Tribe of Stinson – Living In South Korea

The First Time Around

We are supposed to be here.  It’s kind of a God thing.

You see,  three years ago when the kids and I visited,  we were offered an unprecedented command sponsored slot.  That was before they threw open the floodgates and said everybody could get their families here.  It used to be impossible for even Commanders to get the privilege.  Well Hubby was just an enlisted guy but he was working for the Joint Provost Marshal in Yongsan.  I guess they loved him and wanted to keep him in his job,  so they invited the whole family to stay.  I should have been overjoyed and amazed.

But I was having a hard time.  It was about one month in to our summer long visit and I was on overwhelm.

I thought life was really tough with no car, no phone to reach my husband and a 20 minute walk to be able to get to him in case there was an emergency with the kids.  I was on my own for the majority of the day, trying to keep them happy and entertained with no friends and no real way to get around.  They spent many hours playing their video games and I just sat around and read books and pined for home with all it’s familiar comforts.  I desperately missed my friends and church.  Hubby and I had been apart for many months and were experiencing that strange disconnect that can occur after a long separation  as well.  I had come all around the planet to be with him and it wasn’t the romantic getaway that I had hoped for.

If I wanted groceries I had to get me and the kids to wear our backpacks and only buy so much.  We could only take home what we could carry on our backs.  It was hot and extremely humid.  The back packs were very heavy on the return trip home and the boys complained constantly.  The other way was we had the option of hiring a taxicab at $8.00 a pop.  We did that a lot too.  The prices in the commissary boggled my brain,  they were sometimes double what I had been paying in Missouri.  I had no idea how we would be able to afford to live here.  Back then they offered $100.00 as COLA  (Cost Of Living Allowance).  It was not enough to cover the difference in prices.

We got out during Hubbys’ days off only.  They were great trips and we went to go see the palaces and museums.  I fell in love with the history here but felt so afraid to go out on my own with the kids.  They were rambunctious and I did not relish the thought of disciplining them in public in Korean spaces.  I had no idea of how to behave and did not want to embarrass myself or them.   Just to get them to walk everywhere was so hard,  they were not used to it and complained every step of the way whenever we got out.  It was just simpler to stay in the apartment and hide many days.

But even inside the house I still could not get peace.  It was cramped and my kids’ video games got on my nerves.  In the streets were Bongo trucks loaded down with garlic or tomatoes and they would drive down our street with loudspeakers shouting out their sales in an unintelligible tongue.  The city never slept, and it roared constantly.  Compared to our house in the country, it was hell.  I was not only in a new country, I was in a huge teeming metropolis.  It was all so foreign and unfamiliar.

But despite all this I knew that we were supposed to stay.  I felt that if I did not stay with my husband in Korea,  that I would somehow be responsible if he had to deploy again.  Korea was our chance to keep him safe and out of harms way.  I felt that God kept asking me to give over my fears about staying and let Him handle it.  I kept begging Him for another option.  I was in culture shock but I didn’t know it.

But that’s not ultimatly what undermined us living in Korea back then.  My youngest Joshua,  came down with a strange rash.  It started out as a bug bite on his leg.  Korean mosquitoes make Americans swell violently.  I guess our antibodies are not equipped to handle the poison the same way we can deal with the bugs at home.  Josh has always been allergic to many things.  His body started to get hives all over and then a new rash appeared alongside the old one.  Then another unique rash began to crawl all over his body too.  He had three different sets of hives all at the same time. We had been to the doctor once during the first week before it was severe and the medicine was not working.  We went back again, still no diagnosis.  But the third time we visited we went in to the ER because Josh was really bad this time.  He itched all over and the welts were as wide as his hand and bright red.  The doctor drew me aside and said he thought it might be Smallpox.

Oh how I panicked!

I blamed Korea.  I blamed all the rides on the subway.  I just knew somebody had given my baby an uncurable disease and now he was going to die.