Culture Shock

There can be a temptation for any volunteer keeping a blog to act like they’re perfect. It’s not hard…all you have to do is only post positive stories. However, with my blog I want to try to give a balanced view of what I’m experiencing here. That desire brings me to my current subject: culture shock.

Culture shock can be through of as a sort of psychological disorientation resulting from a conflict between your deeply ingrained cultural values and the different cultural cue and behaviours of the society you have relocated into. However broad-minded you may hope you are, deep down we all have a fundamental assumption that our own culture is right.
Lonely Planet Healthy Travel Africa, pg 232

Travel in another culture is typically thought of in phases. The first phase is called the honeymoon phase. Everything is new and exciting, and you feel like the new culture you’re visiting is absolutely amazing. This is usually followed by a crash (a.k.a. culture shock), typified by feelings of hostility towards the new culture, and strong feeling of superiority of your traditional way of doing things. Following this comes a stage of acceptance and finally adaptation, when you learn to operate fairly seamlessly in the new culture, and lose the idea of “us and them”.

For me it hasn’t worked like that. Culture shock has not been a “phase”, nor has excitement. Generally, my interaction with the Zambian culture can be described on a week by week basis. Every week I have (on average) one day where I love Zambia and never want to go home, two days where I’m very much fitting the definition of someone who’s “culture shocked” and four days where my life feels pretty normal and I’m happy in my daily routine.

(This isn’t necessarily the same for all volunteers. Take this post from EWB-UNB’s co-founder Mike Gallant.)

For me, it’s hard to say exactly what brings on these low periods. Sometimes, it’s tied to being sick (although I’ve only been sick twice). Sometimes, it’s after a particularly frustrating day of work, or an annoying interaction with someone. Thinking about it now, however, two especially poignant moments come to mind, which I thought I would share:

Retreat
At the time of my last posting I had just come back from the EWB mid-placement retreat. Up until that point of my placement, I thought I’d been doing pretty well at this whole integration/adaptation thing. I was in a pretty good daily routine, work was going well, I was getting along with my host family; in short, I had avoided most of the pitfalls I had been worried about.

Then, all of a sudden, I was ripped out of my Zambian routine, and brought to a beautiful lake for an amazing weekend with some truly awesome Canadians. All of a sudden, I began to realize how much I missed interacting with people from my own culture. How much I miss the sheer unbridled fun that is possible when you’re with people who understand you perfectly, and whom you understand as well.

I didn’t feel like leaving during the weekend; in fact, the idea never crossed my mind…until the very end.

Look at all those happy Canadians.

As we were packing up from the retreat, I loaded up my hiking bag, put it on my back, and picked up my guitar. I was now holding all of the luggage I travelled to Zambia with. I remember stopping in my tracks; the thought rushed into my head: “how easy would it be if I was going home now?” No more struggles to interact with Zambians. No more battling with slowing down my speech and altering my vocabulary. No more misunderstandings, no more being an outsider, being stared at, being different. At the time I really wished that the bus from the retreat was going to the airport. But like everything, those feelings eventually passed.

New Home

Realistically, however, me recovery from the retreat culture shock did not last long. As I stated in a previous blog entry, I decided a long time ago to move from my first home in order to get a better idea of how farmers lived (by living with one). I knew at the time that there would be negatives to the decision. I really liked living with my first host family. They fed me well, they treated me well, they let me help when I wanted to, they let me be alone when I wanted to, they almost all spoke English; realistically, it was a pretty good set up.

The old home.

Arriving at my new family’s farm, things quickly changed. I think sometime briefly before I arrived, someone told them that Muzungus (a.k.a. foreigners, or “white people”), where weak and helpless creatures incapable of doing the slightest thing for themselves, and requiring constant assistance and supervision (also, I should mention, that treating guests well is a major part of Zambian culture).

The new home.

For my first few days, I couldn’t even look at anybody without them running to get me a stool or chair so I could sit down, even if that meant vacating theirs. In my hut, I was beset by a constant stream of family members bringing me things: water to bath, water to wash my face, food, tea, a brazier of charcoal, more water to wash my face, another meal. Attempts to refuse food, eat with the family, get things for myself, or help with family activities, were met with little enthusiasm, or outright refusal by the family. As time went on, it kept getting worse. When I went to work my first day, I found my locked hut had been opened (multiple keys). All my things had been rearranged into neat little piles, my bed had been remade, my floor had been reswept, and more of the family’s scarce furniture had found its way into my room. I now had the option to select from 3 stools and 2 chairs every time I wanted to sit down.

Finally, the kicker came my first Sunday with the new family. I saw some of the boys in the family (two my age, two younger) taking the family’s donkey cart to pick up some maize from neighbour. At their invitation, I hopped on and joined them for the ride. I quickly noticed that everyone in the cart was quite concerned over my safety and comfort. I was frequently consulted as to whether the speed was appropriate. Any grimace on my face at a bump (some of them do really hurt) was met by an immediate slowing down of the cart and an apology, even while other people’s grimaces were irrelevant. I was frustrated, but held my peace, and continued riding, trying to laugh and joke with everyone, and show that I was a regular human being, and not a fragile object sent from far away for them to take care of.

Later that same day, we went to church, again by donkey cart. No sooner was the cart on the road, however, when Joseph, the driver, suddenly stopped the donkeys, and quickly said sometime in Nyanja to his brother Adson. Upon hearing whatever Joseph had said, Adson ran off back to the house, and came back bearing a wooden stool. Naively wondering what the stool was for, I continued sitting on the old car tire where I had planned to spend the whole ride, until Adson placed the stool in front of me, and the collective population of the cart gestured for me to sit on it.

“Here, you’ll be more comfortable” they said. While I won’t repeat what went through my head, what I said out-loud was something like “thanks, but I’m quite fine here”, and following that refused to take their stool. Feeling like I had won a small battle, I continued the ride on the car tire (which I also think is more comfortable) until we arrived at church.

Following church, we ate lunch outside the service. Immediately Joseph took out the container of groundnuts he’d brought, opened it, placed it in front of me, took a cup, poured a glass of water for me, set up the stool facing the meal, and stood waiting to watch me eat alone. Again, I felt like this was too much. Refusing the stool, I told Joseph we should eat together, then I quickly drank the water, poured a new glass, and offered it to him in the same manner he had done for me. Finally, things between us began to lighten up. When a few minutes later we noticed that the donkeys had ran away, I ignored Joseph’s insistence to stay behind, and ran off into the bush with him to search for them. I could see that he was beginning to get the impression that Muzungus could actually do things, and were not in need of constant assistance and support. Life was definitely getting better.

So, where does the culture shock come into this story? Well, what happened next was one of the worst bits of chance of my whole placement. I had finally convinced my new host brothers that I wasn’t helpless or fragile. They were beginning to see that I was capable of doing normal things, or riding in donkey carts, of eating as an equal, of standing and not sitting. And then, on the ride home, I began to feel it…fever, headache, nausea…oh no, I was getting sick. By the time we got back home, I felt like I could barely stand up. After quickly saying hello to the rest of the family, I informed them that I wasn’t feeling well, and would have to go to bed for the rest of the afternoon. “What!?”, “You’re sick!”, “Do you need to go to the hospital?”.

“No, I just need to sleep. I will see you tomorrow.”

“Do you need food?”

“Something to drink?”

“The hospital?”

“No, I’m fine, I just need to sleep. I’ve been sick like this before.”

A beautiful self portrait while sick.

The procession of deliveries to my room immediately redoubled in strength, all the more infuriating because firstly, each delivery was now accompanied by a worried inquiry into my health, and secondly, because all I wanted to do was sleep, and people kept waking me up. By the next day when I began to feel better, I was so angry at myself (for being sick), at the family (for treating me like a child), and at the world (for not being tailor made to make me happy), that I had a few bad days. I began to constantly refuse things the family offered me, I became hostile, I became distant; I really let my frustration get the best of me. Eventually, however, I calmed down, and with no harm done (in reality, I did try to hide my frustration as much as I could).

Adaption?
While I won’t go into too many details, let me just say that after a rocky start, things have improved immensely at my new home. While I am still waited on more than I would like, I have begun to be able to eat with the family, I am routinely helping with farm chores, and I have regained some of my privacy (although someone still breaks into my room everyday to re-sweep).

I have accomplished this through several days of strategically refusing things (more so out of culture shock derived frustration than any real plan), by forcing my way into helping with chores and actually being good at them (you don’t have to be Zambian to put maize in a bag), and by honest discussion of some of the issues with my family. Things are definitely looking up, and life on the farm has gone from unbearable to enjoyable in a very short time.

Culture Malaise
Despite focusing on only two insteances, you may remember that I said above I feel culture shock like symptoms about two days every week. This, unfortunately, is still true. The fact is, life in Zambia is harder for me than life in Canada. While I haven’t had much experience with acute “culture shock”, I’ve been experiencing a lot of what I’d call, “culture malaise”.

Sometimes, I’m just tired of integrating; I’m tired of adapting. I’m tired of always being stared at, of always hearing someone yelling “Muzungu” in the distance. I want my simple, enjoyable, normal life. I want to communicate easily with people. I want more than 12 hours of daylight (sunrise during the Zambian winter: 6:00 am, sunset: 6:00pm). I want to see my friends and my family. I want to sit on a beach in Ireland. I want to swim in a nice freshwater lake without having to worry about crocodiles (although I still swim here). I want to see my friends and my family, I want to idle away summer afternoons playing Frisbee and enjoying life for no reason other than to enjoy it.

The Problems
However, more than this, there are other things I want. I want to live in a world where over 1 billion people don’t live in oppressive poverty. I want to live in a world where the basic necessities of life are available to everyone. I want to live in a world where many of the elements of the lifestyle I enjoy and miss so much aren’t contingent on the exploitation of millions of other people. I want to live in a world where my friend Solmon, who is already older than me, doesn’t have to work for the next 2 years to have enough money to finish his grade 12. I want to live in a world where 1 out of 4 children in Zambia isn’t an orphan (Race Against Time). I want to live in a world where none of my Zambian friends have a chance of being infected with HIV/AIDS.

If ending poverty is the challenge or opportunity of our generation, then understanding poverty is the first task for those who want to be involved. That’s what I’m trying to do here, and while at times it can be hard, the amount I’ve learned, the amount I’ve experienced, and the amount I’ve enjoyed myself, overshadows any of the hardships.

I’m amazingly lucky to be here, and I’m amazingly hopeful that somehow, something I do here will make a difference. Whether that difference is made by the on the ground work I’m doing, by any influence I might have in Canada, or by some other means, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll have no influence at all. However, I’m very lucky and very happy to have been given the chance to try. Whenever I start feeling down about life in Zambia, I just remember these thoughts and things start to feel alright pretty quick. I think, for today, I’ll leave it at that.

The end. (yes, you can ride a donkey)