In high school, I was tired of being around teenagers (this is a whole story unto itself, and I was mostly unaware I was just as teen and angsty as the next). I knew I wanted to see the world. There were people out there somewhere that I needed to meet. I was ready to fly the coop. As soon as I was old enough, I applied to study abroad.
This landed me in Uruguay in a town on the border with the southernmost tip of Brazil.
I spoke no Spanish, no Portuguese, and I stuck out like a tall, rigid pine tree among a bunch of tan, tropical succulents. The flight to get there alone was a nightmare, my first ever, beginning with a delayed flight in St. Louis and ending some 36 hours later in the apartment of a single guy who’d volunteered to drive me to the bus station. I was deliriously tired and he let me sleep in his bed while he went to an all night party.
Obviously, it was kind of shady, not something to report back home unless you want your dad to make an end of your world traveling adventures. Luckily, Santiago (was that his name? To this day I’m afraid to crack open that diary entry) did not kidnap me. In the morning when he’d returned from his fun, he drove me to the bus station, bought me a plate of chivito and steak fries and sent me on my merry way.
I spent all of my days in Uruguay trying to not stick out. I focused on learning Spanish, keeping my head down, and staying away from boys and Mormons (“They’ll find you when you’re lonely,”–classic dad advice). I was indeed homesick, but my eyes kept peeking out at the view around me.
It was incredible to behold.
Everything was unlike anything I’d ever experienced, and I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
My host family had two maids, one for cleaning, one for cooking. They were constantly bustling around, Gilda frying chicken milanesa and assembling the ensalada russa, and Zulma collecting and washing piles of laundry.
My American mind was spinning. Is it okay for me to let someone else do all of the work?
My clothes would return to my room, steamed, ironed, and placed neatly on my pillow. Gilda and Zulma fussed if I even approached the kitchen.
In the morning, there was toast and cafe for breakfast. I worried. Was this a sufficient meal? Shouldn’t there be an egg somewhere?
My host parents were two busy professionals, one a dentist, the other a lawyer. They encouraged me to party all night long every Saturday night. Would I upset them if they realized what a true stick in the mud I am?
Should I really be walking out on the street after dark?
How will I pass these classes if I can’t speak Spanish? Will my grades transfer?
My darling, petite host mother immediately took me shopping for party clothes. She was ecstatic to dress me up like an exotic barbie doll, and she proudly marched me into an expensive clothing store. We were equally mortified to find there were no clothes that would fit me unless I wanted to look like a lady of the night. But it was apparent Martha had no plan to leave the store until her barbie had clothes. She finally settled on a pair of very ill-fitting lavender slacks–the largest in stock, a size four that translated to a size ten in my world (with a crease up the legs) and a sparkly, itchy blue top, cut at midriff.
I didn’t know whether to feel embarrassed or liberated, I was so stunned as she paid for the clothes. But I donned them for her, for the first party of many, because what else was I to do?
All the rules of modesty seemed so shallow in light of this culture where parties began at 10am and rocked until the wee hours of the morning. If I didn’t go to the parties and wear the clothes, I was basically an ungrateful snob, and that was even further from my M.O. to blend in, no matter what.
I decided, for lack of a better option, to wear the purple pants and sequined halter top. Off we went to the birthday bash, held in a fancy restaurant-theater. This was met with positive remarks and encouraging looks from the locals, even though I felt remarkably insecure. We entered the venue, dark except for a flashing disco ball, and friendly strangers (all significantly shorter and tanner than me) kissed me on the cheek with chatty welcoming words I couldn’t yet understand. I was enamored yet uncomfortable. It was thrilling and terrifying at the same time.
I stood around, awkwardly swaying to the cumbia music, perplexed at life on every level.
Repeat the scenario every weekend for the next six months. I’d come a long way from the days back in America when I was too prudent and prim to even consider going to the prom.
I’m not saying this is something the Apostle Paul would have done, but I think he might have approved, sort of. The best way to understand a culture is unabated immersion. Diving in, accepting all the oddities in their queer form. Not trying to sort it out as good or bad, right or wrong, but saving the moments of intense retrospection for after the experience.
I didn’t drink, and I remained chaste–and this was no easy feat at the age of seventeen when I was on my own in a foreign country (kudos to my parents again for raising me to follow rules or suffer temporary and eternal consequences). When I initially tried to make a study of Uruguay based on first impressions, my conservative upbringing raised a hundred red flags. I was hopelessly out of place and couldn’t fake my way around. I couldn’t even understand the language for the first month.
But after a few weeks of waking up, drinking instant coffee with boxed milk and settling into the routine of the house, it became clear. There was nowhere to go, nothing to do but dig in my heels. Try to enjoy yourself; have fun–the final words of advice offered by my dad before I boarded the plane.
The Holy Spirit–I cannot name what else it could have been–began to train my eyes and heart to open up to the differences around me. I did have fun. I got lost too many times to count.
It was sinking in, this idea that culture itself isn’t wrong. It’s one of God’s creative flairs. When He was designing this world and placing people in their places, handing out languages and mannerisms, he was thinking this is going to blow their minds.
To God, cultural differences simply point to his glory, that it cannot be contained or whittled. We can’t understand or pick apart the fabric because it is beyond the scope of our imagination. He is limitless and beautiful, and creation sings a million versions of the same song.
Of course, we humans know how to screw up a good thing, and no culture is without the stain of sin. We have to be alert–perhaps especially the naive highschool exchange student. But from one stranger to another, isn’t a kindness to approach people with an open mind? That we lean in first, rather than just waiting and hoping they catch our drift? We have to make the first step, we have to step out of our comfort zone to enter theirs. How will we ever know them if we don’t learn their language, their coffee, their love of accordian-filled cumbia?
The Lord can work out the details, down to the party clothes.
