Getting my edu-ma-cation

Keegan in front of the French Embassy.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the SD offers many classes to help with the transition into the Foreign Service.  Everything from communication to protocol, as well as family issues and security concerns.  I signed up for any classes I thought sounded relevant and helpful. Most classes are only a day or two and are spread out throughout our time here in DC.  Well, last week I finally got to start taking a couple.  I took Realities of Foreign Service Life and Communicating across Cultures.  I learned so much and thought it would be great to write about some of the highlights of what I learned. 


Communicating Across Cultures

What a fun class!  To really understand another culture, I have to understand my own.  Now this class was applied to national cultural differences, but every person is part of different cultures and I think these lessons can be applied to everyone.  Religious and community cultures define us, as well. As a Mormon, I know we have our own culture, separate from our beliefs.  Just ask anyone that lives in Utah! :D

Our teacher started off by asking us to think about what defines our American culture.  To be honest I never really thought about what "American Culture" is, especially in terms of how I think about other cultures.  What defines us as truly American?  He said most Americans don't travel outside of their culture and therefore it can be difficult for them examine it.  According to the statistics, only 18% of Americans own a passport and of that 18% a disproportionate amount are over 65 or are young children that travel with foreign born parents.  He said that I will learn the most about my own culture when I'm not living in it.  Living in a new place forces people to examine what identifies them, because they are constantly comparing it to the new culture. 

My favorite:  Don't put a value judgment on differences. 

The values and beliefs of any culture are the one's that are historically rewarded.  If I want to learn about another culture, I need to start with their history.

Here's just a couple of things he had us think about:

American Culture
I didn't realize what an optimistic society we are, especially in comparison to other parts of the world.  Most of us believe that if we are good, we will be rewarded, whether by God, Karma or some other force.  Culturally, we believe in extreme individualism and a distrust of strong centralized government.  While being individual, we are also very patriotic and have a strong civic culture and that is one of the reasons that during emergencies our communities come together and when the emergency has passed we go back to our lives again.  We are a nation of doers and put a strong emphasis on action.  Therefore, poets, artists and thinkers rarely hold as much value in American culture.

Here's a link to a great paper discussing the communication challenges between Dept of Defense and the Dept of State



Realities of Foreign Life

My favorite part was discovering the "Cycle of Adapatation"  Mostly it describes the adjustment a person makes when they move to a new country, but I saw parallels with any move or huge life change (job change, divorce, death, retirement, etc)

1.  Honeymoon Period:  Everything is fascinating and new.  Usually starts before the move and can last for the first couple of months. 

2. Culture Shock: You are swamped with loads of new problems.  It can be mentally exhausting dealing with transportation, housing, food, new friends and all in a new language.

3. Initial Adjustment and Mental Isolation: As you start to overcome some of the bigger issues and the language begins to become easier, depression may set in.  Feelings of loneliness and missing your old life may take over and, for some, they never leave this stage.  This is the lowest point of the cycle as you learn to adjust and communicate.

4. Acceptance and Integration: You have established a routine and have accepted the new culture.  You are comfortable with your social group and the language. 


Most surprisingly was learning about Return Anxiety.  Return anxiety, or Re-entry Shock, is what happens when you go home, especially the first time.  It can often be more painful and difficult than Culture Shock, simply because you aren't expecting it.  I mean who would think that coming back to family and old friends might be hard?  I remember experiencing it when I left for college and later on when we moved out of state.  The first time I came home, part of me felt like a stranger in my little town.  They had changed and so had I.  I think time makes those changes more pronounced, because you just don't see each other every day like you used to.  With every move, I keep expecting that shock to lessen, but it doesn't.  The time spent in the different stages varies, but I still see it.

I think my biggest surprise in this class was realizing how applicable some of these lessons were to everyone, not just Foreign Service families.  Especially to my military spouse friends.  I wish I had this information 12 years ago as we entered the military, but especially through all our moves.  I can look back and see this cycle in every one of our 19 moves.  I remember feeling depressed for a short time with every move and then getting mad for "feeling sorry for myself".  It was especially profound when we left Active Duty and moved to Boulder.  Making friends and creating new routines isn't always as easy as it sounds, even for us extroverts.  It just takes time.



In celebration of a couple of our favorite  cultures, we attended a huge party at the French Embassy as well as a rowdy day at Shamrock fest, enjoying our roots of Irish punk and all things green :D

Enjoy!

Rowen dancing

Country comes to town...

I consider myself a small town girl.  I spent my childhood in a small copper mining town and then moved to a small railroading town for high school.  College was in a slightly larger town, but still close to home.  It would be a rare weekend to go out and not run into someone you knew.  When we were first married, we lived at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  We were in a small 2 room cabin on the rim of the Canyon.  We didn't have internet or TV.  David taught me how to play cribbage and we went for walks, with the Grand Canyon as our view.  Some of my favorite evenings were spent playing volleyball and eating around a bonfire, fueled by Jet-A (courtesy of the fire crew).  Overall, I usually had space to play and knew my neighbors. City living was what I saw on Friends,  Mad About You and Seinfeld, ie. New York City. When I watched shows like Law and Order, I found myself watching the people on the street as much as the main characters.  Taxis instead of personal vehicles, corner stores instead of Costco and lots of hole-in-the-wall restaurants where you ate pizza made by a guy named Vinny and his brother Paulie.  I was stunned to find out that from a friend that grew up in NYC, that he never even bothered to learn how to drive, because it was so freaking expensive to own a car.  He spoke of searching for parking spots like the quest for the holy grail and introduced me to concept that a parking spot in a garage could be bought and sold as real estate, as well as willed to your children, just like a house.

Over the course of our marriage, we have lived in several larger metropolitan areas (Denver, Dallas, Phoenix), but always in the 'burbs.  Anytime we would drive into the city to eat or go to a concert or sports event, I would imagine how convenient it would be to live in one of the many apartments that existed above all the restaurants.  I could just walk out my door and not be stuck looking for a place to park with 1000 of my closest friends.  It seemed simple, no yard to take care of, a maintenance guy to fix anything that broke and walking distance to everything.  It seemed exotic and fun.  David thought it sounded like hell.  We would joke about our retirement years with half the year spent in the city and the other half in a cabin in the mountains.  Both ideas sounded like a dream life for totally different reasons.  I love wide open spaces and a little isolation never hurt anyone, but there's something to be said for convenience.

When we found out we would be moving to DC for a few months while David was in training, I was excited.  This was my chance to experience city living!   Because we moved from out of the local area, our time in DC is considered a TDY (Temporary Duty), which meant all our things were moved into storage and we would be staying in a furnished apartment.  It's way cheaper than a hotel and we get all the same perks (paid utilities and housekeeping), as well as a decreasing scale per diem.  The State Dept contracts with a couple of local management companies and so we were given a list of about a dozen apartment buildings to choose from.  I was able to research schools and apartment size and pick our top 3 choices.  This was my chance to finally see what it was like to live in one of those apartments and I couldn't wait.

We ended up getting our first choice, which is smack dab in Arlington, right on the metro line and just minutes from DC.  We have a lobby with the nicest staff. They plan movie nights and snowball fights and send out local information.  They greet us by name when we walk in and invite the kids to watch movies in the theater downstairs. There's a fitness center, a pool and even a game room.  It feels so much like living in a hotel, that it took us a week to remember to lock the door with the key when we left, instead of letting the door lock behind us as we walked out.  Trader Joe's is a block away, while Whole Foods is only 5 blocks.  I found a dentist and eye doctor right across the street.  We've eaten Irish, Persian, NY style pizza, Mexico City Mexican food and have had the most amazing Peruvian style chicken at the restaurant Anthony Bourdain featured on his show.  The girls have learned how to use the Metro and I am confident that if we got separated they would be able to get home again without any trouble.  The only time we use the car is to visit friends in the surrounding areas and to go to our church activities. I found out that we live within walking distance of the belly dancing studio, where I start classes tomorrow (Woohoo!) and the nail salon downstairs.  We have taken the girls to see monuments and museums and cultural events that we could never have been able to do before.

I am so incredibly grateful for this opportunity; I am loving this experience and feel very blessed and fortunate to be here.  However, as I listen to horns honking and sirens blaring I realize that I do miss quiet moments.  I miss talking to neighbors in the front yard and having friends come over to play.   I imagine that Dakar will have more of those opportunities, as well as the open spaces that I crave.  David is still missing his running trail where he met coyotes and rattlesnakes and looked at the Rocky Mountains while he endured his daily torture run.  Once in Senegal, he will be able to stop mumbling to himself about the lack of mountains and embrace the ocean as his new running scenery.  Dakar will be completely different from anything we have known.   However you look at it, we are lucky or blessed or both and I love that we get to keep trying new and different ways to experience this crazy roller coaster of a life.