Adventuring outside my comfort zone

Not Thailand, but the beautiful Jersey Shore

Cheap flights are all the rage post pandemic. Huz signed up for something that emails him unbelievably low cost airfares to places we've dreamed of visiting. Today's travel temptation? Thailand.

My immediate reaction was, LET'S GO!! 

My second thought - what's the COVID risk there?

My third thought - who will watch our cat?

And then as the many reasons NOT to go began to spew from my brain, I thought about one of my biggest fears about traveling to a foreign country - not speaking the language. The inability to communicate, understand and be understood falls WAY outside of my comfort zone - and to date - I've only wanted to travel to places where Spanish is the main language being spoken.

We didn't book the trip.

And then I remembered meeting Ali, a volunteer at our town's food pantry, St. Peter's Haven. He came to help during Huz and my second time ever volunteering. I'm hardly an expert there, but it doesn't take much to figure out the lay of the land - so I got to show him the ropes. 

Behind the scenes sneaky shot during volunteer session #1

Ali speaks limited English - his native language is Turkish. And yet, he came to volunteer! I have not been able to settle with any other feeling than amazement at this. It is one thing to volunteer in a community setting which is familiar and comfortable - where you can understand and be understood. It is entirely another to choose to go to a place where you will be tested by your inability to communicate.

This man went WAY outside of his comfort zone, just to help people less fortunate than he. 

He kept apologizing that he didn't know much English, so I said, hey - you know more English than I know Turkish so color me impressed!

I asked him to teach me the word for bag, because we were placing donated produce items in bags. Try learning a single word of Turkish through a face mask before you ask me if I remember the word. But we managed to communicate okay. As we dropped oranges and onions in, I actually got a little teary. How brave he seemed to me, to be able to do this! 

And then I realized where the tears were coming from. I thought of my mother in law, Anita, and how she came to this country knowing no English. None. She managed to get herself a place to live, she found a job, she arranged for her family to join her here. She studied for her citizenship test, which I am certain was in English. She became a citizen. She even learned the language well enough to eventually become a volunteer - translating English into Spanish - for people at St. Joseph's Hospital. 

In my opinion, all of that took an amazing level of inner strength, determination, service, vulnerability, and bravery. Anita and Ali both had/have it. Every single immigrant who travels to a new country, not knowing the language, customs or even the simple word for bag, to me is tapping into a huge reservoir of bravery.

So, maybe we can still get in on that trip to Thailand? Or another destination where language is a barrier? I think I just need to tap in to that inner strength and be willing to be vulnerable, which takes bravery.