Cultural farts

A missionary who spoke at our church in Kansas City just before we left talked about having "cultural farts."

"A cultural fart is awkward and uncomfortable, but shortly it will pass," she said, explaining that reminding oneself of this funny phrase is a way to cope with annoying, abrasive or awkward situations that inevitably occur when you're integrating into a brand new culture.

I had a cultural fart today.

While interviewing a ministry leader in the Republic of Ireland, I was momentarily confused when the man said that the new young people working for the district were getting involved in three "tines."

In the U.S., sometimes we talk about how a project is two-pronged or three-pronged, meaning it has two or three or more connected but distinct emphases, objectives or whatever. I thought maybe he was using instead the word "tines" such as the tines of a fork, instead of prongs. I asked him, "What are these tines?"

"Bray, Gorey and Roundwood," he said.

Further confused, because Roundwood kind of sounds like Torchwood, which is an anti-alien program, and the other two words were meaningless for me, I persisted, "What does Bray, Gorey and Roundwood mean?"

"They're tines," he repeated.

"What?" I asked again.

"Tines, tines," he said. "I'm sorry, I have a headcold, so I know it's hard to understand. They're tines. T-O-W-N-S."

If we'd been face-to-face instead of on the phone, I'd have wanted to crawl under my chair. It was so embarrassing.

It's somehow more excusable or expected that an American will have difficulty understanding people in another culture when English isn't their first language, or when you're learning their language. It's a lot harder to justify when you don't understand another native English speaker.

Some drama

An air raid siren in the middle of the night in Germany is not the kind of sound you want to wake up to.

Last night, A. and I were startled awake by the wailing that we would normally associate with a blitzkrieg or a tornado. Aside from the fact that I did see and photograph a funnel cloud over Busingen two weeks ago (see right), we know that tornadoes are extremely uncommon in Europe, and a blitzkrieg is only likely if a squadron of Nazi or Allied planes suddenly exited a wormhole from 1944 over the Rhine.

In this region, air raid sirens are now used to call the fire brigade out of their beds to the scene of a fire.

It was 2:30 a.m. last night when the sirens went off and we bolted out of bed and opened our blinds. About half the town's fire brigade is made up of members of our offices. Between the buildings and trees we saw headlights and movement, and we knew our colleagues were scrambling to the fire station. About 30 minutes later, the campus manager flipped on the campus lights and went to all the doors to ensure they were locked.

We tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't. I was finally starting to drift off when the sirens went off again at 4:30 a.m. Shortly after we saw more cars and then heard police sirens shrieking up and down the streets. That indicated fire No. 2.

I put in my earplugs and A. went out to the couch to read. I drifted off about 5 and he fell asleep about 6. I had nightmares for the next few hours. It was basically a sleepless night.

Today we learned that at 2:30, arsonists set a trailer ablaze in our village. After that, they burned four or five cars in the next town over and also set an apartment building basement on fire. Twelve people were sent to the hospital with smoke poisoning and more people are unable to return to their apartments. They came back to our village around 4:30 and ignited a garage (attached to a home) and destroyed the BMW inside.

Just two weeks ago, while I was in Ohio, at 2:30 a.m. (the same time as last night) arsonists destroyed a brand new public school gymnasium a few streets away. It sustained half a million euros in damage. This is the gym where our students played soccer on Friday afternoons.

That same night, several hours earlier, some teenagers were ringing our apartment buzzers and then running away. A. waited for them in the dark foyer entry area and when they came back, he burst out of the doorway and scared them. They ran off.

That week someone burned up three boats on the river and more cars in one town over.

According to a local news Web site, people are frightened and the police are baffled, unable to get any evidence or name any suspects. There have been rewards posted.

I felt more safe when I thought that the arsonists were just targeting empty buildings. Even then, I was worried about our office buildings, especially mine, which is just made of wood and drywall and where the server is located that has backed up all our files and information for the work we do on the region and on my magazine.

Last night's attacks on inhabited buildings and homes definitely raises this to a whole new level. When this all started a few months after we got here, I personally felt that people weren't taking all the vandalism, theft and harassment seriously enough. I think they finally began taking it seriously when the public school gym burned down.

Here's a news clip about the gymnasium that was destroyed. It's in German but you can see the damage. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpnNEdNreKI

We have a lot of visitors on campus, and frequently they'll comment to us that we're living in "paradise."

Not so much.

Two new things

This Saturday, I'll be on a live Skype chat with children on the Missouri District, talking about being a missionary. The children will get to ask me questions about what it's like where I live and what I do. I've been warned that they may mostly ask me about the animals where I live. :-)

Later in October, I've agreed to substitute teach an English class that the church offers free to people in the community, and a small group of women attend regularly to improve their English. I'm told that a number of the women are people I run into around our village regularly, such as the woman who runs the post office, one who owns a small grocery store, and a couple other ladies who live near my office and whom I greet on the sidewalk.

I'm excited to talk to them at greater length in this setting, since passing on the street or meeting in a busy store aren't always conducive to getting to know each other. I'm thinking about continuing in the class as an assistant after October is over and the regular ESL teacher returns. But we'll see how it goes after next month.

A rainy day

Saturday was a cold, windy, rainy day in Busingen. I rather liked it. I had nowhere to be (except a quick run to the grocery) and nothing I had to do (except a ton of work, but I am trying to limit doing work to actual work days and work hours for a while). So after sleeping in and eating a late breakfast, getting the groceries for the next few days, I settled on the couch with a cup of hot chocolate and some online manga reading. It was nice to hear the rain outside alternate between sprinkling and pounding while our cozy apartment was illuminated with warmly glowing tea lights and a newly acquired pumpkin spice candle from the United States.

Dad

My dad is on his sabbatical, which he'd already planned before we knew we were moving to Switzerland. He spent a few weeks touring sites relevant to the life of John Wesley in England, then to the Martin Luther trail in Germany, passing through our village last weekend on his way down through Switzerland to see the Alps and other Reformation and Zwingli sites.

Last weekend A. and I joined him to see Zurich. It's only 45 minutes away by car or train, but we rarely go because it's expensive to get there and expensive to do anything there ($20 for a movie ticket, $25 for a single plate of food). We just strolled around photographing things, toured the Grosse Munster church, had lunch at McDonald's and then took a short train ride up a nearby hillside to look down over the city and Lake Zurich at sunset. Standing on that hill, it was an amazing experience to hear the entire city begin to reverberate with what sounded like hundreds of church bells at 7 p.m.

Sunday, we took a quick afternoon drive to Appenzell, the traditional heart of Switzerland, and strolled around the village snapping photos of the painted window shutter and building designs unique to that area, trying a locally made pastry (Biber) with coffee and trying not to gag at the strong smell of pungent cheese wafting out the doors of several cheese shops.

Tomorrow night we take the train to join Dad in Geneva to see more Reformation sites associated with John Calvin, then on to see Chateau de Chillon on the tip of Lake Geneva. From there we'll drive over to the Matterhorn for a couple of days and then back home. At that point I'll meet up with a friend who's coming over for a week and the two of us will make our way through the heart of Switzerland again.

It's going to be a great weekend and week!