The Middle of February Already!

Surprisingly it is the middle of February already. The weeks since last I wrote have been much the same. We have done school registrations, dealt with school issues and gone visiting.The other day Robert got stuck in between both of the worlds that we lived in and I thought I would share the experience with you.Robert had for two weeks been working with the Bantu community to organize a meeting with them and the school district to educate the community on gang behavior and issues, many of which their kids are exhibiting. Robert had talked and worked with them. He had expectations. The expectations were that there would be both men and women there. The women being there was important because there are many single parent mothers that we deal with in this community. Alas however, on the night of the meeting I saw my husband standing in the parking lot at 5:30pm waiting. The meeting was to begin at 6:00 so Robert had gotten there a little after 5:00 to begin to get them ready. Now I watched him standing in the park lot, periodically moving from one apartment to another, hurrying people, calling them on his cell, hurrying them. Finally at 6:10 a small group of them began loading into cars. This was a much smaller group than Robert had wanted and unfortunately not a woman in the group. Many of the most difficult cases that we work with are kids from single parent mom homes so we were hoping they would come but only the men were coming.By the time a frustrated Robert and his entourage finally reached the school for the meeting some of the American officials had gone. They had followed the standard 15 minute meeting rule, if all of the parties of the meeting do not come at the appropriate time then the other parties are able to leave after 15 minutes. Alas this rule does not really work well with people of other cultures. Try as we might to get them there on time we can only do what we can do. So now Robert is really frustrated. A meeting he has spent the last two weeks planning and advertising did not happen at all.This is a common problem we have, we live often between two cultures and sometimes even more. While living between these cultures we often feel squeezed in the middle.