How to be a Friend

Unfortunately John and I don’t have just a whole ton of friends here yet. We’re working on it. I guess it has only been a few weeks after all…

I find one challenge to making friends here is my own fear of opening up to people if I know the relationship will be difficult. When you make friends from your own culture, there is just a whole list of things you assume. You can guess what kinds of things they like to do, you can bet that they have the ability to pay for the same kind of social activities you do, and you have a general feeling for the kinds of things that are appropriate to talk about. Most of all, at least in the little sub-culture I’m from, I usually assume that people have their lives more or less together and whatever problems crop up they will be able to deal with themselves, without much more than condolences or small offers of help from me.

Here, those things are not assumed! I don’t have a very clear idea of how to be a friend to people and there are just so many problems, it can be scary to start caring about someone when you know there will be painful things that come from that… probably soon. Take one of my co-workers for example. Let’s call him C. I really like C a lot and we have developed as much of a friendly banter as you can when you’re speaking a mix of bad Arabic and marginal English. C’s wife just had a baby and I was SO happy for him! He’s a quiet guy, but he was just glowing about it.

Yesterday I saw him and called over.

S: “Hey C! How’s that baby of yours?” He stopped walking and looked down.

C: “Unfortunately…” My heart fell through the bottom of my feet with the fear of what was coming.

C: “Yeah, unfortunately, the baby… was attacked by malaria… It was just one day…” My eyes started to well up. He paused either to compose himself or think of the words in English; I’m not sure which.

C: “Unfortunately, the baby died.”

God. What could I say to that? I was crying, but embarrassed that I was crying because I don’t even know him that well. I said I was sorry. I asked about his wife. I promised to pray. Then I walked away. And there it is. There’s the limit of our friendship. Friendship with someone who has to deal with that kind of pain is a pretty terrifying prospect! How can I be friends with someone when I can’t assume anything… even that his baby will live long enough to get a name. And why would he want to be friends with someone who he can assume will never have to see her child die of something like malaria. From here, real friendship looks impossible.

But I don’t want this to be my final answer. I want to learn how to be a friend and know people even when it’s difficult, because if I’m honest, this is not an international issue. This fear keeps me from deep relationships with people who are different from me racially, culturally, or socio-economically even in the good ol’ USA.

The great thing about living here is that I get a new chance to get outside my comfort zone every day! Tonight we’re having dinner with some of the Sudanese people who work with the ministry where John volunteers and I’m going to do what I can to be myself and let them be themselves. And that’s a step. Right?

-Stephanie