brave in a new world

Although my life is an 8.5 on a scale of 10 in terms of overall satisfaction and good fortune, there are challenges inherent in moving to a new culture. It is frustrating to never know what people are saying in church, and at the same time be dogged by a lack of discipline that makes my language progress slow. It is stressful to be mostly-broke, and an adventure to try and figure out what ingredients my Faroese cookbook recommends to prepare whale meat. (In the end I went with paprika, an onion, and some salt and pepper.) My present trials, light as they may be, give me a deep appreciation for my mother-in-law Cathy. She came to the Faroe Islands in 1979 as the young American wife of Jógvan Júst Rasmussen, and the culture she met was a different world from what I am now experiencing. There was no Skype to wish a sibling a quick happy birthday, no Internet to make cheap Christmas shopping easy, and no television to enjoy a familiar old movie. She didn't have a sister who was able to take advantage of globalized transportation and come visit for a month, or the luxury of taking a trip to Italy like the one Ben and I are planning at New Years. I am also reaping the benefits of Cathy's effort at learning to communicate with her new family. When she came very few Faroese spoke English, so she would sit with her new sisters-in-law and exchange vocabulary from a dictionary. Now there is hardly a person in the family (or the country) who is not able to communicate with me in my native tongue, making me feel immediately welcome and empowered. Cathy also came at a time when Faroese culture still had more of its traditional trappings. People could come into her home any time of day (or night) unannounced and sit down for a cuppa' tea. Although it is one of the most precious parts of Faroese culture, it can feel intrusive to Americans who are used to a high degree of privacy in the home. Ben and I enjoy a lively amount of company, but people have added enough modern demands to their lives that visiting around every night is no longer possible. She was brave to come here and persistent in her efforts to make this place home. Her reward has been the ability to communicate in Faroese, the creation of a common history, and high regard from our family and the community. If only I can do as well.