Culture shock is difficult to understand both in theory and in the flesh. I would like to have believed before coming to Albania that I was somehow “above” culture shock, that the experiencing of it was the result of a lack of will. More accurately, I would now say, my belief in my own will shielded me from acknowledging that I was experiencing culture shock to begin with. A man in love can overlook his lover’s infidelity if he will’s for her to be his and his alone, but that won’t keep her from growing large with another man’s child. My humanness has been the central teaching point for God on this journey.
I am familiar with the people here, but I am not one of them. At times I can be convincing enough for a stranger to second guess their intuition at my foreign birth, but that disguise is less than paper thin. I speak a bit of the native language, but not enough to converse satisfactorily. I recognize small talk for what it is now, and I never liked small talk. I long to get into a person’s heart, to hear their story, to walk with them in their victory and the pain that came afterward. My frustration at my own shortcomings bleeds onto the marble floor of my patience making the surface sickly slick and treacherous. So often I simply want to wear earplugs or put in my headphones and listen to Tycho or Com Truise.
But getting lost in silence or a mind-silencing beat is not what I was sent here to do. I was sent here to be available for the needs of the people of God, the children of God, right down to the very light in my eyes. How easy does my smile come, how directly do I move to greet a stranger, how quickly do I sit beside a crippled beggar? I am not where I would want to be in my mind, and I am not yet as God would have me be. I am not free.
Today I was certain that I had split the crown of my head open on the branch of an olive tree. I’m certain the man passing me on the sidewalk heard the impact as our eyes met shortly after and I gave him a quizzical smile. He smiled back, knowing what it is to be the source of your own unconsciousness. Continuing to walk I could feel the blood of my torn scalp as it radiated and spread through my hair. When I finally reached my hand up to feel how deep the gouge was, I found that the skin had not broken. I must have been imagining the wetness of blood. The beginnings of a scab are forming their now and the ridge where my parietals fused behind the sagittal suture is raised. Why would the trees over the sidewalks be trimmed to a height where people weren’t like to brain themselves?
albaniacalling 