Sometimes life is confusing. Other times the only confusing thing is how much sense it somehow makes.
The man who we bought meat from scratched his bloated stomach with dirty fingernails before he sliced it from a stiff looking slab that had probably been laying on that splintery warped board for far longer than I cared to consider. Next time, I vowed silently, I would close my eyes and pretend like my meat came shrink wrapped from a chilled shelf. Three years of life in Lhasa and I've only been able to turn my nasty meat fears into something largely invisible to the naked eye... they still rage inside.
Less than an hour after that I and two Tibetan colleages and two random Tibetan children, who had knocked on the door and sat in the corner reading books, turned my living room into a meat dumpling fried chicken gossip factory. Flour dusted our foreheads, meat got lodged under our fingernails, chicken marinated in oyster sauce, and the room filled with children's giggles and tales from our various classrooms. As we stuffed and pinched the meat dumplings closed for a second I could have sworn that everything was normal in the world.
The children got rowdy and were ushered away grungy pockets full of candy, we moved into the one person kitchen only to get everything within minutes of being done cooking when the gas ran out. In laughter that made my sides hurt we rocked the empty gas canister back and forth shaking every last exhausted bit out. Finally, we gave up and ate the juicy meat dumplings and mostly done but still finished cooking in the microwave chicken with the satisfaction of people who were convinced that there was nothing foreign in the room.
We ate until we groaned with fullness and I groaned at the thought of too many leftovers. My two colleagues filled me in on all the school happenings and when the time got late they started to tell me a different story... a story of being afraid to use their English, of being intimidated by their foreign teachers, of seeing something different in me, of considering me their first foreign friend.
My insides filled with tears that I had to blink hard to keep inside when they told a story of how they wished I would soon get married and we could all be together with our husbands and children... can we write a letter to the American government asking to let you stay here? they asked with a seriousness that made me miss them though I was sitting right in front of them.
I wouldn't let them go without cutting huge slices of bread that I had made the day before to give to them, insisting that they eat it for breakfast the next morning. They marveled at the bread the way that I had marveled at the dumplings causing another round of laughter and tenderness.
They left and now my meager fridge is filled with dumplings and spice and my heart is filled with a longing to be a better friend to them for longer. And I know that in this lonely desert place I have been given an oasis, in this heart of darkness I've been given lights like the brightness of day, in this life that like a vapor I've been given solidity. And it isn't a mystery where it all comes from, all good gifts come from above.
And I know that my Father is good, but such a life as this one begs the question... what I don't know, what I can't figure out is why He's so good to me.
