Culture Shock: Part II

I've often been warned of the onset of culture shock, but even as I had travelled abroad previously, I've always understood it to be primarily an intellectual experience -- a sort of "isn't that wierd" inconvenience, like the lack of sub sauce in Washington (see Culture Shock: Part I).

Though I don't profess to know the depth and breadth of culture shock yet, I now understand it to be less about inconveniences, and more a full frontal attack on one's sense of competence.

At home, we derive our confidence and comfort from a sense of competence -- a sense that, if I want to do something, I have the ability to go and do it -- and the independence that results from that competence. In a new culture, that sense of competence quickly dwindles.

At home, I was a fully-functioning, independent adult. By contrast, in Mozambique I have the competence of a young child. In the past couple of days:

• I needed assistance from my new friend, Glenn, to speak with a store clerk to purchase my own (fill in the blank: groceries, telephone, ...). Moreover, I needed his help to navigate government bureaucracy to complete our resident permit applications.

• I have met several Mozambicans -- Raul, Timoteo, Samuel, Juka, Ricardo -- but I can't move a conversation beyond basic pleasantries ("bon dia" and "obrigado") to get to know them, except with those who can speak broken English with me.

• Our laptop batteries died, but I couldn't recharge them since I didn't have an adapter to plug a North American plug into a Mozambican wall (a problem since resolved).

• I was dependent upon others for rides until yesterday, when I borrowed a car that wasn't being used -- and even now, I feel like I'm a new driver in the right-hand-drive car on roads where obeying rules is the exception and potholes are the rule.

Most of all, and perhaps punctuating my newly-perceived lack of competence that marks the onset of culture shock, is that my days aren't yet full, and I haven't even completely mapped out a game plan for the next year. Laura is at school right now in teacher training, where she probably has too much to do, and I'm feeling guilty for not being busy mid-way through our first week on the ground.

The truth is that I have quite purposefully declined several requests of my time (including successfully turning down the opportunity to teach at school, as reported in Jill-Of-All-Trades). I want to go slowly at first to make sure my time is targetted in the most effective direction, rather than filling up with good things that aren't my passion.

One chunk of my time will be devoted to language study. The past couple of days have reinforced the need for me to speak and understand a basic level of Portuguese in order to be as effective as possible in helping Mozambicans, and to rebuild the competence necessary to ward away culture shock. The challenge of learning a new language is somewhat lessened by the realization that, for most people here, Portuguese is a second language as well. Most Mozambicans first learned to speak a tribal language at home (Shangaan is popular in Maputo province), and only learned Portuguese as the "trade language" of Mozambique while in school. That experience makes them very patient and gracious teachers of language, thankfully.