2/16/20
Culture Shock is a real thing.
You might not think it would hit us going from one country to the neighboring country, but TNT experienced some real culture shock here in Costa Rica.
You see, we lived in a village in Nicaragua, and a village is nothing like a big city. The other team, Canvas and Clay, spent their time in Nicaragua near the big city of Granada, so they went from one big city to another coming to San Jose.
Cities are big and crowded and there are streets full of people, including some people that look like us because tourists commonly come to big cities.
Our first day of ministry that was a bit difficult to get used to. We were all wide eyed and overwhelmed trying to navigate the city streets and avoid oncoming traffic to run from one side of the road to the other.
We came home exhausted by lunch and that was only half of our day. (Which, that first day was when we worked with the women’s ministry with the red x on our hands in the morning and with Metro Ministries working with preteens in the evening.)
We were warned about culture shock when we return to America, but I don’t think we knew it could hit us just moving between neighboring countries.
Now, I’ve learned my lesson. Now, I’ve learned how truly different people are in one village to another, one city to another, one household to another.
We had 2 days of ministry and then we had our weekend off for adventure and sabbath, so we’ve had some time to adjust now. It’s a process. And I think it’s a fair warning to say I will experience culture shock when I come back home to the US. Please be kind and patient when that time comes.
But I’m glad I can say I’m learning such different cultures, being exposed to such different ways of life, learning to love such a diverse variety of people, all within the first 2 months in the field!
And another thing that was different, that inspired the title of this blog, was grocery shopping. In Palacaguina, we literally had to drive 30 minutes to another village to go shopping. It was a crazy, mixed up version of Walmart called Pali. It was stressful trying to find everything and stay in budget in that store because it was just so different from the stores we have in America. But we learned our way around in the span of the month. And usually we loved our crazy rides in the back of a pick-up truck to town and back.
Now, we literally live within walking distance of Walmart, and Walmart actually looks a lot like Walmart.
For the weekend we had to make our own food. The one thing that hasn’t changed between Nicaragua and Costa Rica is how crazy the drivers are. Now, we’re learning the art of crossing busy streets, the same way the locals do. It’s a new experience to learn. Something that’s a little bit frightening, but that’s also a bit of a rush. This time, we’re not in the car, we’re walking through, next to, and beside the cars.
And so we came out of Walmart on Saturday morning with our couple reusable bags full of groceries, and I carried the eggs.
A carton of 15 eggs clutched in my arms as we sprinted across the few major streets that stood between us and home. I knew there was a chance I could drop the eggs. It’s a new experience to cross a busy street with a carton of eggs clutched in your hands.
We ran across that busy street.
I didn’t drop the eggs.
I don’t really look forward to doing it again, but I imagine I will. We’ve got a lot of countries ahead of us. A lot of new cultures to experience. I imagine in every country, I will learn that there is a brand new art to protecting eggs.
I don’t want to get stuck in doing things only the ways I’ve learned so far. If we couldn’t adapt, grow, and lean on each other to get through learning all of this together, then we’d have been stuck at that Walmart, trying to figure out how to cross the street and get home.
It sounds simple. It truly is. Everybody has crossed a busy street before. I say this only as an example. I say this only as a reminder that you should always be open to learning new things. I say this only as a reminder that being adaptable is important.
Learn new strategies of living from the people around you.
In every new store, in every new place, always be willing to learn what people have to teach you.
Always be willing to try the local art of running with eggs.
