(more) Culture Shock

I am going to vent for a moment. Keep in mind as you read that I am merely venting, and you should not take it seriously.

It is called ongoing culture shock. I am past the initial stages of it, but these later stages are not any easier. And I think I am coming to terms (again) with the fact that I cannot escape being a foreigner here. No matter what, I will not blend in. And people will always assume I don´t understand anything (even after having conversed with me for 20 minutes!) or will be so nice as to repeat everything they say to me at least three times, or will solicitously ask me questions at the speed of a turtle without waiting for the answer. Even better, when they first meet me, will ask the Brazilian friend that I am with, ¨Where is she from?¨. I then answer. They then ask my Brazilian friend, ¨How long will she be here?¨or ¨Who is she studying with?¨, or some similar question. I then answer, and then they continue to ask the other person questions about me while I stand there, until I get frustrated and say something like, ¨Look, you can ask me directly¨ or something more or less direct, depending on if they are drunk or not.

The point is, after almost three months of being here, I have great friends, people who communicate with me, make jokes, confide in me, and who listen. But I also have these other encounters, ceaselessly. I don´t remember this happening so much in Nicaragua. Is there a reason why? Perhaps because Nicaragua has a history of foreign solidarity workers living and working there since the early 1980s, while Campinas doesn´t have tourism, solidarity, or anything that would give people substantial experience with foreigners. That theory makes sense, actually, given that people are always flabbergasted when they learn that my university actually offers Portuguese classes; their reaction is always shock that people would actually want to learn Portuguese, so I understand their surprise at my understanding.

But it doesn´t make it any easier. It could be an ego thing, really. I consider myself a mature, adult woman who has cultivated communication skills over a lifetime of 30 (uh...31) years, and to be spoken to like a child, to be denied the very opportunity of engaging in conversations that involve the expression of subtle, abstract ideas, this challenges that self-image. I don´t like that. But I am dealing with it, and learning to smile rather than give in to the urge to prove to everyone I meet that I have some modicum of intelligence hiding behind my foreigner´s face.

A little honest self-reflection is good for a blog, right? I will get back to the fluff in the next post...
H.