As soon as the angry words came out of my mouth, I regretted them. I was speaking to Rehmet, the woman who helped me care for my kids and my home.
She was a Punjabi woman, uneducated, illiterate, with a smile that stretched across a beautiful, weathered face and a personality as big as her smile.
We were living in Islamabad, Pakistan and Rehmet had come into my life by way of her husband who had done some handiwork for us around the house. She had five children and lived in a slum on the outskirts of the city. She was tireless in her energy and her talking. At one point I despaired to my mom that I couldn't understand her. "She speaks so quickly!" I wailed. "My Urdu can't keep up". My mom began to laugh - "Don't worry" she said. "She's actually speaking Punjabi".
We had slowly developed a relationship that went far beyond employee/employer. I considered her my friend. We would sit down with tea, communicating with my limited Urdu and her fluent Punjabi. We would mate socks together, cook, scrub vegetables, and rearrange furniture. She loved my kids, and I thought I loved her.
But there we were. A Pakistani woman and an American woman side by side, me letting my tongue loose. She had ruined some clothes by bleaching them and I was angry. After all, I self-righteously reasoned, if this had happened at a laundry facility in the United States I would voice disapproval over the mistake and demand my money back.
But, I was not in the United States.Looking back on the event, I cringe in embarrassment. I don't even remember what the clothes looked like - but I will never forget the sadness and resignation on Rehmet's face. She looked as though she had been kissed by a Judas, betrayed by one she thought she knew.
I began to apologize. My speech, so articulate while angry, suddenly lost any semblance of cohesion. I was fumbling over my words, over my grammar, most of all over my ugly heart.
She looked at me with tired, brown eyes, her gaze steady and unyielding. Then without pause, she shrugged and said, "It doesn't matter. This is my fate."
I went cold. I would rather have heard anything but this. I would rather she yelled, screamed, got sarcastic, quit the job... anything would have been better.
I, the person who talked long and wrote hard about wanting to empower people, had taken advantage of what I knew to be a cultural value - a servant is subservient to the employer. In a culture where she was a minority as a woman and as a Christian she would never have other opportunities, this was her fate. Even if she wanted to walk out on the job, she couldn't have. Rehmet did not have choices and I had used that against her. I had taken advantage of education, relative wealth, and influence in my ridiculous reaction to a simple mistake.
And I had done this, subconsciously knowing that it would pack a mighty punch. That is what made it so painfully wrong. My white-skinned entitlement and privilege made me cringe. Who was I? Why had I reacted this way
It was important to confess - to Rehmet, but also to God. For I had acted in a way that hurt another, had wounded knowing she had no recourse.
Rehmet and I were able to repair the relationship, largely because of her generosity of spirit and sheer joy in life. In her bucket of life experience, this was small change and she would not remain low for long. But the story has stayed with me, for it reminds me of how important it is to have cultural humility.
For cultural humility demands a process of self-evaluation and critique; a constant check of attempting to understand the view of another before we react and recognizing our own tendency toward cultural superiority. Cultural humility gives up a role as expert, instead seeing ourselves as students of our host culture.
It's a hard subject that demands honesty but what do you do when you have caused offense? When you have wounded in a place where you are a guest? When you have exhibited cultural superiority instead of cultural humility?Note: This article was first published in A Life Overseas
