Comments on: Les Arabes

By: Bev P

Bev P — Tue, 22 May 2007 08:15:01 +0000

Two things: how is it that writing somebody else’s essays, for which they will get the credit, is seen as a good thing? In my neck of the academic woods, we would call it gross dishonesty, complicity in plagiarism, and both would fail.

Twenty five years and more ago, there was at the primary school my kids attended, a mom who was referred to by some of the “right sort” of moms as “Stinky Sylvia”. Aesthetically, that was a pretty true statement, and Sylvia had a rough time trying – and she tried hard – at all the school events, she worked her socks off for the school, bringing and preparing food that no one would touch, she knitted baby garments to give to other people’s infants, which I’m sure they discarded because they couldn’t be bothered to give them a good wash before they used them. And one day I got the clear impression, “Tell Sylvia about the gospel”. Inside I shrieked, “No! I’m working with a perfectly good young couple who will be a real asset to the ward!” And I didn’t do it. The young couple didn’t join the church either.

One day the missionaries came to dinner and told me they had found Sylvia, on the tenth anniversary of her baptism. I became her visiting teacher and to some extent her champion, but she never came to church, and never let us in until she’d been hit by a car and needed some help in the house for a little while. We learned about her past, how she had never seen a clean, tidy family grow up, so didn’t know how to do it herself, we tried to teach her a bit about hygiene, but mostly Sylvia taught us about being kind to other people, and having kids who know how to love.

By: Lupita

Lupita — Mon, 21 May 2007 02:49:16 +0000

Thanks for the post, Ardis. Although I served on another continent, sounds like housing projects are universally dismal. I’m glad you picked him up.
“The big things that were the hardest about my mission are tending to recede”—I would be very interested in any specific examples that you would be willing to share. I still struggle with this, although definitely not as much as I used to.

By: Terina

Terina — Sun, 20 May 2007 04:42:24 +0000

while i was reading your post, i felt like i was there with you going up the stairs of the stinky HLM’s. i served in the, now split, Bordeaux Mission. most of my time was spent porting in HLM’s. i remember les enfants des arabes aussi. most of them would just yell out things like “what time is it?” or “what is your name”. of course we screamed american. while my bike was locked up outside of a zup (or zoop, i never knew how to spell that word) someone put a knife through my tire. in Pau, we lived around the corner from the worst area of the city. while i was in Pau something happened between the US government and somewhere in the middle east, and we were told to be extra carefull, and not to be out at night. a bit scarey. thanks for your story.
i know that when we as missionaires tried to find ways to relate to our amis, things became more open, and we were able to share more about the gospel. sometimes just listening to them talk about their struggles was enough. we weren’t just Les Americans, we were people.

By: DKL

DKL — Sun, 20 May 2007 01:09:14 +0000

Great post. I’ve had something vaguely similar happen to me with the family across the street.

In my experience, it takes longer for me to make friends with black people than with other white people — there seems to be an increased distance or formality that takes extra time to break through. I don’t know whether it’s me or them or both, it’s just what I’ve experienced. A black family rented half of the two family home across the street. We said, “Hi,” when we’d pass each other coming and going, and for years we’d occasionally make small talk. But it was always fairly distant and a little strained.

So I was mowing the lawn one day, and the wife from across the street came out and asked me if they might barrow our lawn mower because theirs had broken. Since we both have small lawns — it takes me only about 20 minutes to mow our lawn an their lawn was smaller than ours. I was already dirty and sweaty, so I just went ahead and mowed their lawn. We never became close friends. We were only ever just neighbors. But after that, that distance and the strain that I’d sensed before evaporated.

And when I was just dating my wife, her sisters quite antagonistic towards me (as readers here may well imagine). She asked me to help one of her sisters with a paper that she was working on. I was bored enough at BYU that I wrote a lot of other students’ papers to keep busy, usually 8 to 10 per semester. So I took this invitation to help her to be an invitation to write her paper, though all she’d really needed was my fingers, because I’m a very fast typer. So I met her in the computer lab, and she had all of her research xeroxed there. I started typing, while she shuffled through her research telling me what she wanted typed. After an hour, she mentioned that she had a few classes to go to, and I insisted that she go. When she returned a few hours later, I’d finished the paper. It’s not like I had anything better to do. This dissolved the hostility I’d sensed from her, though I doubt it made her any more enthusiastic about the prospect of having me in her family.

But now that I’ve thought of these, there’s several other times I can think of when doing something small for someone else has made tension or distance or hostility or mistrust vanish.

By: John Williams

John Williams — Sat, 19 May 2007 20:52:11 +0000

Now that I think of it, the average Wal-Mart here in the United States is quite odorless.

By: John Williams

John Williams — Sat, 19 May 2007 20:50:29 +0000

Oh, and also the Metro subways in Paris smelled strongly as well, but it was sort of charming in a perverse way.

By: John Williams

John Williams — Sat, 19 May 2007 20:48:14 +0000

The smell of non-American humans was strong in Charles de Gaulle airport on the day that I arrived in France.

Don’t forget the ripe aroma of cheese shops that hits you like a ton of bricks as you walk by.
Despite this smell, I love French cheese.

By: Ardis Parshall

Ardis Parshall — Sat, 19 May 2007 19:27:45 +0000

Wow, Deb, that’s a tough one. I could spot an American from a block away, regardless of dress or touristy clues, simply by the way he walked. Americans tend to carry themselves differently, not quite a strut but a “we lords of creation have no fear” confidence. I also wonder about the wisdom of assuming a false nationality; if that matters to someone, it’s too easily exposed, and the lie woul be the catalyst for the trouble they wanted to avoid.

Kevin, that’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said!

Norbert, sometimes it’s the littlest things that have the most lasting impact, isn’t it? The big things that were the hardest about my mission are tending to recede, finally, and I’m starting to recognize the moments that really mattered.

Ah, John, yes, the aromas of France! Pastry shops, butchers, open air vegetable markets, people untainted by Madison Avenue, garlic, apartment house stairwells, seacoasts, flower stands, barrels of roasting chestnuts on the winter streets, fish markets, sidewalk cafes … I’m so used to sanitized and standardized and imitation scents at home that my nose seemed to come alive for the first time in France.

By: John Williams

John Williams — Sat, 19 May 2007 18:59:29 +0000

Deb, please tell us where you son is serving.

By: Deb

Deb — Sat, 19 May 2007 18:52:39 +0000

The fear of “les Arabes” –those who are Not Like Us– goes on, around the world. Mistrust is just part of it.

Our boy is a missionary in Europe, doesn’t matter where, really, and we spoke to him last Sunday.
He said his area has way less crime than his previous area did, where getting robbed, spit on, bottles thrown at him, etc, was near daily. “But, Mom, I gotta tell you, some people here are hair-trigger politically, ready to riot over any little difference, or nothing at all. Sometimes it just isn’t safe to be American. Pres said we are to take a false nationality, because we are no good to anybody if we get beat up by anti -American hotheads. So, I’m now from South Africa, and my Californian comp is Canadian, depending on who we’re talking to.”

It’s a little odd, having a son from South Africa, having never been there…but I’m in favor of whatever keeps him safe.