Sink or Swim

There's a fine line between being overstaffed and understaffed. L'arche can only afford to pay me for the required full-time 40 hours per week of work. This goes for all the assistants. What that means for me is that I'm technically "off" more than I expected. I'm allowed 3 hours per day, 2 days per week (broken up over 3 days), one long weekend a month (3 days), and a full 10 days after 6 months. Like I said, I'm paid for 40 hours per week, but, since I live in Arahata in addition to working here, I'll actually "work" close to 70 or 80 hours per week. After the first 40, it's all tithe. I say "work" because L'Arche is definitely not traditional work. Most of what I do is just whatever is required for keeping up a household, which I'd be doing anywhere, regardless of my living situation or job.

A brief sidebar: Australia and New Zealand are unique in that full-time assistants are paid. Generally, L'Arche doesn't pay it's assistants at all, except for a small stipend for personal expenses. Of course, L'Arche here still accepts a good number of volunteer assistants as well. If we're comparing apples to apples, my employment here is a pretty sweet deal all around, it just cuts deeper emotionally and spiritually.

Lordy Mercy, talk about learning to swim upstream. Akiko, our house leader, is on her 10 day break right now, last weekend was Brenda's long weekend, an incomplete roster put Carly off for a full day and half, and everyone who's not at Arahata is either working with a behavioral crisis or helping out at the now overloaded Rangimarie house. If you do the math, it works out that yours truly was holding down the fort by myself for the large part of yesterday. I didn't know when I was on or off, since Rachel had to leave the house at 9 am. Neither did Carly, who proceeded to flip out during breakfast (behavioral problems, here we come). I was just playing it by ear, going through the motions until Michele showed up to give us the lowdown. Afterword, I continued to go through the motions while Carly went off anyway. Oh well. Sabbath is important, especially in L'arche. You've got to respect people's personal time and space.

But, here's my unexpected point to all that hubbub: I actually called on our core members for help. After all, they know the routine better than anyone else. As it turns out, Leighanne knows exactly where everything in the pantry goes and Kim can entertain herself for hours on end. With Kim and Leighanne's help, I managed to keep our house clean and maintained until Brenda got back, which was sooner than expected, since she forgot her pajamas. Upon learning of our difficulties in the past 2 days, she simply said, "Welcome to L'arche," in a perfect Kiwi accent. "Sweet as." To be totally honest, however, I don't think I was giving our core members enough credit. They're not as "poor" as people often make them out to be. In the future, this will perhaps be a point of argument that I have with Jean Vanier, philosophically.

This morning was church. One of the core members in my house doesn't go to church with everyone else because she has a hard time with a few of the folks there, emotionally. As such, she does Mass on Thursday mornings during a special service. So, while everyone was out at St. Patrick's Sunday morning, I got to "do something interactive" with this core member one-on-one. We read books (she even read a few to me), did a few jigsaw puzzles, and then watched Mamma Mia!, a musical which our house thoroughly enjoys 2 to 4 times daily.

This is a simple, slow life, but it's one that I think I could get used to. A few core members actually seem to like me, which is also unexpected. I know because of physical contact and nonverbal signs more than verbal language. My right ear has been getting a lot of love in the past few days. Transition is very hard for core members, but the general mood of our house is much more upbeat and less depressing than when I first arrived. I understand now why Tim continued to work for L'arche even back in the States. It's like a ready-made family; a whole community that just wants to love and be loved. Anybody can come here with the fullness of their person, warts and all. L'Arche just receives and gives and receives and gives. Sweet as, indeed.