Looking for Noah, Part 3

Half a decade ago, I worked as a reporter for a small newspaper in Kentucky.  I was assigned a story about a family of immigrants who had recently arrived in our town. I was to document their transition to the Bluegrass.

Normally, this kind of story would have been no problem. I’d show up, spend an hour asking questions, then go back to the newsroom and craft the piece. What my editor did not tell me, what he perhaps did not know, was that no one in the family I was supposed to interview spoke English.

In every interview, certain factors help the interaction flow. I have found that speaking a common language with your subject is high on that list. Finding a way around the lack of a shared tongue was a challenge. They spoke French. I took some French in high school, but soon realized this would be of little use if I wanted the interview to consist of more than my saying over and over to them “This is my pencil. This is my notebook” and recording their reactions.

However, I had been wise enough to prepare for occasions like this by marrying a woman fluent in French. Together, the Mrs. and I spent a couple of hours interviewing the family.

In the months following, we befriended them, having them to our home several times for dinner or desert.  These were often awkward meals. Struggling to overcome the language barrier was only part of it. Bridging the cultural gap was another hurdle. Once we were able to talk, we had to figure out what to talk about, what we had in common and what our differences were.

In retrospect, I can see the cultural gap between us was nothing compared to speaking with the Amish who live, essentially, in our backyard. For one thing, I never had trouble confusing our African friends with historical reenactors.

Talking with the Amish family with whom we have been contracting for some work, I am often struck by a weird feeling of having come unstuck in time, like Billy Pilgrim.  I am beset with a subtle sense of no longer being in the world I have grown accustomed to.

I felt that way last night when we turned into their driveway after dark. We had received a letter from Noah, a man who has agreed to build us a fence for the back yard. He told us in the note we should stop by to discuss the details further.

Driving toward their home, we could see it was mostly dark. The faint glow of oil lamps or candles flickered in back windows.  When we arrived, the Mrs. and I got out of the van.

Two children, perhaps young teenagers, strolled out of the darkness.

Both times we have been to their home, I have felt an unusual urgency to explain what I am doing there.

“We’re looking for Noah,” I said.

The boy regarded me in silence.

“We’re looking for Noah,” I repeated.

“Yep,” he finally said.

Turning to the girl, he said something in that mix of German and Dutch and whatever else that I have come to call simply “Amish,” then turned back to watch us suspiciously and without comment.

We endured the awkward quiet.

The girl scurried to the house in her worn brown dress that, for some reason, was covered in streaks of white and pink paint.

“Papa! Papa!,” she shouted into lower level of their home.

A few seconds later, from a door in the front of the house where the carcass of a freshly slaughtered hog dangled, Noah emerged.

He walked toward us smiling.

He was more relaxed than he had appeared at our last meeting. His smile flashed more readily above the graying hair of his rough beard. He cracked jokes. His humor surprised me. As you may know, comedy is not a field in which the Amish have traditionally excelled.

His work on our fence has been delayed by the nice weather, he said. While the weather has been nice, there has been other work demanding to be done. He seemed to expect us to understand this. Perhaps, this sort of flexibility about work and the completion of projects, especially projects others are paying to have completed, is part of Amish culture. I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it is.

We left understanding that he would finish the fence. Then, he and one or more of his sons would drive into town on their wagon. They will come to our home to install the fence. We will, I suppose, shelter the horses in the garage while the men work.  We will furnish them a lunch.

Having them in our home will be interesting. It’s a risk, I know. At least with our African friends we had in common all the technology and values of the modern globalized world. Here, I don’t know what we’ll be facing. I only know I risk having my illusions shattered. I will be crushed, for example, if, upon entering, one of those  boys asks “Hey, do you guys have wi-fi?”

Read the other parts of this series here and here.