Our First Day in Austria

We still don’t have Internet access at the guest house, so at the moment I’m writing this on my laptop in hopes that I’ll be able to copy and/or paste it sometime later.

Our first day in Austria was a long but very good one. We headed over to the Oasis in the morning with Eileen, our fellow guest house resident, where we were shown around and got to work preparing crafts for the afternoon’s children’s program. At two ‘o’ clock, the five of us (Eileen, Becky, me, David, and Miriam) headed out.

The kids club is held every Thursday in the village of Altenmarkt, about half an hour away by car. It is held in a Pension, which is a large building with many one-room apartments that house refugees. Around twenty kids showed up, many of them from Chechnya, nearly all of them German speakers. For the first time in a long time, I was in an environment where I had no idea what was being said to me (I can just hear certain people in Athens saying: “Well, it’s about time you experienced what the rest of us go through!”). I don’t deny it was kind of frustrating. I did learn some new words though – a girl named Selena taught me the names of the colours. I’ll have to learn them all over again next week, I’m sure, but hey, it was conversation to some degree.

After kids club (which consisted of songs, a bible story, a craft, and a game of charades), our group split up and spent a couple hours visiting some families staying in the Pension. David (the Aussie on the team) and I went to visit with a Chechnyan family who’s been in Austria for two weeks. They spoke no German or English, and we didn’t speak any Russian, so conversation was quite limited until Miriam showed up and kept the talk flowing with the Russian she knows (thanks, Miriam!). They were a very sweet and hospitable family – Roufan and Indira have two children, a four-year old girl named Fazira and a two-year old boy named Bhela. Thank the Lord for little kids – they’re a great distraction when you find you don’t have a lot to add to the conversation ☺

Afterwards I spent a little time with Becky and Eileen and the Afghan woman they had been visiting. In this short period of time, I discovered that the only Farsi words I know (“tarosh” and “pakorn”, pencil sharpener and eraser, respectively) are apparently Iranian Farsi words, and not Afghan Farsi. Who knew? So my meager attempts at Farsi vocabulary sort of flew out the window. But it was quite nice to see an Afghan face – felt like Athens, in a way.

Another Chechnyan family was our last stop, at another Pension, where I consumed my fifth mug of tea of the day, and where we had a very tasty dinner prepared by Leila, our host. It’s very humbling that everybody we were with today was so eager to share with us what very little they have – surely it would be far better to save it for their families, or so we would think, anyway. They love having guests in the home, though – they never hesitated to offer us seconds (which we always refused – we were at three homes, after all!). I’m looking forward to seeing some of them next week, and meeting new families as well.

I’ve decided that I must learn another language at some point in my life. German or Farsi are at the top of the list, at the moment – maybe I’ll fit Chechnyan in at some point (or Russian would be better, actually).

Hoping this gets posted soon! It’s just after midnight now, so I’m gonna hit the hay. Guten nacht!

-Kendra


Edit: I am now able to post this from the guest house!