| Wake Up Barbara! And Help Me Find This Snake! Barbara Watson |
Jane MacDonald's review of Wake Up Barbara! And Help Me Find This Snake! Barbara Watson is one tough babe. The trouble was that when her brand-new husband spirited her off to the Dominican Republic to be a missionary's wife, she didn't know she was tough. I'm not sure she realizes it even now. Growing up in a loving family, Barbara was a good girl, the kind of girl who spends her teen years preparing herself to be a loving--and self-effacing--Christian wife. One of the reasons I like to read memoirs is to meet people who aren't the least bit like me, and in Barbara I hit the jackpot. Because her standards were so high, she didn't think much of herself, and everything in the DR conspired to confirm her opinion. Her husband Ralph, an intelligent, boisterous man, made people laugh and made himself indispensable. Barbara had a terrible time learning the language, cringed at the very thought of living in the bug-infested, primitive medical encampment, and never thought she was pulling her weight by sorting used spectacles and doing the other tasks she was assigned. She thought marriage would change her for the better--she'd become a more fitting wife for her charismatic husband. Listen to her: "But I'm still me, which is a disappointment." Ralph loved her, though, and pushed her to fly a little higher. She also thought that "being in a missionary setting, everyone would be sweet and kind." Guess what: they turned out to be people, and you know what they're like. But she hung in. I couldn't believe the naivete of this woman when I first started reading her memoir, which is put together as a series of letters she wrote and others wrote to her, but watching her grow was fascinating. And grow she did, while holding steadfastly to her principles and beliefs, and gradually coming to realize that God must have had a purpose when he made introverts like her. Not until her four years in the DR were over, and she found herself a job in an animal shelter when they moved to South Carolina, did she finally begin to recognize what she'd discovered: "I have always felt I'd be in the shadow of whoever I married and my needs would be filled by the fulfillment of his needs," she wrote to her best friend. "But you know something? I have needs, too." I felt like applauding when I read that. She tells the story of her unlikely courtship here, and it's poignant and hilarious at the same time. Life in the hinterlands of the DR was a hard school, and her letters are full of the places she saw and the people she met, and the mixed emotions they generated--this book would be invaluable for anyone who considers the missionary life, and illuminating to those of us who would never even think of such a thing. She calls those four years a profound learning experience, and people who read her letters will thank her for letting them live with her as she learned. Oh, about that snake. I'm not going to tell you what happened--you'll have to read the book yourself.--J.M. -- Jane MacDonald janemac98@lycos.com http://janemac98.tripod.com |