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Pas Ordinaire ni Ordinateur: Adjusting to Life in France

What a difference a week can make! From that first day feeling of being thrown into the deep end of being in a foreign country and emerged in the French language to feeling comfortable in Tours just over a week later, the change is incredible. Of course, over that time there were certain challenging and trying incidents that tested my resolve (and my ability to deal with some subtle embarrassment), but in these moments I learned about myself, the language, and the culture more than ever before.

Full disclosure- I am writing and reflecting on each part of my journey a bit after the actual events, but I have been keeping a week-to-week journal of the events, feelings, and stories of my time abroad to be able to write these blog posts with the most accuracy possible.

At Charles de Gaulle airport, the realization of being in France began to hit as I waited at the airport train station. All around me everyone was speaking French! It was the first time hearing the language that I have studied for years actually being used into its natural context. That sense of excitement quickly turned to a bit of panic… I struggled to understand the people around me and missed all the information in the station announcements. My first instinct was self-preservation–avoiding conversations and only interacting when needed.

Arriving in Tours, I felt like I was in a completely new environment, especially living with a host family. Practicing my French with my hostess calmed my nerves about the initial language barrier of moving to France, but soon I became aware of all of the numerous other subtle cultural differences in French life–apartment style living, strictly scheduled dinners always served with dessert, and even just difference in water consumption (the French certainly like to savor their small amounts of water). For my first week in Tours, I adapted a “fake it until you make it” attitude: work to fit into the culture of Tours and France until can authentically live it out.

For my first free weekend, I decided to explore Paris with my Notre Dame classmates, Maya and Martha. Exploring the sites and works of arts across the city felt surreal, but the most impactful experience was an early morning trip to the boulangerie by myself. Stepping into a Parisian boulangerie for the first time, I was extremely nervous– I want to be impressive with my language skills and appear like a Frenchman to everyone there. I stepped up to the front of the line and confidently asked, “Trois croissant ordinateur, s’il vous plait.” I had just ordered three computer (ordinateur) croissant rather than the “trois croissant ordinaire” that I had meant to order.

This was certainly a humbling experience, but I learned an important lesson to guide the rest of my time in France: it’s not worth it to try to appear like a local, instead, accept that you are new to the culture and work to improve by acknowledging you have a lot to learn. By eliminating the need to be perfect, I will feel more relaxed in this new environment and absorb more knowledge both about both the language and subtle cultural connections. And with that growth, I can truly begin to feel like a local.

How I feel throughout my first week in France–trying to fit perfectly in the new environment, culture, and language, but JUST missing the mark. Time to keep learning!

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Post #3: Reconciling New Perspectives

I’ve spent quite a bit of time with one of my friend’s Costa Rican host family, who have been hosting students for the past 6 years in their home. Both of the parents and their son are extremely friendly and welcoming—as well as insightful—and so I thought that a conversation about their perspective of Americans and U.S. University students would not only be based on personal experience but also honest and thoughtful. 

When I asked for their perceptions of Americans, they said that they have found people who visit from the US to fall into two main categories based on the host students they’ve housed and their general knowledge of tourists. The first involves tourists and visitors that, in their words, know ahead of time “that Costa Rica isn’t like the U.S., England, Germany, or wherever they´re hailing from.” They said that when people come in with an open mind and a genuine desire to learn about Costa Rica, that they (Costa Ricans) get along much better and are much more open and sharing with the foreigners. However, they said that the second group of foreigners—those who come expecting Costa Rica to be exactly like the US (or a European country) or those who imagine Costa Rica to be all jungle and all people who live their “indigenous people who live in the jungle” (they mentioned Costa Rica’s depiction in Jurassic Park as completely jungle and devoid of cities)—that they don’t feel like they and the realities and nuances of Costa Rica are being respected. They also mentioned multiple times that they couldn’t give me one heterostereotype of an American tourist because each person is different, and because they have encountered such a wide variety of types of students and how willing those students are to engage with their family and the wider Costa Rican culture.

I initially didn’t expect such an in-depth discussion (the family talked with me for around 20 minutes about their experiences), I was really grateful for the amount of nuance they brought to the discussion; it helped me reflect much more deeply than I would have with just one answer of a generalized heterostereotype. I suspected that there was a heterostereotype of Americans as not really wanting to engage with a local culture apart from visiting tourist spots—the “ignorant” or “obnoxious” American stereotype that I think a lot of American tourists, including myself, are afraid to be seen as. However, I found it interesting that they saw this stereotype not as Americans being stupid or unintelligent, but instead as just unwilling to be open to the idea that life in a place they visit is either (a) structured differently in both subtle and more obvious ways from their home cultures, or (b) that a place can be different than their prior perceptions of it. Likewise, I found it relieving that they also had a strong positive perception of some Americans as willing and eager to learn about a place, and that Costa Ricans greatly appreciate those types of visitors. Although the majority of tourists the family has encountered are students who visit anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 months, which skews the sample population a bit, I overall was very relieved by their nuanced generalizations in lieu of the negative heterostereotypes I always fear one or two obnoxious tourists have solidified into the widespread perception of people from the US.

My knowledge of Costa Rica prior to this trip was mainly based on the tourist pulls I had heard about and what had been mentioned in school prior to arriving—that it had a ton of natural beauty in the form of mountains, beaches, volcanoes, and wildlife, and that it was a country that was eco-conscious and dedicated to natural conservation. Because I didn’t know much beyond this, I didn’t really come in with any set expectations of how similar or dissimilar the cities, daily life, and family structures were from my own experiences in the US. As such, I think I was pretty much a dry sponge ready to absorb and immerse in whatever I encountered in Costa Rica, and I’ve been very grateful to be able to learn about and adapt to the smaller and larger differences in life here without having to break down previous incorrect assumptions, since I didn’t really come in with any.  As such, I think (and hope) that I’ve fallen into the “open and willing to learn about Costa Rica” category, as almost everyone I’ve encountered has been happy to talk with me, excited that I’m trying to practice my Spanish, and more than willing to help me with language or cultural barriers I struggle with. Although I know that there will always be some American tourists/students who are unwilling to change their perceptions and expectations of a place (as there are people like this from every culture and country), it makes me proud of my home country that there is also acknowledgment that some Americans have a genuine desire to learn about and respect the local way of life in all of its complexity. Furthermore, I am very grateful that Ticos are willing and excited to share their lives and make connections with those of us who want to experience the reality of a different country in its entirety.

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Going Back to the Roots

For this exercise, I actually went back to my application for the grant that is allowing me to be here. I was reminded that a principle reason that I came to Germany was because I understood that German culture had something to do with how the theologians I studied wrote and what their questions were. I especially think of Johann Baptist Metz, who is considered the founder of so-called political theology. He writes that his theology is, intentionally, a post-Auschwitz theology. For Latin American theologians, we say that we are writing theology while our people are in Auschwitz (in other words, in conditions of oppressive misery.) In both, though, there is a consideration for the way that culture affects the thinker’s tasks and questions.

Germany is a country which many people know about, but not many get to live here and engage with its people. I am anxious to get there and be able to dethrone some of the general conceptions of its history that I have. It will be an important experience to be in a place where I can only communicate minimally in the spoken language. Being a natural bilingual in Spanish and English, I can communicate with the vast majority of the world. This will be my first time living amongst a people with such a different culture and language. This means that I will have to be uncomfortable and also admit ignorance and take on humility more often than I have otherwise been tasked with.

When I think of my time in Germany and what I hope to get out of it, I think about what it means to be learning a language for the sake of scholarship. In many ways, it is a desire to go to the roots of a philosopher or theologian’s thought to be able to construct something valuable from it, engaging with their texts.

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Transportation on Shabbat

I knew transportation would be difficult on Saturday but I didn’t realize just how challenging it would be. In Jerusalem, I know that no public transportation runs from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday so I assumed Tel Aviv would be similar and was proud of my cultural competence in that area. I was trying to find a solution to get to a vigil Mass because Sunday is a class/work day in Israel (another surprise, which I probably should have known).

I decided to try to take the city’s bikeshare system which I had heard was affordable. I downloaded the app at home and put in all my information thinking I was set. I was wrong. I began going to bike racks only to find all bikes were out of service or gone, of course university students take all the bikes on Saturday. Next, when I finally did find a rack, I couldn’t use an ebike because the app would not accept my identification. I know Israel has more security measures in place than the US but not being allowed to take an ebike because my US passport and drivers license didn’t count as “valid id” surprised me. I ended up taking a regular bike five miles in 90F heat and 70% humidity. It was not an enjoyable experience and I was shocked to see that it had cost me $7 when I parked it, it wasn’t even an ebike!

My way home proved easier but equally surprising. After Mass, many people in the congregation headed for the bus stop afterwards. Sure enough, Tel Aviv has decided to run a few bus routes on Saturdays because traffic is so bad when no-one can take public transit and many Israelis in Tel Aviv do not refrain from motorized transport on Shabbat. I finally got home on very expensive bus rides.

While I knew that religious observance of Shabbat influenced the lack of transportation on Saturdays, something new I am learning about the culture is that Tel Aviv tends to be much more secular than other parts of the country. It has to adapt the practices for its own population in which many people do not observe Shabbat in the more traditional ways. It has transportation, but its limited availability drives prices up. Upstream from my tangible experience of difficulty traveling is the conflicting challenges of Israeli society, the religious values and the practical exigencies of those who do not share those values both influencing the transportation system.