This Is Why I'm Here

After church today, a girl Petra who works at the Bishop's office jokingly (I think) asked if I wanted to help her move into her new apartment in town. Remembering how much I despise moving in by myself and how helpful it is to have other people around, I said sure.

I have had some bad experiences moving people in, mostly just my sister whom I moved in on a Friday and she moved out the next week. But that's another story for another day. I have to say that if every moving in experience could be as good as this experience, I would do it every weekend.

I arrived at Petra's new apartment building, an eight-story (nine in America...they call the 2nd floor the first floor) communist style building around numerous other communist style buildings. For those who don't know, a communist style building is an extremely large slab of concrete. Petra lives on the top floor. When I arrived, her grandfather was just beginning to put boxes on a dolly. Thankfully, the apartment has a small elevator, so some objects could fit in the elevator, but others, like the pieces of her bed, had to be carried up to the top.

Petra understand English quite well, so it was no trouble moving her belongings at first. Then other movers arrived with more furniture. She had a total of three vans. Her sister was moving in, too, so it wasn't too much, and the apartment had absolutely nothing in it except a tub and a toilet.

So I had to take pieces of her bed up the stairs with Slovaks who understand very little English. They couldn't understand me and I couldn't understand them. But we all understand the goal -getting up the stairs. The bed made it to the top without getting too many scratches on it.

I got to spend some quality time in the elevator with a little Slovak boy, Philip. He is 10 years old. He seemed to think it was very cool that I was American (and that I had an awesome beard). He kept asking me questions in Slovak, but it was hard to answer, so I just said what I knew - my age, where I live, where I teach, where I am from. I tried to ask him a few questions in English but the only one he knew the answer to was "how old are you?" Riding the elevator was quite fun with him. I had no idea what to say to him and he had no idea what to say to me.

While moving Petra's belongings in, I felt as useless a little Philip. He was the elevator operator. All I could do was carry. I obeyed no orders. I was all braun and no brains. I wished I could take some of his knowledge of Slovak in exchange for some of my muscles (no worries, there's plenty to go around).

After a few hours, Petra's grandmother brought out some food. Rezen (pork in potato batter), pickles, bread, and sweet rolls were among the choices. Also available was mineral water. I would prefer regular water, but they are big on mineral water here.

After eating, Petra's grandfather opened up a bag and pulled out a flask. I knew what this was - Slivovica (plum brandy). When someone offers you Slivoviva, you drink Slivovica. That's basically how it goes. Drinking Slivovica is like swallowing a heater and the worst cough syrup you could ever think of. After you drink it, you could walk outside in -50 in gym shorts and a t-shirt. I drank one and then he offered me another. I wanted to say, "Come on now, none of that," but I didn't want to be rude and reject him. So I respectfully drank it and said to Petra, "No more Slivovica, please." And she said he had none left anyway. The Lord lives.

After the Slivovica, I stood around for a while and there wasn't much for me to do, so Petra said I could go home if I wanted. Feeling that there wasn't much for me to do, I decided to leave.

As I walked to the bus stop, I kept laughing at how crazy it was to help Petra move in when I understood nothing that was going on. This is the summary of my experience here. When I got to the bus stop, one of Petra's friends who was helping her move in was there. We didn't speak at all while we were moving her in because we didn't understand each other.

Nevertheless, I have to say, on the bus, I had the best conversation with someone who couldn't understand my language and vice-versa. We tried to explain to each other in both languages, whichever would work, our names, what we did in Bratislava, where we lived, our ages, and such seemingly trivial things. His name is Jan (John), he is my age and he goes to a seminary in Bratislava. Just before my bus stop, I said to him in Slovak, "I don't understand Slovak and you don't understand English." He said, "Yes, but I really enjoy the conversation" in English, I believe. He obviously knew more English than he gave on to, but that matters little.

As the bus pulled to my stop, I said, "Nice to meet you," in English, forgetting how to say it in Slovak, and got off the bus. As I was walking back to my apartment, I laughed for a moment thinking about how crazy our conversation was and how hard it was to understand anything, then I smiled and thought, "This is why I'm here."

I'm not just here to teach English to students at a high school. I'm here to build relationships with others, whether we understand each other's language or not. I'm here to help understand other people, whether I understand what they're saying or not.

Verbal language only conveys so much. Someone might tell me they are sad or happy but I never really understand until I see tears rolling down their face or a smile pass across their face. Jan and I's conversation wasn't just about what our ages were and what we did and where we lived, it was about understanding each other as human beings. We were conversing about something deeper than words. Whether we understood each other's language or not, I couldn't truly explain what I'm doing here. Only through seeing what's behind my words can a person see what anyone is doing.

I hope that Jan understood this after our conversation. I hope that as you read this, you understand what I mean. As T.S. Eliot wrote:

"Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still." - Four Quartets