My latest bout
of homesickness came while standing in a grocery store aisle looking for
rubbing alcohol. It shouldn’t be this difficult to find. I scanned the rows by the bandages but
nothing looked right. Then the next aisle
and the two after that.
There was no one around to ask, so I just kept moving back and forth, certain that eventually I would find this f---ing rubbing alcohol.
My toe hurt and each step felt a tiny bit more painful than the last. It was the reason I needed the rubbing alcohol. Last night I went to the pharmacy to ask for help but they gave me something resembling Neosporin. Not realizing this, I rubbed what I thought was some random Danish version of disinfectant on a tiny wound. Overnight and this morning it became clear that whatever they had given me was doing the wrong thing and I would need to cut open the wound and apply a real disinfectant.
My friends and family often think of my life as glamorous – but for every tapas crawl through Madrid, I have about 13-18 trips to the grocery store standing in front of aisles thinking So, how big a trashbag is 20L? If the store (large) bags are 30L, 20L has to be a good size, right? Then I take it home and discover I have again bought something I can use but it’s not what I wanted to use.
After ten minutes of moving between the aisles, certain I was just missing the thing that would be very clearly the Danish equivalent to rubbing alcohol, I stalked a kid in uniform. Undskyld, excuse me, undskyld.
“Do you -- have something -- that can clean -- wounds? -- I cut -- myself. -- So I need -- something to clean – the cut -- before I put -- a bandage on.”
I spoke slowly and clearly – no more than 2-3 words at a time while remaining conscious that I can't have too long of a pause between the word groups.
I speak in English here a lot. Not because I necessarily want to but because when I speak in Danish people flip to English so I never get much practice. Their unwillingness to speak to me in Danish furthers my insecurities, like no matter what I’m saying, I’m probably saying it wrong.
I still try – when I know what I’m asking for. But google and google translate both failed me. “Rubbing alcohol” in Danish was going to get me a spot cleaner for clothing. I don’t know what I need here – I have no idea what to ask for.
Had my phone been charged, I would’ve called someone to ask for the right Danish word.
But, of course, my phone wasn’t charged so it was just me and my new stripped shirted friend.
He asked a few questions with no pauses in his English: “So, it’s for a cut? On your skin? And you want to clean it?” Yes, yes, and yes.
In moments like this, I turn into a 12 year old, more likely to nod my head in silence than to speak with actual words. I am twice this kid’s age but he speaks with more authority than I do. He has more authority than I do. This is clear when we head back to the same aisles I had just left and he looks knowledgeably while I follow a few steps behind him. “I’m sorry – I think I know what I’m looking for, but I’m not sure... I mean, I don’t know what it looks like here. Or what it’s called.”
In the US, it would be a brown bottle. None of the bottles here are brown.
His hmmm is followed by an almost absent-minded yes, I guess it’s hard when everything’s in Danish.
I wonder if he’s making fun of me, secretly thinking stupid foreigner, learn the f---ing language before you come here. But he doesn’t seem to be thinking that. The tone of his voice and his sympathetic stance when he turns to me suggests he genuinely feels bad that I don’t know what I need.
He determines they don’t have it, but tells me sårhans. I think. It sounds like sow-hands but Danish doesn’t sound like how it’s written. It never does. So busgarden becomes busgarn when you say it out loud. And that undskyld … whatever you’re thinking it is in your head is not what it actually is (unless you’re Danish, in which case you’re cheating).
I repeat it. So. Hans.
His smile says my accent is embarrassing but he appreciates the effort. Yes, sår means wound and hans means cleaner.
Later, I would look up these two words to see how it’s spelled. I can’t find it anywhere. Google translate doesn’t have anything that looks or sounds like hans for the English “cleaner.”
I paid for the few things I had picked up along the way and headed towards the apotek to see if my new Danish word could get me what I really want.
This kid’s human kindness meant I could leave rather than simply melt into a pile on the store floor.
I know that normal people would never connect this moment of homesickness to a global international crisis. I know this because my sister is a very extraordinarily wonderful normal person who gets confused when a simple road trip leaves me thinking about how the US can better engage with average Afghanis. So, I am prepared for the fact that what I’m about to say will be met with groans by several friends who want me to just “relax… don’t make everything a thing…” and stuff that I totally understand and respect but I have absolutely no ability to do.
As I left the grocery store, I started to think about the refugees fleeing Syria. I chose this life of constantly feeling out of my depth, never knowing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing or how many social rules I’ve inadvertently broken.
I’ve chosen to leave my family and friends even though if I return to Ohio no one will attempt to throw me off a roof or behead me or sell me as a sex slave.
I can’t imagine the pain of doing all this without a real choice.
Living overseas – leaving my family and friends behind and moving to this new place –makes everything just a tiny bit harder. Most of the time, I’m prepared for that challenge. But some days… some days I just want to throw my basket onto the aisle floor and have myself a good cry because the aisle clearly doesn’t have rubbing alcohol no matter how many times I tell myself it should be right here.
But I’m a privileged migrant. The reason I’m allowed to start sentences in English without any backlash at all is because of my alabaster skin and Midwest American accent. No one finds me threatening or my presence a grave cause for concern over Danish nationality or British security.
No one is threatening to send the British military to France to stop my movements.
No one is wringing their hands about what my presence does to the welfare state or the cultural norms.
It is cruel that my migration, based solely on professional interests and a desire to travel, is welcomed more than those who are fleeing persecution, forced to relocate not because they want to enjoy a few more jaunts to Madrid but because they face slaughter at home.
The West is not doing enough. We push boats back, refuse to offer real resettlement options, and tell Syria’s neighbors to just suck it up and make it work. We do not think about the trickle down effect this has on other refugees, like those in Lebanon who are currently unable to register as refugees because the state has legitimately taken in too many Syrians.
Syrian refugees now make up more than a quarter of the Lebanese population.
90.
It should be embarrassing for the state, but it’s not.
I could go into the historical reasons why Britain has a bigger obligation than pretty much anyone else to resettle refugees, but I don’t have time. I’ll just say for now that the UK’s response has been woefully, painfully, horribly racist.
I’ve been trying to figure out how to wrap this post up, and I can’t really. The best I can do is this:
It’s not easy being a migrant. It’s not fun or glamorous or cool. Being a real migrant is gathering your courage every single day to speak in a foreign tongue while navigating a system that sounds familiar but simply isn’t.
Being a refugee means doing all of that while not having a real choice in the matter. It is the bravest attempt to do the most natural of human activities – survive – in the hardest conditions imaginable.
Our refugees deserve better than our contempt. They deserve our love and human kindness.
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