The Middle of Everywhere by Mary Pipher Page A

decide when to eat and sleep. From their point of view, it looks like we are slaves to tiny machines that constantly interrupt us and tell us what to do next They also notice that we are always busy. This seems weird to people who come from cultures where there is much sitting around, visiting, and watching the sunset or children at play. As one woman from Tajikistan said to me, "Americans think it is a sin to do nothing."
    Newcomers sense that they are being hurried—to eat, to get in a car or out of an office. A man from Mali said to me, "I have learned that when an American looks at his watch, it means I am taking too much of his time. I had better leave quickly."
    Many workers come from parts of the world where, when you are tired, you stop work and rest. You take a nap after lunch, which is provided by the employer. If you feel like taking a day off, you do it and then work harder the next day. It's a major adjustment to get used to forty-hour-a-week jobs at which one is expected to show up on time, work all day, and take ten-minute bathroom breaks when the employer says that is okay. Discussing work in America, a Spanish man told me, "Americans invented stress. And with globalization, stress will soon be all over the world."
    Many refugees are not used to efficient scheduling. They allow time to unfurl, and they enjoy however much time they want with visits, celebrations, and other events. As an Iraqi woman said, "At home if we wanted to go to the doctor, we walked to the doctor's office. If I wanted to visit someone, I just went to visit. I didn't call and ask if they could come over two weeks from Friday at three o'clock."
    Daylight saving time is a hard sell. Refugees are amazed that we manipulate time this way. They forget to set clocks forward or backward and often have many frustrating experiences before they get DST down. My friend Bintu missed church her first week in America. As I helped her reset her clocks, she burst into tears of frustration because we made time so hard.
    I talked to a woman from El Salvador about a conference over two years away but already set in time and place. She laughed and said, "Forgive me. I am not used to the American custom of giving away time so far in the future. How can we know where we will be in two years and what we will want to be doing?"
LANGUAGE
    It takes most people from one to three years to learn social English and five to seven years to learn academic English. At first, refugees feel like children: vulnerable, dependent, and unable to express themselves. An educated man communicates only via hand signals and a few simple phrases. A doctor cannot ask for a glass of water. A teacher cannot understand her first-grade son's homework. Simple tasks, such as exchanging a pair of shoes or making a dental appointment, are complex without language. The intelligence, personality, and energy of new arrivals are submerged by their lack of English. We Americans just see the tip of the iceberg.
    Language is connected to both good judgment and to forming relationships. Humans trust or mistrust others on the basis of nuances, tonal variations, and small contradictions. Without language, we miss metaphors and subtleties. We cannot read between the lines or sense what is not being said. We can't convey character or style. Imagine yourself applying for jobs, negotiating bureaucracies, and making friends with a working vocabulary of one hundred words. "Hi." "Thank you." "Where is the bathroom?" "Good morning." "You're welcome."
    English isn't phonetic and has an amazing number of irregular verbs and plural nouns. It's filled with slang, academic jargon, and technical terms. Rules for prepositions and punctuation seem arbitrary. Many words sound alike, such as
writing
and
riding, a basement
and
abasement,
or
aunt
and
ant.
    And learning the language isn't enough. Certain people may speak Spanish but have limited understanding of the culture of Cuba. Likewise, one may know about the