Back by popular request: Abu Hamid

Many of you will remember someone who I will call Abu Hamid, from a previous post. He is a Syrian refugee who arrived in Scotland one year ago, and he is now living, working, and studying for a bachelor's degree in Edinburgh, although his family remains in Turkey.

Here is more of his story, back by popular request:

He reached out to me via WhatsApp to ask for help with his first writing assignment. We set up to meet at the University of Edinburgh library on a Wednesday evening (with some difficulty - if you struggle to make sense of my texts in English, you should see it in Arabic!). We found a spot in the library cafe, and he pulled up his document, a fairly simple, 500-word reflection piece.
It was quite a shock! The words were - in the most technical sense - English, but the structure and grammar of the piece was Arabic مية بالمية (100 percent)!
I began by line-editing, and we discussed how some of the words used were functionally correct but indicated "street language" rather than academic writing; others were idiomatic Arabic with no real equivalent in English. He took notes on the grammar rules as I explained them, asking me to write down Miss Gibbar's trusty FANBOYS mnemonic for all the conjunctions. (I refrained from singing him the song on that occasion.)
I knew we were making progress when he pointed to the juncture in a compound sentence and said, "Put a comma right there!"
He shook his head in some bemusement. "You really like commas, Lucy." 
(What can I say? Commas are my first true literary love, but like nearly all forms of punctuation, they make for rare finds in proper Arabic writing.)

When we needed to add a new paragraph, I offered to type while he dictated, which was still a bit rough on his laptop (aside: why are the keyboards different in the UK anyway?!) To my surprise, asking him to dictate in English all but solved our previous problems, as it forced him to think - and therefore formulate his ideas and grammar - in English.
An hour and a half in, we stopped by the library cafe for a quick break, and I saw a set of LDS missionaries waving at me from across the room. We walked over to greet them, and they explained that they were about to begin a lesson on the Word of Wisdom with a Chinese masters student who I knew - would I care to join?
I thought fast, then held a quick conference in Arabic with Abu Hamid (this caught the missionaries a bit off-guard, I am afraid. I don't think they had believed me when I told them I spoke Arabic).
I explained that these were friends from my Christian church, who were teaching an atheist student about God. Would he mind if this was our break? He seemed amused but unconcerned, and I made the introductions for the still-bemused elders.
"Where are you from?" they asked him.
"Syria," he replied.
"Syria," said one elder. "So what brought you to Scotland?"
Abu Hamid spoke slowly. "There is a war in my country," he said.
The elder continued to probe, "So, just here for studies then?" 
He glanced at me with mild incredulity, while I covered my mouth to stifle a nervous laugh. "I am a refugee."

Fortunately, that was our only "Aleppo moment," so to speak, and the lesson went smoothly. Abu Hamid noted that the Mormon health code was almost the same as one he follows as a Muslim. He nodded approvingly after I translated the word "commandment" into Arabic for him.
But I knew we were on thin ice, and I was praying internally the whole time that my faith that God puts different people in the same place for good reasons would prove correct.
My prayers would not stay silent for long. The Chinese student asked me to offer the closing prayer, and the missionaries asked to hear more Arabic.

It was the least graceful Arabic prayer I have ever sent heavenward. Nervous in the extreme, I prayed for the Chinese student's studies, his family, and his faith. I prayed for the missionaries' work, for our families, and for the influence of the Holy Spirit.
But I hesitated to mention the one person present (besides God Himself) who actually understood the words I spoke, lest I offend him with my stumbling Christian prayer.
When I closed, the missionaries and the Chinese student nodded approvingly, but the Syrian refugee to my right asked, "What about Abu Hamid?"
I launched quickly back into a prayer, asking our Father in Heaven to bless him in his studies, to help him to feel the love of God, and to bless his family in far-away Turkey. This time when I closed, he smiled and said, شكرا (thank you).

As we left the library, he told me how much he loved being able to study at the University of Edinburgh, and he used a rather beautiful word هبع- new to my still-so-limited Arabic vocabulary. To help me understand the term, he described several examples, using the word to describe his feeling of awe, gratitude, and wonder at God's bringing him to Edinburgh.

But to really help me understand, to really make his point, he added, "هبع - it's the same feeling I had just now, Lucy, when I heard you praying."

Transitions: Are you there yet?

Many kind friends and family members, contacting me from across the Atlantic Ocean by means of the bountiful technology we are blessed to have at our fingertips, have been asking me the same question of late.

“How is it?” they ask. “Do you feel you have transitioned yet?”

I write in an effort to respond to all these kind enquiries (note the British spelling!) at once, because I am quickly getting terribly behind, for reasons I will note below, and I must admit, that my first, gut response is, “Of course not!”

It’s been three weeks last Saturday, and I left my funny little house in Boston, and friends and family, and country and custom and – some would posit – the English language itself to sit inside a small, enclosed space and embark on a completely different sort of life in a foreign country where I knew precisely nobody just one month ago.

True, I have found the grocery store, discovered that the power outlets here have to be switched on individually, registered for classes, and figured out how to use the funny little oven at my dormitory accommodation (admittedly, I did burn the bread on Sunday. It really is a funny oven).

I have a bank account (except they misspelled my last name somehow - do you think I should trust them with my money?), basic hygiene products, a doctor (called a GP) around the corner, a working knowledge of the streets and running routes around the University of Edinburgh, and some really lovely people who I tentatively but affectionately call friends.

My to-do list for the week is long and intimidating, but it includes things like studying Arabic, taking a classmate to church for the first time, doing coffee (in a broad sense only, I promise) with several potentially lovely contacts, and reading a book about the ongoing spread of Christianity into Africa.

So I am content.

And perhaps this means that after three, intense weeks, I have indeed “transitioned.” 

 

But the truth is that it is 11:53 p.m., and I attempted sleep at twelve after 10 because it was a very long day, and I was too tired to finish preparing for the two class presentations that are happening tomorrow, whether I am ready or not.

The truth is that I still have a rotten cold and my clothes are drying on the space heater (don’t tell the warden) because the washers don’t work very well, and money and job plans are bumping about uncomfortably in my head but I can't currently access my bank account from the UK, and I have to decide whether to apply for a PhD by November, and I actually don’t know whether my classmate meant it as a compliment earlier when he told me I was “doing a great job at playing the naiive American girl,” and transitions can be tough.

I am not asking for sympathy, not by a long shot, but I worry sometimes that Younger Readers might get the wrong impression if I restrict my writing to the Highland vistas and short them on the moments spent in a Scottish pharmacy, trying to decide which of a baffling array of products will stop me from coughing onto my professors.

 

To you, Young Readers and Young-at-Heart, I say: Even if you have stopped stock-still nearly every day of the last three weeks – sometimes amid a busy street-ful of Scottish traffic – to marvel at the grace of God and the miracle of being in Scotland for this masters program, and even if, like me, you can’t think of anywhere in the world you would rather be right now, nor anything you would rather be doing, and even if you overloaded you course schedule (apart from old habits dying hard) in an effort to express gratitude for the exquisite gift of this experience through hard work – transitions can still be tough.

People don’t tell you that your insides can take weeks to adjust to the new diet – and they respond accordingly. They don’t describe how lost, unimportant, and above all, lonely you can feel in a new city. 

 

They don’t tell you that culture shock is a real thing, or that the British educational system differs from the American one in some rather unexpected ways.

But there are other things they don’t tell you either, and so this is my paltry offering of wisdom for anyone who might move to a new city, start an educational program, serve a mission, switch countries, or simply try something so new and different that the little “Inside-Out” people in your head start to ask, “Would I have done this if I’d known it would be this hard?” or “Can this ever be worth it?”

I want to tell you that if you have to ask your Chinese flatmate for her name three different times she will forgive you eventually, as will the Arabic classmate who tried to befriend you, but you were waiting for the Ibuprofen to kick in and could hardly think straight until it did. 

Even when your friends and family are scattered across the globe anywhere from two hours ahead to eight hours behind and no one is answering your Facetime, there is One who will always pick up.

And He will tell you that it’s OK if it’s hard. That transitions are meant to be tough. That many of the people around you who seem to know just what they are doing actually want to call their mom tonight. Or buy a chocolate twist at Sainsburys. (Did you read “pastry” as in one? Because I meant three. Plus a box of chocolate-dipped Swiss rolls. Scotland really has good pastry.)

And if you keep smiling at the strangers next to you, and asking for their names yet again, and eating something other than pastry now and then, and making the hike to church and reading your scriptures, and showering at least every other day, it will get better. 

It will be better than you, looking at the glossy photos from your bedroom at home, could ever have imagined. And what you learn – and who you become - will be completely, utterly, totally worth it.