Part Time Gringa

I am always ready for the beginning of a new season, a new chapter. 

My favorite pages of a book are the ones set aside for new chapters. Anything can and will happen from the optimism of a fresh chapter. The excitement of unread words fuel the imagination of endless possibilities.

Logically, I know the beginning of one chapter is the end to another. I’m fine with that when I’m currently writing that chapter. Living the words as I write them is rarely as exciting as dreaming about them. Every letter, punctuation, and paragraph seem monotonous day to day, minute by minute. Until you finish and read that previous chapter.

As I’m writing the last words of this chapter the last period looks different. It feels different than I thought it would feel. It means something different to mean than I thought it would mean. The whole time I was living this last chapter in anticipation to start the next. Not until the last few paragraphs have I truly started to live the scene I’m currently in. I’ve changed my mind often on what I’ve felt the title should be of this last chapter,  “Morgan Takes the Dairy,” “When Will She LEAVE the Dairy,” “Love Cows, Not Men,” etc. However; as I reread this last chapter I see the nuggets of wisdom of why I was there and the potential of ones I will see later. 

The reality of waking up six days a week at 4:20 is not as glamorous as it seems. Working with mostly spanish speaking older men can be difficult, especially if you’re the only gringa (white woman). The daily grind of either cleaning the utters, putting on machines, moving pens, and constantly cleaning is hard mentally, physically, socially, and spiritually. Not many chiropractors exclaim “wow those are built forearms! “to a normal person, but dairymen have the privilege of over developed lower arms. Dairy cows are nothing like range angus cows. They are tired old betties weighing between 1,000-1,400 lbs, that oftentimes do not want to move. The carousel we work under of more than 1,300 cows everyday is a prime spot for yellow showers and what I like to call poop facials. If you know, you know. Between being yelled at in rapid spanish and missing church most Sundays my day to day could look pretty bleak.  

However, while living in God’s reality and not my own I see more intentionality in a job I always pictured as a space saver on my way to actual life. What began as a one year max part time job is becoming a testimony I’m still seeing unfold. Confession: I was so embarrassed when people asked if I still worked at the dairy, I would rush to supply that I’ve only been there a couple months. I would say this up to the two year mark. What I would have called an embarrassment that I spent most of my life with for over two years will probably refine my character for more years than I can count. 

Oh my goodness, what God has been teaching me through the action of working a job that society would deem beneath a white, woman, college grad, with a good opportunity for higher occupation is humbling. Even in this job I had managers come to me with four serious offers to jump the corporate ladder. It never sat right with my spirit to advance. Especially, when I have only been working some months to the years these men have been working beside me. I see now God was teaching me the riches of patient humility with a discipline to stay and keep learning it. God knew I needed to see and live amongst the working class of the United States economy. I will be unpacking what I have learned through these relationships with older mexican men probably the rest of my life. As I was chomping at the bit to go out in the world and gain knowledge and experience the way other people groups live life and figure out what they need, God led me to something better in my backyard. To visit a community that you deem needs help and that you can give it is one thing. To work the same job as these people work. To learn their family names and ask about them. To learn the beautiful nature of their culture along with the annoying. To be paid the same and treated the same. To learn even a small part of their language just to live the day to day. To be a part of a community where I am the foreigner in my home state. This is something different entirely. I can not take credit for intentionally looking for this experience. I was at a place to be easily led. From still following the last word God told me; to wait and also through shallow needs of money and work. He used a transitional season of life from being a student to still trying to figure out my life into a transformational experience. I’m not sure who all will be affected. 

I still struggle with the title of this past chapter. I reckon with an experience this rich in testimony I will always be renaming this two year period of my life. I’ve thought of “To me it will always be the 2 years I never asked for, but will never trade,” “God’s Grand Adventure In My Backyard,” “Ever Evolving Testimony From a Part Time Job,” “A Foreigner in My Home State,” “My Detour, Gods Planned Path,” “GODS WILL, done, did it, got the t-shirt,”. 

For now I’ve settled on: “Lessons from a Part Time Gringa,” I’m sure that will change.

Enjoy memory lane at the Dairy