Parachuting into Another Community

Sacrifices

I got a life (a job) so I quit blogging. Full disclaimer: I’ve had a part time job in a town nearby for a few months, but it hasn’t interfered with my blogging. Only recently, however, I got asked to work full time with another family for a few weeks in another town almost 100 kilometres away from my home, and that’s cramped my (blogging) style and perhaps affected other areas of my life as well. My floors are dirty. I’ve cooked only halfheartedly and we’ve been eating a lot of repetitious leftovers (and even serving them to company. I know my mother and mil are probably horrified.) And our yard really needs a spring cleanup.  On the other hand, some things haven’t changed: My neighbour girls still spend hours here, for one thing, and, as I told one friend, I don’t think I’ve cooked for just BTT and I for month: it seems like there’s always someone here: brothers, more brothers, sisters!, parents!, the neighbour girlies a few evenings a week, a nephew....... 

Payback 

So I’ve established that there have been sacrifices or compromises with my lifestyle. But the payback has been worth the sacrifice, and I don’t mean in actual money. I have become a small part of helping to keep children with the family they already know instead of going into different foster homes or group homes. I’ve witnessed firsthand the devastating effects that being shuffled from foster home to foster home or group home to group home has on children. Although I had no idea what my job as a support worker would entail or where it would take me when I first started it, it’s giving me a chance to do something that, while not glamorous, is allowing me to be part of a process I care deeply about: keeping children with the families, biological, adoptive, or foster, who have loved, cared for and bonded with these children. And there’s another reward. In my most recent assignment I have been able to get to know some brother-in-law  A’s bio family, which is such an honour and a delight. I’ve seen the sparkle in his eyes in the eyes of his little brother and witnessed some of his personality traits coming out in siblings, aunties, and cousins.  It’s just so cool. 

Skydiving, Differences and Similarities 

I parachuted, figuratively, of course, into a community with completely different values and lifestyle than my community. Or so I thought. Others thoughts so too. One woman even said those exact words, point blank, to my face. I had a hard time taking that as a compliment at first because in my heart I just want to be seen as the same as every other Canadian. The whole job, distance to work, crowd of new faces, suddenly being part of a different family and community and trying to learn their lifestyle and routines etc. was a little intimating and intense at first, thus the skydiving metaphor.

I think I’ve gotten over that, and my time spent in this city community has reinforced something I should’ve, or maybe did, already know: most people aren’t so different than me. Their lifestyle choices might be different from mine. Their clothes definitely won’t look like my clothes. Except for our lawyer the other day, who was wearing a black headscarf. Matching ! Their family might have vastly different careers than my family (ballet vs yard care.) There’s lots of differences when you’re looking for differences.

Despite the differences, many people hold similar core values to mine.  Parents and guardians are mostly just trying to raise happy, healthy children. Many have different methods of teaching and loving their children than I idealize, but those methods can also yield happiness and security, and even though their ways of showing it aren’t my ways, parents from every walk of life love their children deeply. School teachers in public schools also love their students as much as I, as a teacher in an independent school, loved mine, and they are going the second mile and sometimes even the third, fourth, and fifth mile to make sure their students succeed. Some of them feel the same guilt I often felt as a teacher when they fail a student in need or miss a day of teaching and witness the fallout in their students as a result of their absence. There are others communities besides mine where grandparents, friends, and community members rally around each other in support in times of need.  There are homes in other communities whose doors are open to anyone who needs a place to go. These families make me aware of how selfish I am even when I’m feeling generous. (The school teacher in me thinks I should take out that last sentence because it’s veering slightly off-topic. I just came up with a solution: I’ll create another paragraph.)

And then there’s the things I can learn from this community. These families make me aware of how selfish I am even when I’m feeling generous. No one has made me feel unwelcome because I am just another government employee or because I wear a dress and a head covering. People treated me with respect and have been very friendly, which is not something I can say with certainty I would do if the tables were turned. This community seems to celebrate a laidback sense of time, where the priorities are politeness, taking time to talk to people and dealing with things as they happen, all of which aren’t natural for me due to my stoic German Mennonite ancestry.

And then there’s the children. There’s always the children. I didn’t even begin on them. That might be a story for another day. Or maybe I’ll post a recipe for steak with green enchilada sauce like my mom suggested.