roar of the unfamiliar

For every military move, there is a point in the cycle where the newness becomes overwhelming. The Tilt-a-Whirl of our last move has begun to slow although I'm already gearing up for the next one. I wrote these words in the midst of our first overseas move to Eastern Europe. The adventure and memories would come later; at that moment, I only felt the disorientation. It's good to remember what that felt like and what it will feel like again.

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waking up in a new culture

It hit me the moment I turned the corner of our Finnair plane. A sea of blonde. The low hum of voices and none of them intelligible. The (soon to be painfully familiar) Eastern European blank stare. Blueberry juice for the in-flight beverage. Reindeer hides in the airport gift shop. Familiar letters jumbled into strange words. Strange words on familiar signs. A constant steady barrage of different.

I began to feel something I hadn’t encountered in several years: awareness that I was “different.”

Occasionally in high school or when we lived in North Carolina, I got the random comment, “Where are you from from?” “Are you an exchange student?” or my personal favorite, “What’s in your blood?” My Filipino/Okinawan/German cultural mashup causes not a single second glance in SoCal. But never have I felt so out of place as these first days in Latvia. There’s no rubric here for someone like me. I’m two feet shorter and twenty shades darker than everyone else on the street. This is no melting pot. The very sameness of everyone is jarring.

Throughout the airport and on the ride to our temporary quarters, I kept having the urge to turn down the volume. Everything felt so loud. And then I realized the decibel level was not on the radio. It was in my head. The roar of the unfamiliar.

The roar continued throughout the week as we navigated the streets, the grocery stores, the setting up of our lives. Signing a service contract without understanding a single word. Feeding my 5-month-old food made of illustrations and gibberish. Trying to make lunch with the aid of Google Translate and coming up with nothing better than “Defeat the water, add the island and frozen product, totally ram out the darts until copper plated.” (Try that one, Gordon Ramsey.) Dragging three little guys on foot by myself in the pouring rain to the grocery store for two miles before realizing we were totally lost and nowhere near home. Setting off the alarms in said grocery store because I tried to return a cart and apparently that's not done here. Accidentally walking into the men’s room because I didn’t know the difference between an upside down triangle and right side up. (Seriously, at least add a head and arms!)

It’s hard to describe how disorienting the initial adjustment was. Frankly, it’s even hard to remember exactly how I felt. Because it wasn’t long before I could pick out coherent sounds in the static noise. Oh, that’s the baby food he likes. Get the water “ne gazets” and the milk with the green label. Siers means cheese. Paldies means thank you. I’ve seen that statue before. I know where we are.

Whenever I make another faux pas or have a bad day, the unfamiliar comes roaring back and I feel very much the outsider. But it doesn’t last anymore. Foreign pieces are settling into recognizable compartments, and I can see a pattern in the jumble. There are nuances and layers to the cultural sameness that I did not see before.

Soon, the balance will tip from the unfamiliar to the known. And when that happens, this will be home.