“Third culture kid” tells transforming message
Canadian by birth, Nigerian by heritage, American by education, Patsy Orkar has worked in Haiti and Africa.
By Sue Careless
Special to ChristianWeek
 SUE CARELESS PHOTO Develpment worker Patsy Orkar will be learning her fifth language, Bambara, in her new assignment to Mali, West Africa. |
TORONTO, ON—In 1994, when Patsy Orkar was 23, she was stopped by Rwandan soldiers near the border of what was then Zaire. She was the only black travelling in a vehicle of white North Americans. She was searched because the soldiers feared she was carrying messages from Zaire into Rwanda. Despite her Canadian passport, the soldiers didn’t believe she was a Canadian or that her parents were living in Nigeria. But Patsy was a Christian development worker, not a spy, and they finally let her go. |
Now 27, Patsy surprises a lot of people. She is Nigerian by heritage, Canadian by birth and American by education. She describes herself as a third culture kid.
“When you grow up in a culture that is different from that of your parents, you learn from both cultures and develop your own mix.”
The Christian Reformed Church had evangelized Patsy’s Nigerian grandparents. She was born in Winnipeg while her father attended Mennonite Brethren Bible College (now Concord College).
Patsy was a baby when her family moved to Halifax so her father could study at Dalhousie University. The family then moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, for a year while her father taught at Calvin College. Patsy missed the Maritimes and looked forward to returning home. She was shocked when her parents decided to return instead to Nigeria.
In Africa, her parents were employed by the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC), her mother as a nurse, her father as a development worker.
Expectations frightening
The Orkars had tried to teach their three daughters the Tiv language but now they lived in a region that spoke Hausa. Patsy found people’s expectations frightening.
“People assumed because my parents were Nigerian and understood Nigerian culture, that I should fit right in. I didn’t. I was in grade 7 and hated being ridiculed. Unlike my sisters, I resisted acclimatizing to the Nigerian culture and clung to being Canadian.”
She still lived in an urban setting, attended an American school and a Tiv church but found it a hard adjustment. “I was seen as the rich kid and some friendships were based on what people felt they could get from me.”
With the birth of two younger brothers in Nigeria, Patsy’s immediate family increased to seven and there was a multitude of relatives. Her father alone had 21 brothers and sisters.
“They felt they knew me but they were all strangers. They felt close bonds but I didn’t.” Her educated parents were respected by their extended family and many cousins moved into their home. There were never fewer than 12 and often 16 people under one roof.
“There is no social welfare system in Africa so it is up to the family to provide and ‘family’ extends to fifth and sixth cousins.” Patsy came to appreciate her relatives. “It was easy to socially miscue and those cousins my age were the cultural interpreters for me.”
Patsy grew to cherish her communal society. “In Africa you value people more than time. If you meet someone on the road, better stop to talk and be late than offend the person.”
Returned to Africa
Patsy gradually realized that, like her parents, she too had the ability to live on two continents. After studying psychology at Calvin College, she returned to Africa in 1994, volunteering for 15 months in Rwanda and Zaire.
Rwanda was emerging from a horrific genocide. Patsy worked with a Rwandan team sponsored by the CRWRC, the Canadian Foodgrains Bank and USAID. The team provided emergency food, seeds and tools to help needy families, regardless of their ethnic group, re-establish their farms. Orkar’s team identified the neediest families and individuals--not an easy task.
Patsy then moved on to work with a CRWRC-supported project called ChildWINS! Organized by Food for the Hungry International, ChildWINS! placed orphans with foster families. Since these families were often poor, the project’s financial support enabled them to feed and clothe another child. The foster family program also helped reunite communities ravaged by ethnic violence. Hutu families were caring for Tutsi children and vice versa. Patsy helped more than 3,000 children resettle.
She and her colleagues travelled throughout the region trying to locate parents or relatives based on information provided by the children themselves. Children as young as two or three sometimes remembered local landmarks. “It’s surprising how many children could be traced.”
Patsy then spent two years in Haiti, again with CRWRC. The poorest country in the western hemisphere, Haiti has a long history of dependency on foreign aid. CRWRC wanted to break that dependency by training local leadership.
Patsy concentrated her efforts on four grassroots community organizations, providing strategic planning and leadership training. She found working with the youth particularly rewarding.
“While Haitian youth respect their elders, it doesn’t prevent them from speaking out. What hinders youth in Haiti is fatalism, the attitude that ‘I can’t do anything that will make a difference.’ If they have no hope, nothing will change.”
For the next three years Patsy will be project developer in Mali, West Africa, for CRWRC, consulting with three local NGOs. She will have to learn a fifth language, Bambara.
The third culture kid finds crossing cultures easier now. And if she carries any message, Patsy Orkar makes no secret of it: Christ’s love transforms both individuals and cultures.
