Well, we’ve been here for a bit over a year now and it’s been interesting. After reading the article in the April Watchtower (study edition) about serving in Mexico, it got me thinking about the realities and blessings of serving in another country so I figured I would share some of our experiences and observations.
On page 5 of the article, it quoted a sister who had moved to serve in Mexico as saying that some of her friends who pursued a “normal life” ended up “frustrated with the problems they faced as they got more and more involved in this world’s affairs.” And that was one of the motivating factors for us to come here – Brendan had just had a similar experience with his work, and he concluded that it made more sense to use his time and energy in doing spiritual things and serving Jehovah and the brothers more fully.
And being somewhere like Ecuador means we can do that. Life is somewhat simpler here. Because the cost of living is less than in Australia it means that by living frugally, instead of needing to spend large amounts of our time and energy working to support a house and a car and possessions and a lifestyle in Australia, we can spend the time in the preaching work and with the brothers and sisters. Which, ultimately, is much more satisfying.
Getting about, Ecuador-style
But it still needs planning and being realistic about the whole thing. In the article, some chose to go to isolated rural areas and to learn indigenous languages, while others chose to go to an English speaking congregation. Those who plan to go to an area where there is a greater need for preachers naturally want to be useful, and we have found that there are all different kinds of “useful”. And the human factor is in there too – not all of us want to go and rough it in the jungle for an extended period of time!
One sister who was visiting here with her family for a few months said that when she was younger she would have been excited to go preach in the jungle, but now she is in her 40’s she’s happy to be somewhere where she can get decent coffee and a good night’s sleep.
A sister who stayed with us for a few weeks who serves in an English-speaking congregation in Mexico has as a motto “serve where you have joy”, which I thoroughly agree with. You might want to go where there is the greatest need, but if you can’t handle the language, culture, climate, isolation etc, you won’t last. Whereas if you can find somewhere you can be useful and happy at the same time, then that’s a winning combination.
This is a little cafe in the old part of town. One of the Ecuadorian sisters in our congregation works there. Many of the old buildings are like this - lovely courtyards on the inside. You wouldn’t know it from the street.
Some who choose to come to Cuenca go straight to a Spanish-speaking congregation even if they have little or no Spanish. One young sister said that she chose to do that as she needs the challenge to motivate her. Others who have done that have found it’s just too hard for them that way, and have come over to the English congregation for either a short or a long time. It’s probably especially difficult for ones who come on their own without a spouse, friend or family, and without much language and choose to go straight into a foreign-language field, as the isolation is more extreme for them – how do you communicate if you can’t speak the language? How do you ask about the culture or ask for help? How do you have conversations, companionship, make friends, etc?
Some choose to start off in the English congregation and as they acquire more Spanish, go over to a Spanish-language congregation. I guess the trick is to be realistic about what you need to do personally – not necessarily what someone else says or does.
As to learning the language; obviously the more language you have when you come, the easier it will be. We found, here in Cuenca, that you can get by more or less as you pick up the language. We found that the first words we picked up were names of food (essential for shopping and eating) and words that would help us to procure such, as well as the names of different types of shops and businesses that we saw continually from the bus.
And this wheelbarrow was “just right”
One thing that is difficult and frustrating when you don’t speak the native language is that in many ways you lose your independence, because you can’t communicate freely. Simple things that you take for granted in your home country, such as making a phone call to organise something (for example, a taxi, doctor’s appointment etc) become a big deal. And you either put off doing it, or have to ask long-suffering friends in the congregation who speak better Spanish than you, to help you out.
For instance, we both need to get new glasses. Now something as important as that, we don’t want to take pot luck on, so we plan to take a long-suffering friend who speaks good Spanish with us, but our long-suffering friends also have their own lives to lead, and their own appointments to attend to, and we don’t want to wear out our welcome.
Straightforward things are not too hard to organise, as we look on Google translate and work out which words we need (such as when shopping for furniture – we learned the words for bed, mattress, table, etc) and by pointing and writing down prices etc you get by. And there’s a fair amount of hoping for the best as well. And there are a few Ecuadorians who speak varying amounts of English, so mostly it works out somehow or other.
We’ve found that we can work out in advance what questions we need to ask, and we hope to just get a Yes or a No answer and no other chit-chat, because anything other than that, that’s when we start to have problems. Coz the people you talk to don’t know that other than the words you have studied that morning before you came into their shop, you don’t know anything, and so when you ask them the question or two that you have worked out ahead of time, they go ahead and give you the answers, generally at a fast and incomprehensible rate.
Toasted sandwich, anyone? Funny – it tastes rather like a straw hat!!
It can be difficult not to get discouraged about learning the language, especially when others come along who’ve been here less time than us and who either have better language skills (many from the U.S. have frequent exposure to the language and many speak varying degrees of Spanish) or seem to pick it up more quickly. But we’ve come to realise that everybody learns differently and at different speeds, and you just have to do your own thing and now and then remind yourself of how you have progressed and how much more we understand than when we first arrived here. Also with language, there are so many different learning methods that it can take a while to sort out which way is going to suit you personally.
But as long as we continue making some progress, then that’s good. We are happy that we are progressing.
This is our little street (our house is on the right and behind the camera). This illustrates a rather handy way of solving two problems at once. Problem 1: nobody cuts or mows the grass in our little street. On the paved streets, city workers come through regularly and cut the grass outside the front fences with brush cutters (lawn mowers are very rare here), but it would seem that for some reason we continually miss out on the grass cutting. Problem 2: hungry beasties. Solution? Park the hungry beasties where there is long grass, tie their ropes to the electricity poles, come back later, and both problems are solved at once!
Before we left Australia, we were talking about writing a blog once we got here, and one sister said that we should write about the bad times as well as the good times. Well, I haven’t really done that so far, but now I shall write about some of the difficult things.
Firstly, Brendan has had less difficulty coping than I have. I know, because I specifically asked him when thinking about writing about this subject.
Sometimes different ones of the brothers and sisters will ask one another, “Do you ever get homesick?” Apart from not being quite sure exactly what that entails, I would have to say that it can indeed be difficult living in an unfamiliar culture with an unfamiliar language.
I know when we were first here, I would look at the houses, the people, the shops, the buses, etc and it was all exciting and interesting and like being on holiday. But when you’ve been here for a while, it’s more like, “I live here now – and it’s all different and unfamiliar”. There are times you don’t want exciting and interesting or different and unfamiliar, you just want familiar and predictable and not having to think about it all too much. Like knowing how to go about doing all the usual things you did back home and knowing the procedures and where to go for this or that and being able to communicate like a grown up rather than a 2-year old.
Also, living in a city is not my favourite thing – I didn’t like cities when we were in Australia and I still don’t. I miss having a garden and I miss having grass and trees around me. There is a lot of concrete in Cuenca, but at least with Cuenca being in a valley, you can often see the hills and trees surrounding it, and that helps.
This is our front “garden”. Two little lemon trees and some flowers in the ground, and some rather sad planter boxes on the window sills. They are not very happy there.
Oh no, some weeds! Well, that should take me all of 2 minutes to tidy that up!
Our little backyard.
We have thought about whether we’ll stay in Cuenca long term or whether we may go to the country at some stage in the future. There are various factors that come into it, the first being that until our Spanish is good enough that we feel we can cope with a minimum of outside help; we figure it makes sense to stay put here. And also in Ecuador, the further you go out into the country away from cities, the facilities, services and standards of living decrease, so we would have to investigate that fully, too. Country towns here, and what they offer, are not like country towns in Australia which are basically a smaller version of cities, and have the usual supermarkets, doctors, etc. And the public transport in country areas is less reliable, scarce or non-existent, too, which matters when you don’t have a car. So we’ll keep our options open in that respect and see what happens.
Chicken, anyone?
Some people have said, “Why go to a foreign country and serve in an English-speaking congregation?” Especially if all the “action” is in the foreign field, rather than the English-speaking. Well, wherever you go everyone deserves a witness, especially in their native language if at all possible. Currently in Cuenca there are about four thousand native-English-speakers, and apparently the mayor of Cuenca was quoted as saying that within the next 5 years there could be up to 50,000 English-speakers move into the city, so it’s a continually growing territory and there is a need for these ones to be reached, just as much as the Spanish-speakers.
Interestingly, the supermarket where we shop (frequented mostly by Ecuadorians and some foreigners) has just announced that those of their staff that speak English will now wear badges/buttons that say they speak English, and they have hired a staff member who speaks English and Spanish to help out with any issues that foreigners have. I know we could have used his assistance a couple of times in the past!
Not exactly supermarket shopping!
In the city of Cuenca at the moment, most Spanish-speaking congregations cover their territories every 2 or 3 weeks, although many people are not-at-home. One sister who served in a Spanish-speaking congregation said that due to her limited Spanish (even after 2 or 3 years of being here), she would meet people who spoke Spanish, develop their interest in the Bible, start a Bible study with them, but then would then feel the need to hand them over to a fluent Spanish-speaker so that the student could benefit the most, which was a little hard on her, after her hard work to get them to that point. But for the benefit of the student, she felt that was best.
In the old part of town, there are many alleys, etc like this where people sell their wares
Another thing some have found who moved into a Spanish-speaking congregation with limited Spanish was that it took quite a while before they could contribute as much as they would have liked to. Even with “basic” Spanish, you soon realise that it’s not enough and that it could take years to develop fluency in the language. Some brothers and sisters of around our age who have been here 2, 3 or 4 years, say that they still don’t pick up all of a conversation in Spanish – depending, of course, on accents, mumbling, how fast the speaker talks, etc. You don’t tend to realise how complex language is, and the importance of communication etc, until you go somewhere where communicating clearly and easily becomes an everyday challenge.
And picking up the language seems to be especially difficult if you are not in your 20’s (or even 30’s!) anymore, like us. Young ones, in their 20’s, for instance, seem to pick up the language without really trying too hard. But after talking to quite a few brothers and sisters around our age group who are trying to learn Spanish, it’s a common story that it can be a struggle if your brain is not so young and fresh anymore.
Inside one of the old buildings in town – this one has been restored. Some of them are pretty amazing!
But, as long as we are making some progress, we figure we will get there in the end, enjoy the journey as we go, and take advantage of the opportunity to be able to serve Jehovah more fully.
