Settling In

We continue to do really, really well. Some days are a little overwhelming — and surprisingly (perhaps not so) it is the seemingly little stuff, like managing money and my fast moving kids on busy streets (hopefully not at the same time). The last week brought several opportunities to get connected with the English speaking women in the area. There is a well established network of women, many who have come with spouses for various reasons. The variety of these reasons is remarkable. Their backgrounds differ greatly, as do their socio-economic resources. Still they have many concerns in common, concerns that usually center around kids, schools, health and getting comfortable with new “stuff,” including food. Most of them are here for three or four year stints. Already it is becoming clear that I am not in their league as far as radical commitment to living overseas. I come closer to tourist status, given my mere 6 plus months here. I still have a house in the corner of the world that I come from; my friends will barely notice our absence; my stash of peanut butter and vanilla will likely last the trip. Perhaps most importantly, I chose to come here. Some of my new acquaintances did as well, of course, but I am certainly meeting those who did not choose this place and are struggling and feeling pretty isolated. Hence the networks like the International Women’s Group that I will check it out tomorrow. The stakes are pretty low for me, but not for others who are here for four years, and in many cases, are settled in neighborhoods out in the outskirts of the city (like home – bigger and more affordable spaces). Most of the ex-pats I am meeting have cars (which we do not) with the distance to the city and all. What we all have in common is we are trying to make the Bratislava/Slovakia/living in a foreign country thing work, no matter what we drive, or how many Euros we pull in a month (actually, lots of the Americans paid in dollars are really struggling all of a sudden – in the past year or so the dollar has plummeted); and there is something important about sharing a language and particular shared struggles, joys and concerns.

Our church has been a great place to meet interesting people and to make friends. It is also a remarkable faith community in and of itself. The “International Church” (or Maly Kostol — which means “little church”), led by two dynamic American Lutheran pastors (missionaries), includes all sorts of folks (including a large number of Catholics) who have English in common and appreciate being part of this kind of community. They have terrific kid programming which Elena is really liking a lot. The church provides lots of good opportunities to connect, including some serious outreach to a local refugee camp on the border, which I spent time at this past weekend. I have joined up with the Women’s Bible Study, which is a great group, led by a good group leader who is ecumenically minded. Someone from this group brought me a welcome bag of goodies last week, that included the much appreciated jar of peanut butter, bottle of vanilla, brown sugar and baby wipes (all either unavailable or too expensive). Upon previous visits we had attended a Catholic Church here which had an English mass. This mass still exists, but it is crowded, not quite so kid friendly and its liturgy is (strangely enough) is less familiar than the one at the (protestant) International Church. This venture into the protestant world especially in an Eastern European Church poses quite an interesting challenge. We are in the hotbed of early Lutheran influence, and tremendous counter-reformation oppression, not to mention Communist oppression of churches, and state tax-funding system for churches that gives church goers of all stripes little incentive to put money in the basket.
-Bridget