Thought it was time to share some of my more recent thoughts
on the language and culture barrier!
There have been quite a few times when I have not known a
phrase or common expression, and therefore end up sounding weird. For example,
when getting up from the dinner table to go to the bathroom recently, I
realized that I didn’t know how to say “Be right back”, so I ended up saying “I
will return”. Weird, right?
I can’t multitask and still listen to people (or
half-listen) like I can in English. Like in English I can half-watch TV and
half-listen (and understand) conversations around me. Here I can’t do that. I
have to give it (listening/understanding) my FULL attention, and even then I often
still get lost. It sucks when I’m not listening to a conversation (from either
being lost in the conversation, from mental exhaustion, or from thinking about
something else) and I hear my name in the conversation. Suddenly all eyes turn
to me or someone laughs, and I have no idea how to respond or what to say since
I don’t know why they said my name. I usually default to saying “Yes” or “No”
and laughing hesitantly, which has gotten me a reputation for always saying
“No” to certain people in our group, and “Yes” to others. It’s now a joke among
us, with more than a little bit of truth to it...
Hearing “Ella no entendiรณ” (“She didn’t understand”) in a conversation is the
worst feeling. I may not know what they had said before, but I sure understand
that phrase, and it makes me feel stupid and like the person is frustrated with
me.
Recently I’ve been having a hard time maintaining
concentration while listening to group conversations. I don’t want to say I’ve
gotten lazy or anything, but my brain is just not wanting to keep up with full-on
group conversations. I’ve had a lot of other things that I’ve been thinking
about in relation to my project and that putting 100% into comprehending
conversations is just not happening right now.
I’m REALLY bad at approaching people here (for example, to get
people in the communities to do a focus group) because I don’t know the proper
greetings here. Normally (in English) I’m fairly good at approaching people if
needed, but here I clam up and don’t know what to say to initiate a
conversation.
Now for one of the cultural differences that I am still not
used to here: the whole hugging and kissing cheeks to say hello and goodbye
thing. When women greet each other or say goodbye to each other, they give a
quick side “kiss” (but without lip contact, it’s more of a cheek thing). I’m
getting better at remembering to do this with women, but still forget
sometimes. When I say hello or goodbye to a man, I’m still confused about
whether I’m supposed to shake hands, fist bump, or side kiss. I think I’ve seen
all three done (depending on the people and the context), and because of my
confusion I end up making it extremely awkward (at least in my mind). I often
forget about doing it, and then awkwardly remember and end up messing it up. There
have been a couple of occasions when I accidentally went in too directly and
made lip-to-cheek contact, making it more like a real peck on the cheek than a
courtesy gesture. It’s just not something I’m used to doing!
I am certainly experiencing my fair share of language and
cultural struggles, but that’s all part of the fun of living and working in
another country!
While I may speak a different language than the people
here, EVERYONE knows that a chocolate bar is the fix
when you're "kranky"!
And no matter your language or where you're from, cute
little animals make anything 10 x better, even paper towels!
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