“This is an Experience I Refuse to be Denied!” (a tribute to Tom and Betty Sue Brewster)
reposted from https://contextualliving.wordpress.com/2025/02/20/this-is-an-experience-i-refuse-to-be-denied-a-tribute-to-tom-and-betty-sue-brewster/
In the spring of 1983, as we were preparing to move overseas for the first time, to Tunisia, we had an encounter that changed our lives.
We were going to Tunisia for my ethnographic fieldwork for my degree in Anthropology (and to see if we might be interested in being there longer term). I wanted to do my research in Arabic, and therefore planned on a three year period in Tunisia, to learn Arabic and conduct my research (how I thought I would be able to do that in just three years, I don’t know!).
When we were in southern California that spring before our move to Tunisia, we arranged a meeting with Tom and Betty Sue Brewster, who taught language learning and cultural adaptation at Fuller Seminary. That couple of hours deeply impacted how we approached our time in Tunisia, and indeed, has continued to impact the 42 years since.
I had heard about the Brewsters during my time at Bethel College (MN), through two world class linguists I studied under there, Don Larson and Bill Smalley. Don and Bill, among other professional endeavors, had taught at the Toronto Institute of Linguistics with the Brewsters, and spoke highly of them.
Tom and Betty Sue went on to develop what was know as the “LAMP (Language Acquisition Made Practical) Method,” which emphasized learning language and culture in the context of living with the local people (rather than in a language school).
Tom’s enthusiasm was contagious, and his vision gripped us. We left the time with them with a set of 30 hours of their language and culture learning teaching, which we listened to twice during our first months in Tunisia.
Tom repeatedly made declarations which stuck with us and guided our thinking. The great declaration over all was his “this is an experience I refuse to be denied!” which has been a byword of ours ever since, and which our MESP students and others have repeatedly heard me say. Tom was referring to the great privilege of entering the lives of the local people, living with them and learning from them – refusing to hide away in the comfortable confines of a language school, choosing to ride public transportation rather than driving around in what he called an “isolation capsule” (i.e., a private automobile), humbling oneself before the local people and culture as a learner who doesn’t know anything but is hungry and teachable.
Among his other phrases:
“Millions of people have studied language without learning it [I certainly had, both Spanish and Russian], but billions of people – every single human being – have learned language without studying it!” – referring to the fact that learning language and culture is a natural human activity, but that it happens in life among people, not in a classroom.
“A learner is never behind, but a student almost always is!” – referring to the fact that schools set up programs and then teach them regardless of the particular needs of students, whereas if you are a learner you guide your learning, at your own pace, according to your needs (and learn what you need, rather than studying for exams).
Among his practical learning guidelines, he always said “learn a little, use it a lot!” and encouraged us to “get what you need” and learn it by using it.
And he encouraged us not to rely on expats, but to seek help directly from the local people, to share our neediness and dependence, assuring us that “people help people in need!”
That meeting in Pasadena cemented our determination to go straight into the Tunisian dialect of Arabic, and not to study French first (as some people had recommended to us, in order to be able to get by when we first arrived, French being the strong second language in Tunisia). It left us enthusiastic about meeting Tunisians, entering into their life, seeking to find a family to live with, and spending as much time as possible with people, learning from them.
It was not easy, but Tom gave us some guiding principles that have served us to this day, and become part of the heart and soul of who we are as we have lived in and sought to adapt to the world of others.
He helped us to see what a great privilege it is to enter the world of others, to be taken in, offered hospitality, taken care of. To make local friends, and become part of their lives.
Armed with this vision, we landed in Tunis on May 31, 1983. We went to a no star hotel downtown (I was at my most frugal then), a $4 per night double that we found listed in the “Let’s Go Europe” guidebook we had, which had a section on Tunisia (those were the days with no cell phones and no internet). We hit the streets seeking to meet and talk with people. When we would meet someone who spoke some English we would start with what we needed – “how do you say?”…
“Hello, my name is Doug, what is your name?”
“How are you today? I am fine.”
In response to the “where are you from?” which we were always asked at that point, “how do you say?”…
“I’m from America”
(where in America?) “from Rhode Island” (which no one had ever heard of)
(where is that?) “between Boston and New York” …
And on from there. We would literally wander around in the medina (old city), because there were lots of shops and lots of people there, and say over and over again, for hours, from person to person, “Hi, my name is Doug / Patti. What’s your name?” “How are you today?” “We’re from America, from Rhode Island. That’s between Boston and New York. Where are you from – Tunis?” “We’re learning Arabic.” And then, of course, “we only speak a little Arabic” (the problem in speaking a few words fluently is, people have a hard time believing you don’t know more than that).
When that’s all you know, you get stuck quickly, and need to move on to the next person.
We were hoping, every day as we ventured out from our no star hotel (it was not the kind of place you wanted to spend time in when you didn’t have to) to find people who were interested in talking with us (and we did!). And we were hoping to find people who might invite us home (and we did!).
There was Ahmad, who spoke some English, who we met outside the train station one hot summer evening, and who took us home to meet his mother and sisters. They shared food with us, and we spent an evening learning words for physical objects that were present, like spoon and fork and bowl and table (not that we could use those words in a sentence or conversation!).
There was Othman, who spoke no English, who we met in a Patisserie when we stopped to buy cold glasses of citronade (delicious, thick lemon juice with rind blended in) on a very hot summer day. Othman for some reason took a liking to us, indicated that we should return, and enthusiastically interacted with us. He soon indicated that he wanted to meet us when he finished work (I don’t know, really, I never understood, how he communicated so well to us, not knowing any English, when we had virtually no Arabic). Othman took us to his home, and to his sister’s home, and to the zoo, and to a circumcision ceremony weekend (there are several interesting stories in there!). He was like an angel from God, in how he delighted in helping us learn baby Arabic. I still remember times when he helped us learn words for items of clothing, and colors. And a time walking to the beach with him and his nieces and nephews, teaching us the phrase “I see…” and then: a tree / trees, a cow / cows, a dog / dogs, and more.
There was Ali, who was fluent in English, who we bumped into on Ave. Bourguiba one day. He was heading to the U.S., and we put him in touch with friends in RI. They did a great job hosting him, and when he returned, he was determined to help us as much as possible. He had us out to his village, Soliman, to visit and stay with his sister’s family, and to attend yet another circumcision ceremony (we got invited to a lot of those in the early years, and I ended up being the event photographer, thrust front and center to take pictures of the whole procedure – an experience I was not sure I didn’t want to be denied!).
Every time we were invited home by someone we accepted the invitation with joy and amazement! What a privilege, in a foreign land, to be befriended and taken home, and to be offered food and drink and loving hospitality! Learning language a word at a time, out on the streets and in peoples homes, often felt painfully slow, but the joy of the relational opportunities and all that we learned from just being around people, made it so worth it!
There was Thoraya, who we met on the beach in Tabarka the first time we visited that northwestern coastal town (about 3 months into our time, so we had a bit more vocabulary by then). We had a tent with us, and put it up on a random empty beach outside of town. In the morning we were walking into town and as we passed her said “aaslama” (greetings, literally “with peace”). She stopped and said, “you speak Arabic?!” and asked where we were from and where we were staying, and when she heard we tented on the beach said “no! You can’t do that! You must come home with me!” It turned out that her “home” was just a rented room, as their family – mother, father, brother, grandmother, and a chicken that turned out to be waiting to be killed and cooked! – was spending a vacation month in Tabarka. They took us in, gave us mattresses on the floor among the rest of them had (in a totally unfurnished room). We spent a couple of nights with them, and were invited to eat with them. What an amazing opportunity! It was truly “an experience we refused to be denied!” I remember, too, visiting a fortress in Tabarka with Thoraya, learning the phrase, “This is a beautiful view.” Language learning in context – the most enjoyable kind of learning!
There was Jamal, who we met on our first trip south, when we decided to take the train to Sfax and then to Gabes, during the Eid holiday (little did we know that everyone in Tunis who was from the south would be taking the train home the same day we were – by the time the train stopped in the Tunis station it was “standing room only” full, and we ended up standing in the entry way, with the doors open and hot dusty wind blowing on us, the whole 5 hours to Sfax – after which we spent the night in a $3 per night negative star hotel that I would not want to return to!). When we were getting the train for Gabes Jamal started talking to us. When we were pulling into Gabes a few hours later, in the pitch darkness of midnight in that oasis town, and we asked Jamal if he knew of a youth hostel or no star hotel we might go to, he insisted that we go home with him (“people help people in need!”). We enjoyed a bed and a warm breakfast with his family the next day, before we headed on our way to Jerba.
On that same trip there was a police station janitor in the desert town of Douz (whose name I don’t even recall). We had received a ride from Jerba to Douz, and were dropped off late at night, again in the pitch dark. We checked out a no star hotel that did not meet Patti’s most basic standards (she had veto power on where we stayed), and we went to a local police station to ask where we could pitch our tent. To make a long story short, the janitor offered that we could go home with him. We walked a couple of kilometers into the desert (sand dunes and palm trees), and he received us into his one room home (his wife looked rather shocked to see foreigners coming into their home with her husband!). We ate a very simple dinner with them (including fresh milk from their goat!), and then slept, all in the same room, at the foot of their bed. When we asked at one point during the evening about going to the toilet (which was challenging given the state of our Arabic – note: always learn early on, the vocabulary for going to the bathroom!), he simply motioned to the door and said “go out.” When I went out, all I could find was palm trees and rolling sand dunes, so I wandered a bit a picked a spot.
And then there was Mahrez, who became my closest friend for a long stretch of time, someone I spent more time with than anyone else, and who I am still in touch with and get to see occasionally. About 4 months into our time in Tunisia I dropped by a basketball court near our house to see if I might find opportunity to play and perhaps make some local friends. I chatted with some of the guys, and said I would return the next day. When I returned, I noticed a man who did not at all look typically Tunisian (Tunisia was very secular at the time) – he had a beard, a white turban, and a long white robe (clearly “religious”). He walked definitely and intentionally toward me (I felt a bit “targeted”). He stuck out his hand with a smile, and introduced himself (and said, “the guys from my neighborhood told me yesterday that a guy from the CIA had showed up at the court!”).1 We chatted a bit, and he invited me to get together the next day.
That next meeting he said to me, “it is my duty as a Muslim to go to your country to share Islam with you; but God brought you to my country – and I am at your service. Whatever you need, however I can help you, I am available.” I was thrilled, because I was so needy! I needed a friend. I needed help with Arabic. I needed to learn about Islam, and to figure out what the focus of my fieldwork would be. And so I began spending time with Mahrez, and found all of that and more. He welcomed me to hang out with him as much as I wanted – sometimes in a small store he would work in, in his neighborhood; for a period of time, in a little shack near a construction site, where we would spend the morning making sandwiches for workers who would show up and buy them on their lunch break (and then Mahrez and I would make ourselves sandwiches, and have leisurely conversation as we enjoyed them); often, we spent time together at his home. I had countless meals with Mahrez. And I learned so much from our time together – I have notebooks full of Arabic notes from our conversations, and what I learned of his experience of Islam in the “Da’wa and Tabligh” group he was part of, became a significant part of my dissertation.2
One day he invited me to join he and his friends in the mosque, for a discussion circle of “Da’wa” friends of his (on that visit, I unexpectedly ended up next to him in line, praying, and had to watch him carefully out of the corner of my eye to figure out what I was supposed to do). Another time he invited me to have a dinner of couscous in his neighborhood mosque during Ramadan. That was the time I learned an invaluable concept for cultural adaptation. He had brought what he said was a “special drink” that you should always have with couscous, called Raieb. When he poured it, it was like a semi-coagulated yogurt/milk drink. Just watching it pour made my stomach churn. I had a firm principle of receiving hospitality, eating and drinking whatever was set before us, but I didn’t think I could handle this new drink. In grasping for a way to refuse this experience, I said that I didn’t want any because “I’m not used to it.” Mahrez thrust a glass in my direction and said, “you’ll get used to it!” That first glass was a challenge, but guess what? I did get used to it, and now I crave it (and was delighted, after 30 years of living without raieb, to find an equivalent drink in Morocco!).
I could go on and on with more “experiences we refused to be denied!” that we were blessed with, that helped us to love our lives in Tunisia, and that played a significant role in the fact that we are still in the region 42 years later. (We have had such experiences everywhere we have lived, in Egypt and Lebanon and Jordan and Jerusalem. I’ll relate more of them over time.)
I’ll end now, though, with this thought: I am thankful for meeting Tom and Betty Sue Brewster that day at Fuller, for their vision and passion and enthusiasm, and for the impact they had on our lives. His “this is an experience we refuse to be denied!” became and still is our mantra, and has shaped our outlook and approach, our way of living and thinking about life in different places. To this day, we are gripped with a sense of what a great privilege it is to live among people in a different culture, to be able to make friends and spend time and enter into their world, and how incredible it is to be invited into peoples’ homes and lives. Just yesterday we met a Moroccan who said he’d like to have us home to meet his mom and have a meal during Ramadan (coming up in March), and that makes us so excited!
We don’t know what all “experiences we refuse to be denied!” we will have in the coming weeks, months, and years, but we are on the lookout for them with eager anticipation!3
To be clear, I have never had anything to do with the CIA, but often ran into the unfortunate reality during our years in Tunisia that people would somehow think that Americans in Tunisia were with the CIA. One time when I was with Mahrez at some kind of gathering he said to me, “you know what the guys are saying about you?” I said, “let me guess: that I’m with the CIA?” He said “yes, how did you know?” I asked him what he said to that, and his response was, “a true believer only fears God” and “why in the world would the American government be interested in you guys?!”
“Islamic Reform in Contemporary Tunisia: A Comparative Ethnographic Study.” Brown University Anthropology Department, 1987. Unpublished.
A topic for another day is, how do you cultivate this attitude and approach if you don’t have it? I for one grew up rather monoculturally, did not have an adventurous desire to experience the new and different. My exposure to anthropology helped. And over time, I just decided to approach life this way. I am a firm believer in our ability to grow as human beings, to change, to learn to like things that we don’t enjoy when we first encounter them. I believe we all have the ability to live intentionally, to make choices, to develop flexibility (I was once told, when I was in college, that my greatest issue was “lack of flexibility!” I think that was true at the time, and that it is rather ironic that I ended up living cross-culturally for the past 42 years, in situations in which one of the most necessary things is flexibility! Does God have a sense of humor, or what? More on this another time.
