N.B. I have been writing this blog over the course of the past two and a half weeks. It is long. I will not apologise for that: it is a topic, or more, a thought process, which has been weighing on my heart, and I believe that those for whom it is written will bear with my lack of brevity. It is not my best writing; it has been written in chunks and around a less-than-fully-developed analogy. But, I think it does express some of what I've found it difficult to express in other venues: namely, the nature and difficulty of the transition I've been going through. So, for those people who deserve to hear my attempts to explain myself, I will publish this post. For the rest of you who haven't been as intimately involved in this journey, you are also welcome to read...
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rule: "a principle or regulation governing conduct, action, procedure, arrangement, etc"
from dictionary.com
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Sometime not so long ago, I changed my facebook status to read: "Kristina sometimes feels like she's playing a game by somebody else's rules... which keep changing." That post was actually not at all related to the following train of thought. However, my friend Sarah's comment on it was.
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In a brief facebook comment, Sarah reminded me of a game we played last year at the SALT/IVEP/YAMEN orientation in Akron. We were divided into about fifteen groups of six to seven people. Each group was given a deck of cards and the rules for playing a game. We were given a few minutes to read over the rules before they were taken away. Then, without talking, we were supposed to play the game within our groups. Every few minutes or so, whoever was winning in that group had to move to the next higher numbered group; whoever was losing had to move down... still without talking. As soon as people moved, the silent games continued.
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The game was fairly simple. Cards got dealt to each person around the group. High cards won tricks; maybe a trump suit was declared. The winner was the person with the most tricks in a round.
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Simple enough. Until, that is, the second round began. Let's say I won (or lost) the first round in my group, so now I'm in a new group. Not a big concern: we're all playing the same game, right?
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Wrong.
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As this round begins, I play my high card, then reach to take the trick... only to meet with someone else's hand. Our eyes meet and we frown at one another, but we maintain our vow of silence. I point out my winning card: it's obviously my trick. But he also gestures, displaying his card--the lowest one played in the hand--as if it is the key to this debate. I shake my head, "no," but notice that others seem to be siding with my opponent. They push the cards toward him: low card wins the trick.
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The round continues, quickly adding to my confusion and frustration. Low cards continue to be treated as royalty. My trump card is brushed off as nonsensical. Did no one in this group actually read and understand the rules? Or have they just created some grand conspiracy designed to keep outsiders from succeeding in their group?
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Having lost the second round, I am sent back to my original group. Here, I am wary: perhaps the rules have changed in my absence and I won't know until I play the wrong card. But in this group, some wise soul has recognised the trick of the organisers and decides to lay out the ground rules. Still not talking, she uses gestures and card examples to make it clear that here, in this specific group, clubs are trump and high cards win tricks. All on the same page, we play the round. There is significantly less hostility and frustration in this group. Mistakes are still made--someone joined the group after playing two rounds with distinctly different rules--but the previously laid out rules are silently reviewed and no one comes out a sore loser.
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We continue playing the game: round four, round five. By this point, it seems to have become a norm throughout the room for each group's rules to be presented before any tricks are played. Generally, it falls to a member who has been part of the group for at least a round or two to demonstrate proper procedure.
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Eventually, time was called and orientation staff facilitated a debriefing process. We compared this game to cross-cultural communication and interactions. The rules about high/low, trump, etc. became cultural norms and mores: expectations about appropriate behaviour and attitudes. Different groups represented different cultures, each with their own subtle adjustments to the same game. And as we travelled to different groups or opened our groups to newcomers, we played the role of people encountering new and different cultures: that is, we played ourselves.
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From earliest childhood, we have all been immersed in culture, nurtured and taught to express (or reject) the behaviours, attitudes, morals, laws, and practices that our societal location expects. Generally speaking, the cultural "rules" of this, our native culture, are deeply engrained in us: we follow them without thinking too much. For example, I don't remember learning how to wave goodbye to people; it's a nonverbal communication skill I picked up as a young child. I don't remember learning how to eat with silverware or being taught to make eye contact when greeting people, yet these are important cultural traits of the society I grew up in. Like the rules I learnt in the first round of the game, these habits, which were formed in early childhood, have always been natural, unconscious, for me--and probably for most of my North American readers.
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Moving to a different continent and immersing myself into a new culture was a bit like moving to a different group in the card game scenario: although the game might have looked the same, many of the rules changed. Instead of just playing instinctively, I had to pay attention, notice the differences, ask questions: and ultimately change my behaviour to match that of the culture in which I was living. It was a difficult process: it was exhausting to be constantly aware of everything that anyone (and I) was saying or doing. Even though it helped me learn, I got tired of people asking, "Nakaweesi, why do you _____?" or "Why don't you ____?"
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In some ways, though, adjusting to a new culture was easier than switching groups in the game. For one thing, I knew I would have to adjust, to change and adapt my habits, behaviours, speech patterns, etc. to fit those of the community and family in which I would be living. I could anticipate some of the changes: I expected a more people-oriented (as opposed to time-oriented) culture; I knew I would be learning a new language; I was careful not to intentionally offend my hosts.
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And so, I worked at adapting. I lived my life a little more slowly... and eventually got used to things happening later and differently than "planned". I learnt to sit properly, to eat properly, to work hard and rest well. It took me a few weeks to learn to speak English in a way that people could understand--I distinctly remember how amused my sisters were when I spent an afternoon repeatedly saying "cow" because I wanted the sounds coming out of my mouth to match those coming out of theirs. Months and months later, my host mother started to make frequent remarks about how much of a Muganda I had become: I had learnt to speak, act, sit, work, and generally live like the people whose culture I was immersed in. Of course, there were still many things that I didn't do "quite right" and subtle perceptions I missed. But generally speaking, by the time I climbed on a plane to leave Uganda in July, I had adapted well to the culture in which I was living.
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And then my plane landed. I was back in America, almost "home" to the family and friends that I had missed so dearly for the previous eleven months.
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From that first week of re-entry in Akron, this homecoming was harder than I expected it to be, in large part because of how well I had adapted to my community and culture in Uganda. MCC warned us about "reverse culture shock" and the difficulties of transitioning back to our original cultures after such an immersion experience, but I was not at all prepared for how "foreign" it felt to be "home."
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Going back to the card game analogy, coming back to the US was a bit like going back to my original group in the game -- after I had mastered the rules in another group. The habits I had picked up, the accent I had developed, the cultural assumptions I had internalised... none of it was valid anymore.
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I had changed: more than just the usual "everyone changes over the course of a year," even some of my internal habits and unconscious instincts had become more "Ugandan." But generally speaking, the people I encountered -- and certainly the society I re-entered -- expected me to be the same as when I left a year previously. No one thought to explain the rules or considered that I might need a little (okay, a lot of) slack, not that I ever expected to need it. I had grown up playing this game: shouldn't I be able to jump right back in and continue where I left off?
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In a lot of ways, my transition back to American culture has been a lot more difficult than my transition a year ago into Buganda culture. I think this has been a result of my subconscious expectations as much as anyone else's: I guess after a year of being so aware and working so hard to adapt to a culture in which I would always, by virtue of my skin pigment, be an outsider on at least some level, I deeply wanted to come back here and just "fit in." I thought this game would be easier, these rules would feel more natural. But I didn't fit in and it hasn't been as easy as I hoped. It's been a difficult process -- for both me and my family -- as I have worked at re-assimilating to America. I've become even more deeply aware of so many of my own cultural habits and assumptions, and though it's been frustrating and overwhelming at times, I'm starting to once again understand who I am and where I belong. I'm relearning the rules to the game, and starting to appreciate this chance to make conscious decisions about which ones I'll choose to follow.
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My journal from re-entry week includes this quote torn out of an MCC hand-out: "Cultural marginality describes experience of people molded by 'transformational' exposure to two or more cultural traditions. Such people do not tend to fit perfectly into any one of the cultures in which they have lived or live, but may fit comfortably on the edge, in the margins of each." The italics are mine: that's the hope I'm living into right now.
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To all those who have walked with me on this part of my journey -- particularly my immediate family and closest friends -- thank you. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for listening. Thank you for not pushing me away or running away yourselves, even when these would have been the easier options. Thank you for encouraging me to keep looking deeper and seeking to understand myself: thank you for holding my hand and trying to help me find words when it was harder than I wanted it to be. As we continue walking through life together, may our varied cultural experiences and learnings continue to nurture the best in us all.
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