On Friday evening I had a long meeting with the principle actors in the organization I am working with for the summer. It was the first time that so many of the team were gathered together at the same time. Interestingly enough, the active board for the organization is comprised of a majority of women. At Friday's meeting there were four women and myself. The women are all well established, intelligent and outspoken. Two are retired and two are working full time as well as helping direct ACEO.
The meeting lasted about two and a half hours at a pleasant Cafe in the zone touristique of Sousse. We sat gathered around two tables and discussed many topics pertaining to the advancement of the organization. Cigarette and hookah smoke swirled around us. We sipped coffee and moved through agenda items. However, as the meeting progressed and the ratio of French to Arabic being spoken gradually drifted out of my favor to an Arabic-dominated meeting, several things occurred to me.
First, I need to continue to work to learn more Arabic words. Not only is it polite, but it is helpful to be able to have a grasp of what dynamics (social, political, financial) are actually going on. In any language there are nuances that add meaning that can only be understood in that language. Knowing more Arabic would help me suss out some of those nuances and know the Tunisian mindset better.
Second, without Arabic, and with a grasp of French that has now returned to proficient rather than functional, but is still a far cry from fluent, I will constantly be an outsider. Granted, I may be a more informed outsider with a wider range of cultural sensitivities than your average tourist or business person, but nonetheless I am an outsider. I can't really be surprised, I have now been in Tunisia 6 weeks. I was in Costa Rica for 6 months and even after 6 months I was still aware of being an outsider. So, I cannot realistically expect to be in the know and entirely culturally competent and fluent in such a short time. I struggle to make it and accommodate in order to do my job, but it still comes and goes and ebbs and flows effecting my efficiency and efficacy from time to time (read weekly)
Third, in my career field, this will always be the case. I will be a more informed outsider. When I travel to new countries to work with people I will be given a briefing, a series of documents containing data, background, history, facts and figures. I cannot possibly expect to know many of the languages of places I may travel and I certainly can't expect to fit in. I guess I never really processed that in any sort of serious way. I took it for granted that in Costa Rica I feel at home and assumed I could make that work anywhere. But at this point I have spend over a year there and have established friends and relationships. My work will not always be that way. It is an interesting thought and requires a paradigm shift in my own thinking, a.k.a suck it up and continue to work hard. Of course, maybe this is just my own cynicism. Maybe entree into a culture just depends on the place and the people. More likely it is a dynamic that depends on me and them. I guess I am just still finding that here. It is doable, but I am still learning so much that I feel like I am learning more than I am contributing (arguably a reasonable outcome of an unpaid internship)....Anyways now I am rambling.
But all that is not to say that it is all work and no play here. Living with a host family affords many benefits, and among those is having a good friend with whom I can go on adventures, so I leave you with a picture from our trip to the beach at Salakta this weekend. Until next time!
The meeting lasted about two and a half hours at a pleasant Cafe in the zone touristique of Sousse. We sat gathered around two tables and discussed many topics pertaining to the advancement of the organization. Cigarette and hookah smoke swirled around us. We sipped coffee and moved through agenda items. However, as the meeting progressed and the ratio of French to Arabic being spoken gradually drifted out of my favor to an Arabic-dominated meeting, several things occurred to me.
First, I need to continue to work to learn more Arabic words. Not only is it polite, but it is helpful to be able to have a grasp of what dynamics (social, political, financial) are actually going on. In any language there are nuances that add meaning that can only be understood in that language. Knowing more Arabic would help me suss out some of those nuances and know the Tunisian mindset better.
Second, without Arabic, and with a grasp of French that has now returned to proficient rather than functional, but is still a far cry from fluent, I will constantly be an outsider. Granted, I may be a more informed outsider with a wider range of cultural sensitivities than your average tourist or business person, but nonetheless I am an outsider. I can't really be surprised, I have now been in Tunisia 6 weeks. I was in Costa Rica for 6 months and even after 6 months I was still aware of being an outsider. So, I cannot realistically expect to be in the know and entirely culturally competent and fluent in such a short time. I struggle to make it and accommodate in order to do my job, but it still comes and goes and ebbs and flows effecting my efficiency and efficacy from time to time (read weekly)
Third, in my career field, this will always be the case. I will be a more informed outsider. When I travel to new countries to work with people I will be given a briefing, a series of documents containing data, background, history, facts and figures. I cannot possibly expect to know many of the languages of places I may travel and I certainly can't expect to fit in. I guess I never really processed that in any sort of serious way. I took it for granted that in Costa Rica I feel at home and assumed I could make that work anywhere. But at this point I have spend over a year there and have established friends and relationships. My work will not always be that way. It is an interesting thought and requires a paradigm shift in my own thinking, a.k.a suck it up and continue to work hard. Of course, maybe this is just my own cynicism. Maybe entree into a culture just depends on the place and the people. More likely it is a dynamic that depends on me and them. I guess I am just still finding that here. It is doable, but I am still learning so much that I feel like I am learning more than I am contributing (arguably a reasonable outcome of an unpaid internship)....Anyways now I am rambling.
But all that is not to say that it is all work and no play here. Living with a host family affords many benefits, and among those is having a good friend with whom I can go on adventures, so I leave you with a picture from our trip to the beach at Salakta this weekend. Until next time!
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