meeting new people here can be scary. There’s the constant threat that I might accidentally insult their culture, nation, language, family, and so on, without even meaning to do so. I should take a leaf from the childrens’ book. They were fearless.