Culture Shock

I am writing this from my Dad's office in Oregon. The weather is cool but sunny, and a little over a week ago I was in Panama.  I love coming home, and I love to see everyone, but I don't look forward to switching cultures.

When you go live in another culture, much of your energy is spent trying to learn the new rules.  Your eyes are always open, observing how people interact, and trying to learn what is appropriate in each situation.

When you are in your home culture, it's all pretty automatic.  You know what is right and wrong, acceptable or unacceptable to the culture.  And you feel free to challenge those norms as you wish, since it is your own culture.

The tricky part comes in when you return to your own culture after an absence. After spending so much time learning about your host culture, you find yourself back home, but nothing seems to fit anymore.  What used to be intuitive now feels uncomfortable.

I find that for me, the emotionally energy needed can be exhausting. I find myself on edge, wondering if I will offend someone by accident.  It feels like it is hard to get my bearings.

Just a quick example:

In Panama, especially among the Wounaan, the Mom of the household is in charge of serving the food. She decides how much each person can have, so that no one is left out. This applies for drinks and snacks too. If guests come to our house and are offered coffee, they expect me to serve the coffee into their mug, bring them the mug with the sugar and a spoon (and milk if available) so that they can put in the sugar. Then I will do the same for all the guests.

If I simple point towards the coffee maker and offer coffee, the guests will feel uncomfortable taking it on their own.

So last week my parents had some guests over at their cottage (the guest house where we are staying, but also used for prayer meetings and bible studies).  One of the guests said she would like tea, so I served her tea, brought her the cup of tea, the sugar and the milk and placed it all on a table beside her.  She said thank you, but seemed quite surprised, as if she wasn't expecting that. Only afterwards did I realize that there might have been something unusual about my actions.

It's just a small example, and in this case, no harm done.  But I wanted to share this to illustrate a bit of what it's like to travel back and forth between cultures.  So what is the moral of the story?  Give returning missionaries, immigrants, and other travelers the benefit of the doubt.  And if you are the returning traveler, give yourself permission to laugh at your little mistakes, and move on.