Kalona, IA

“No dream comes true until you wake up and go to work.” – Amish proverb

This summer, I’ve come to empathize with the unemployed. Since returning from China, I set my alarm clock because I feel the need for structure; a structure that normally exists in going to a job. Days are spent catching up with friends, job searching, and doing leisurely things like baking bread. Now that I live in a new city, my local friend base has disappeared, leaving me with a little too much solitude. One thing that has been clear since moving to Iowa is that God is nudging me to write. It was this combination of hungering for writing inspiration, ample free time, and apathy towards the job search that resulted in yesterday afternoon’s adventure.

I put the keys in the ignition, positioned my sunglasses while looking in the rearview mirror, and entered Kalona, IA into my new GPS unit. Kalona is located fifteen miles southwest of Iowa City. Highway 1 quickly exchanges nondescript strip malls for gently rolling cornfields. Growing up near the Pacific Ocean, I used to imagine people in the middle of America who had never seen the ocean. I pitied them, whoever they were. How sad not to know the salty, slightly foul smell of tide flats; the sound of lapping waves and raucous seagulls; the vast spectrum of blues. Now I know that while I was busy feeling sorry for Midwesterners, there must have been a girl in Iowa pitying me. How sad that I didn’t know the way miles of fields can look like an animated artist’s canvas; the way the rustling wind dances through the rows, occasionally bending a stalk back in an impetuous dip. It’s a beautiful thing.

I knew I was getting close to town when I saw my first horse drawn wagon coming towards me on the road. A man with overalls, straw hat, and a squared-off beard loosely fingered the reins as my 60 mph dust invaded his tranquil ride. Kalona was established in the 1840’s when three Amish families settled in the area. Today, it is home to the largest Amish settlement west of the Mississippi River. Modern restaurants and businesses mix with tourist-attracting Amish shops and historical sites. For my first stop, I ate a sandwich for lunch at the Kalona Bakery. The downtown area was torn up with a road construction project, so I followed a detour along narrow side streets. That led me to Kalona’s Historical Village.

I parked in front, turned off the engine, and tried to assess whether or not it was worth visiting. The building’s exterior had no agenda, as far as enticing visitors. Just a simple, wooden sign and friendly curtains in the windows. In the end, my decision was made based on a need to use a restroom and wanting to escape the uncomfortably hot car. Three elderly women wearing matching patchwork vests greeted me from behind a large octagonal information desk. We smiled at each other for a moment and I tried to assess what this place was all about.

“What would you like to do, Sweetie?” a woman with “Anita” on her nametag asked.

“What can I do here?” I inquired back.

Anita explained the different tour options and the rooms I could see, with different prices.

“We close at 4, so you probably don’t have time for the long tour,” she said.

I looked at my watch. It was 2:30. From what I could see, the whole place would take me fifteen minutes tops to take in, and that was allowing for my restroom visit.

“How about the short tour?” I said.

I paid $6 and Anita’s teammate Ellen led me out the back door into the heat again. I thought it was a guided tour, but Ellen pointed to a row of outbuildings and explained that I should go inside each one and push the button. Then I would hear a recorded explanation of the historical site. With the exception of one retired couple, I was alone.

The first building was a post office. I unlatched the hook-and-eye door and stayed in the doorway, rather than going in. Truth be told, I was a little freaked out. The open door and one window provided the only light for the scene. Complete with a mannequin postmaster, everything was enclosed behind a glass wall. I saw the aforementioned button and reached inside far enough to press it firmly. At once, the glassy-eyed postmaster came to life, rotating from side to side, as the recording boomed about the rigors of sorting mail in the olden days. It was the historical equivalent of a haunted house. I slammed the door and jumped off the porch, shaking the spooky feelings off with a shimmy-like dance sequence. The door swung back open and I refused to go back and lock it. Ellen or Anita could see to that at four o’clock.

I looked at my watch. 2:34 and I was ready to go. Good thing I was too late to take the long tour. How was I going to kill enough time to justify spending six dollars and convince the information desk ladies that I was a mature adult who could handle their freaky row of fun houses? I stood in the shade for a few minutes, watched the retired couple smile at the antics of the general store mannequin, and then decided I could handle the barn of antique tractors. The barn was musty and quiet. I walked slowly, feeling like I’d shrunk – the machines towered over me. I got to the midpoint and remembered the postmaster. What if he had friends lurking in the corners, feigning tractor repair work? I made a 180 degree turn and booked it out of there.

Back in the hot sun, 2:40 pm. I took a deep breath and went inside the last building – a Mennonite Museum. Much to my joy and relief, there were other visitors milling about and a real live tour guide inside. I became a quick fan of these Mennonites. I decided to move around the large room in a clockwise direction. The first display showed a list of ministers from the early 1900’s. I gasped in delight when I noticed “Moses W. Yoder, 1933.” I happen to be dating a handsome Moses J. Yoder, 2010. I took a photo with my phone so I could show him evidence of his Mennonite counterpart later that day. The name Yoder was everywhere. I snapped several more pictures, should Jeremie be interested in seeing his last name on various farm items like feed sacks.

Before long, the tour guide came over and greeted me with, “And who are you?”

“Brooke Caldwell from Seattle, Washington. Who are you?”

“Ruth Yoder. Kalona, Iowa.”

I took to Ruth right away. She talked about the differences between Amish and Mennonite traditions and told stories about the items on display. Without her, I would have passed right over the funeral sticks. They were just a bundle of sticks, leaning against a display case. When she pointed them out, I saw that they had name tags affixed to them. Ruth explained that when someone died, a family member would cut a stick to match the person’s height and take the stick to the local coffin maker as a measurement. The coffin maker’s son had kept a collection of sticks and his family donated them to the museum after he died. I wonder if they made a stick for him too.

Ruth and I chatted about the museum, her growing up and living her whole life in Kalona, and what had brought me to Iowa. She told me she’d recently seen mountains in person for the first time when her daughter took her to South Dakota. It gave her appreciation for the words, “lofty mountain grandeur” in the hymn, “How Great Thou Art”. We sang a few bars together and smiled at God’s goodness in creation. Before I left, Ruth encouraged me that God indeed would take care of me – job-wise and otherwise. What a gift it was to meet her.

3:30 pm! Wow. I had just enough time to cruise through the Amish quilt collection in the main building. Anita smiled as I came back in, and gave me a laminated card with quilt information on it. The postmaster may not have had tractor-fixing friends, but he certainly had buddies in the quilt room. With Anita at my side, I kept my eyes up on the walls where the quilts were and refused eye contact with the life-sized plastic family, frozen in meal preparation and childcare poses. The quilts were beautiful and reflected Amish values. For example, red was hardly used because it’s seen as a flashy color and they don’t believe in calling attention to themselves. I left at 3:45 with a Fall Festival flyer in hand and a promise to return for the festivities later in September.

On my way home, I made two stops: first, to drop off a resume at a Christian school and second, to buy a snack at the famous Stringtown Grocery. Stringtown is an Amish-run store that offers fresh produce, snacks, bakery items, and bulk goods. I walked inside and turned down the first aisle. There was a wide cart of items blocking the way and a dress-covered backside and legs with black wool stockings stuck out, kneeling behind the cart. I squished past and the old woman stood up, her white bonnet reaching just below my shoulder. I looked at the large collection of bulk spices, labeled by hand. As I moved toward the back of the store, I was perplexed by how dark it was. What was going on? Think, Brooke. You’re in an Amish store. No electricity. Just sky lights.

After exploring the small store, I bought a small bag of peanuts from a tall young woman behind the counter. She wore a modest light blue cotton dress, apron, and a white bonnet partially covered her blonde bun. Behind her, a wooden sign listed the prices of bulk goods. They were listed in 25 and 50 pound increments. What does one do with 50 pounds of flax seed?

The bell hanging from the door rang lightly as I left and got back in the car. Seatbelt fastened and air-conditioning flowing, I looked behind me before backing out. Wonder of wonders, there was the little old woman who had been stocking shelves a moment ago. She was backing her Oldsmobile out of the parking spot to my left! She could barely see over the steering wheel and the car moving was evidence that somehow her feet could reach the gas pedal. But, driving? What kind of Amish woman did she think she was? I’ve since learned that there are varying degrees of rules within the Amish community. The Old Order does not use electricity, telephones, or other modern conveniences, while far on the other end of the spectrum, “Beachy” (named for a family) Amish drive cars, use electricity, and have modern farm equipment.

I drove back to town on Highway 1, past a “Watch Out for Horse Drawn Vehicles” sign and a cluster of kids in overalls and homemade dresses. The corn provided a gorgeous backdrop for white sheets blowing dry on a farmhouse clothesline. Before long, I was back on Iowa City’s brick streets, passing gas stations, university buildings, and old churches. What a rich day. I don’t have work to get me out of bed, but I am certainly grateful that I get to wake up in Iowa. I hope the postmaster stays out of my dreams.

Iowa State Fair

“This is Kaitlin’s first funnel cake!” - overheard at the Iowa State Fair, Des Moines, IA

When my brother Brent told his Iowan co-workers that his little sister was moving to their homeland, they all agreed on one thing: going to the State Fair was a must. Not ones to miss out on must-see opportunities, Jeremie and I drove to Des Moines last Friday. The charcoal sky looked menacing as we set out, and gave way to a good hard rainstorm before we arrived. I put our valuables in a plastic bag inside my backpack and we committed ourselves to getting wet and muddy. Other fair-goers had a similar attitude, happy to don plastic ponchos and step around puddles. A sparsely toothed, smoking parking attendant waved what looked like a crowbar and directed us to the closest entrance. That’s where we met Charlotte. Her white hair and glasses made me wonder if Charlotte had been attending the Iowa State Fair for decades. At this Fair, she was in charge of the ticketing. She manned that booth with genuine friendliness, but refused to let chit chat sway her from the task at hand. Jeremie bantered with her, while she adeptly handled our indecision about using a bank card or cash to pay. We left the booth with tickets and a mostly dry Fair Guide.

Our first stop was the exhibition hall that held the prize winning food entries. Jeremie’s roommate Will comes from a famous family, as far as the Fair is concerned. Will’s dad cleans up in the canning division. We peered through the glass, looking at shelf after shelf of Iowa’s best. If you can eat it, someone had canned it. There was even a “Fruit Other Than Named” and “Meat Other Than Named” prize, which someone explained was when the entrant had mixed ingredients beyond the category title (like a cherry-plum jam in the plum category). Will’s dad certainly dominated. I smiled when I overheard two ladies comment on it, “Gosh, that Rod Zeitler got everything, didn’t he?”

Looking at all of that food made us hungry, of course, so we headed for the main drag. We took a brief detour at the Exotic Animals Petting Zoo, saying hi to some not-so-exotic-but-very-cute goats, some camels, and a horse. “Feed the animals! Dollar a cup!” a woman in a folding chair called out every few seconds. As we exited, Jeremie noticed a sign which read, “Don’t Feed the Animals.” He asked the “dollar a cup” woman how this fit with her business and she said that sign was there because they used to have baby lions and tigers in the Zoo. Enough said.

The rain had eased into a sprinkle by the time we started looking at our lunch options. After our initial walk-through, this much was clear: just like we had committed to getting wet, we were going to have to commit to eating a lot of fried food. Mac ‘n cheese, Oreos, Twinkies, candy bars, chicken, hot dogs…all deep-fried for your cardiac roulette pleasure. One booth gave me hope with its listing of vegetables and cheddar cheese, until I realized that those too were victims of the deep fryer. Jeremie and I started with a deep-fried Twinkie. While waiting in line, we interviewed a young couple embarking upon their first deep-fried Snickers experience. The girl seemed to resist taking a bite and ended up with barely a nibble. I wonder if that’s a front all us girls need in such a situation. Like, somehow it’s not ladylike to admit that that much fat tastes really good. We watched our Twinkie take its greasy hot tub soak, and then Jeremie went for the first bite. Not bad. Like the Snickers girl, I took a tentative bite. Twinkies aren’t culinary masterpieces in the first place, so when you batter and deep-fry them, they remain their okay Twinkie selves, cloaked in the intrigue of wanton disregard for everything you know about health.

Our meal continued with a steak sandwich, hot, homemade potato chips, a giant lemonade, and a funnel cake. Eating gave us a wonderful opportunity to people-watch. Families and farm-wear presided. I took a photo of three elderly citizens on scooters; the lead granny sporting a fuzzy pink hat in the shape of a pig. Several families kept little ones close with the help of a leash. One grandma, dressed in red, white, and blue, wove through the crowd with two little girls, the younger on a leash. I would have put money on the leashed girl’s ability to knock grandma right over, if she had a mind to run after some cotton candy. Maybe she had been trained since babyhood to think that the leash was boss. Like strong carnival elephants who don’t realize they can break free from their little ankle chain.

The next stop was the baby animals barn. A golf cart with “Livestock Control” sped by us, no doubt on their way to apprehend the latest heifer escapee. I don’t consider myself a big city girl, but my exposure to farm life is limited. Little did I know how my eyes would be opened in this unassuming barn full of little corrals and small children running about. First, we took in the ducklings. Leaning over the railing, Jeremie kept account of which ducky was getting the best position in the huddle of fluffy sleepers. Then, we wriggled our way into a crowd of people waiting for chicks to hatch. Downy newborns sat in the heated cage amidst eggs at various stages. Some eggs were empty remnants, others had hopeful cracks, and the rest looked untouched. I had high hopes for seeing my first chick hatching and felt sure that the fourth egg from the left was wobbling from the efforts of that baby trying to emerge. Sadly, the miracle of life requires an attention span of greater than five minutes. I got bored and we moved on.

There was a line to see some piglets, so we shuffled single file past the huge mothers with their busy, buffet-style underbellies. Jeremie and I spent a long time near the sheep. Their wobbly legged attempts to follow their mothers were pretty amusing. One sheep looked painfully pregnant. As we wondered when her labor pains might strike, our attention was suddenly redirected to the cluster of big screen TVs overhead. My eyes were riveted in awe and horror as the screens showed a female veterinarian, elbow deep in a pig’s you-know-what, assisting with a piglet’s birth. All of this was happening just 20 feet away in the corner stall that was currently swarming with onlookers. We watched the blood-covered newborn slip out and get a quick rubdown with a towel before it was held up to the camera lens, eyes just barely able to open. What a change to go from a nice, cozy womb to a barn full of spectators who smelled like fried food. I don’t envy that pig, but I’m glad I was there to marvel at its grand entrance.

After witnessing a live birth, all other venues took on a subdued quality. Jeremie and I ambled along, stopping to check out things as they interested us. We held some butterflies in the butterfly tent and took a picture with one perched on my nose; we sat and watched a chainsaw artist make a wooden lighthouse; two young carnies tried to cajole Jeremie into swinging the sledgehammer to ring the bell and win his woman a giant stuffed animal. There was a gospel quartet and a one-man band; a life-sized cow sculpted from butter; pumpkins big enough to provide all of Iowa with Thanksgiving pies. We found ourselves wandering the homemade quilts, half looking for Will’s mom’s entries, half in a stupor. It was time to go home.

Brent’s co-workers were right. It was an amazing event. Since last Friday, I’ve met Iowa natives who have never been to the Fair. That’s inconceivable. As an outsider, I thought seeing the Fair was part of embracing Iowa. I suppose that’s one benefit to living somewhere for the first time – everyday things become fascinating quests. As far as I can see, Iowa has a lot to offer.

"You Know You're In Iowa When..."

I would have been hard-pressed to think of anything to put in that blank two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, I was living in Seattle, visiting family and friends after spending a year away in Beijing, China. Somewhere in the middle of that year in China, I had to make a decision about what I would do the next year. I prayed and researched all sorts of options. Doors in Asia closed one by one, and I found myself waiting for divine direction the night before my decision had to be made. While hanging out with close friends that evening, I leaned back against the soft couch cushions and recounted my decision-making journey.

"Why don't you move to Iowa?", one friend said.

Silence. A furrowed brow.

"Seriously!", she pressed further, "Of all the things you're invested in, why not move to Iowa?"

She was right - I was invested in Iowa. Or, rather, my investment currently lived in Iowa. I'd been pursuing relationship with a friend from Seattle who was getting an MBA at the University of Iowa. Things were going well, and as I let the idea sink in, it made sense to live in the same city.

Months later, here I am: sitting in an Iowa City coffee shop called T Spoons, drinking iced tea and looking out at the street as I type. I've been here just under two weeks, but I can fill in the blank pretty well already.

I know I'm in Iowa because....
-pedestrians seem to adhere to a town uniform; black and yellow with the word "IOWA" stamped somewhere on their person
-total strangers have plenty of time to chat with me
-I can buy corn and green beans at the Farmers Market that were picked this morning
-Amish families sell baked goods at the Farmers Market (hooray for Mr. Yoder)
-cicadas sing me to sleep at night
-wherever I drive, I'm bound to see a cornfield

So, here's to a year of exploring my own country. It's obviously quite different from exploring China, but my method will be similar: build community, observe details, try new things, and push my comfort zone. I'll start by getting myself a pair of jogging pants with "IOWA" on the bum...