In the beginning, being surrounded by a foreign language is overwhelming. The difficulty in communication is trying. But believe it or not, after some time, you grow accustomed to it. Your language becomes your hand gestures and broken English in order to get the importance of your message across. (This can be humorous at times!)
So imagine living four straight months in different languages, accompanied by four months of little English mixed in with different languages, and landing in month nine where English is the prominent language. It’s a culture shock. Yes, Zambians spoke a form of their own language, but 85% of what you said in English was understood by those around you.
Cultural jokes, World Race slang, along with other jargon was now heard and acknowledged by a cultural people outside the USA. Filtering our words hadn’t been a thing for the past nine months and now – hold up – everyone understands?! If I had a penny for every “oops” moment with using language or words that the culture would take offensively or question, I’d be richer for sure. Not only that, but think about all the things we say as idioms and slang that when taken literally could be extremely misunderstood. Yeah… it was a process to re-accustom ourselves to such a daily life.
It’s also humbling. While you don’t think much about the jokes and comments when around people who fully understand them, it jolts you to think about the meaning of what you’re saying when put into this type of culture shock. You think more about what you say and why you say it. You realize even more about your heart, and its intentions behind what your saying. It is very similar to taking a day of silence. Words are more intently thought through and analyzed before speaking.
Don’t get me wrong, eventually it becomes normal again to be immersed in an English speaking culture. It’s just a challenge at first. One that enlightens your intentions behind your words. One that assists in expressing yourself in truth and without passive aggressiveness or sarcasm.
