Now that I’ve moved back from India, I miss the doorbell ringing 20 times a day.
I miss having sweets and tea ready to spread out the instant someone stops by for a visit.
A beggar lady might be rummaging around our yard looking for salvageable plastic or cardboard, a child strapped to her back, and I’m helping her search.
At the same time, a neighbor stops by to ask for some of our jackfruit while a carver wheels his cart through our gate looking for knives to sharpen. I might hear the daily fish man calling “whoooo, whoooo, whoooo” to announce that he’s nearby. Perhaps the man from the electric company stops by in the middle of all of this to deliver a bill. Better yet, it’s the postman with a note to pick up a package from America!
Noises compete for attention. Quick honks from passing motorbikes and rickshaws announce, “I’m here, coming around the corner.” These are mixed with the clockwork-like call to prayer from the mosques nearby.
In India, I felt so surrounded by humanity—close to people and not alone. Our first week back in America, I sat in our house and felt overwhelmed by the sound of the deathly stillness. Silence. It’s quiet here. Where are all the people?
I miss Ayisha making chai in my kitchen during breaks in our daily language sessions. She would laugh over the English word bubble and how I kept using the local word for cloud in place of children.
“I have four clouds,” I would say confidently. Later, she taught me the words for shame, forgiveness and sadness. We cried and prayed together because language and the Spirit of God allowed it. I miss her asking me—expecting me—to pray for her illness.
I miss Mahmoud mopping the marble floors sparkly clean each day and killing spiders before I saw them. We called him Spiderman and he called my husband boss.
“Where will I go with boss today?” he would ask with a grin as he swept the floor and smoked out our house with the smell of burning our trash out back.
I miss Bindu, who sewed all my Indian clothes to fit me just perfectly. She showed me where to buy the good material that doesn’t lose its dye.
I miss so many of the local people: the preppy train ticket man, the toothless egg lady, the aged newspaper man, the mobile phone fill-up lady, the corner vegetable and fruit stand boy, the fatherly bread man, our regular rickshaw drivers, and on and on the list of people goes.
I miss our teammates being in each other’s’ houses every single day, drinking coffee, and praying, laughing, sweating together, drinking more coffee, and sometimes crying and disagreeing. We had to cry, laugh, and disagree because our lives intertwined so completely.
What I wish my friends in America knew about my life in India is that people and relationships are everything. The clock stops for people. Time is irrelevant and inconsequential if you’re with a friend. And in India, you’re always with a friend.
Read more about life overseas:
Original article: www.frontiersusa.org/blog/article/my-life-overseas-its-extremely-relational
