Potato Peeler Problems
La Paz, Bolivia, 1992
I was just as shocked and surprised as he was proud when he triumphantly handed his gift to the woman. As I watched her receive it with a quizzical look, turn it over in her hand, and offer it to the others sitting with her in the kitchen courtyard, I realized she didn’t know then what to do with it and I doubt it’s been used since that day. What I didn’t understand then was that not only is necessity the mother of invention but is also often subservient to poverty. When poor, one makes do with what they have. And over time, necessary tools wrought from what is available gives strength to, “that’s the way it’s done,” and more pieces of the worldview puzzle are fitted into the design of subtle, understood, unspoken cultural norms. When there is no money to buy gadgets, there is often no idea that gadgets are actually needed. And, truly, ARE they NEEDED? When potatoes have been successfully peeled with a knife for generations and done so with success, why is there a need for a peeler? My initial shocked response described above was due to realizing the woman had never used a potato peeler. I contemplated, eyes popped and mouth gaping, how someone could NOT know the significant necessity of a potato peeler!
Now? After visiting numerous cultures and living in Uganda steadily for thirteen years, a replay of that scene would have my shocked eyes firmly fixed on the giver of the potato peeler and I would have to fight the critic in me wanting to bust out with, “Why do you think that’s a great gift? Do you realize you’re blind to what is valued here?”
There is so much more here than potatoes and peelers, knives and gadgets.
For instance, in considering what is “needed” for efficiency, we must go deeper and ask, “is efficiency even valued in the culture?” What is wrong with taking a long time to peel potatoes? When you peel you talk while you unhurriedly sit with your family and/or your friends. Is there a need to hurry? Hurry indeed produces demand for a tool which provides efficiency. Why does one culture expect that efficiency should be valued and another expects only that the end result be accomplished, regardless of the time taken. Is efficiency of a higher value than simply reaching an end product? Well, that depends on who you ask! Both scenarios contain the common denominator of elusive and underlying stealth expectations. Our default perspective and approach reveal expectations, often even undetectable to ourselves. Under the radar expectations can create chaos in a situation that doesn’t warrant chaotic response.
Culture shock. It’s that experience where awareness of the differences between a primary and a host culture opens eyes to new understanding, but is also prone to hosting a grain of irritating sand in the organ of vision. Wonder in the newness of surroundings and observed norms can quickly change to irritation with having to incorporate activities and behaviors and ways of doing things that might not line up with the values of an ingrained primary culture, values that one may not even realize are in the bedrock of who they are and how they relate to others around them. This is where the real irritation of culture stress hones character!
Wedding Worries, on time or in time?
Kasana, Uganda, 2006
Consider what happens when I arrive to a wedding and after more than an hour of waiting, realize it still won’t start for probably another hour? I begin to fidget because I scheduled another activity for immediately after the wedding, which now will start and end late. Why did I set another appointment for immediately after the wedding? Because I EXPECTED it to start and end on time. But, not every culture values being on time! A Ugandan’s expectation is that it is acceptable for an event to start long after the announced time and for guests to arrive at any point during an event as long as they stay until the end. This is called being “in time”. Hence, when a visitor judges that because he arrived at the stated start time he has earned the right to leave early, he demonstrates his furtive cultural bent in respect to time keeping. In this situation, I subconsciously inserted my own expectations and when they weren’t met I struggled with impatience. Unmet expectations yield numerous emotions: sadness, frustration, anger, pride, or fill in the blank of what your response might be.
The truth is, when we don’t know of the expectations buried deep within we are vulnerable to stress. Think, for instance, of the last time you felt unappreciated. What was your self-talk around why you justified that you should have been appreciated? What hidden expectation drove your response? Can you dig deep enough to uncover it?
And then, consider this, years of performing tasks according to the norms of a new culture can then produce impatience when with those of one’s primary or home culture who don’t get it. Amnesia to our own initial struggle often creates a rub with those who haven’t had years of life in the crucible of cultural adjustment leading to lifestyle transformation. Sometimes this is what I have dealt with in the past year and a half back in the U.S., my primary culture. I don’t want to have to explain things. I get weary of trying to fit in. I give up or get quiet when social situations demand I fit into a societal mold I no longer value. Have I changed? Yes. Is grace still applicable? Yes. Is humility a wise stance? Yes.
I could go on and on about cultural awareness and the lack thereof. It’s where I live. I spent 13 years learning Ugandan culture and was still learning when we left last June. I’ve now been back in the U.S. for 17 months, but strangely find that so much has changed I can’t get my bearings some days. I need a daily reminder that wherever I find myself I must be a learner, even when I have to learn again how to function in my home culture. But, sometimes I tire of trying to flex and interpret what’s going on around me.
Does that previous sentence strike a chord in you?
I find myself, with all of you, in crazy, unpredictable 2020. This is a culture that none of us has a handle on. It’s new to everyone, because in our lifetime we have never been dealt a worldwide pandemic. We Americans in particular have never been told that we CAN’T move freely about the country. And we’ve never been subjected to governmental controls as far reaching as they now are. But, though 2020 has dealt us some fairly extensive unexpected changes to how we function in society, the basic stress exerted against each one of us is familiar. The stress of the unknown, of getting our toes stepped on, of having to adjust long-standing behaviors, of worry about our loved ones. But, wait just a minute. Let’s review the “newness” of the situation we’re now in. Didn’t 9/11 take away our freedom to move freely, or at least as we’d been accustomed to, about the country and the world? Weren’t new governmental controls put in place in regard to our travel—what we could and couldn’t pack, for instance? Didn’t we worry about our loved ones as suddenly our seemingly inherent safety in the U.S. was threatened? Different circumstances completely, but definitely a challenge to what we had always known as usual.
I concede that although my cultural experiences in Uganda stretched me significantly, we’ve all had to adjust almost daily here in the U.S. in the past several months with the restrictions and injunctions frequently changing. When we landed from Uganda last June I first focused my hand at navigating cultural subtleties I had largely forgotten. Now, you and I together have witnessed our collective usual taken from us. No one denies the stress of our current situation. You would think that because of the cultural demand I’ve lived under for many years, I’d be able to respond effortlessly to the new Covid culture. Nope. I am daily reminded of my shortcomings in regard to a graceful response. And so, I have more work to do in uncovering what deep-seated expectations lurk under the surface of what I consider to be a “normal” or at the very least, acceptable reaction to the stress of 2020.
I’m thankful that my Father God never leaves me. He’s patient with me. He reveals to me where change is needed in my heart and mind. And I would do well to respond to Him first, rather than to quickly speak my mind or throw up my hands when presented with what I wasn’t expecting—whether or not I knew my expectations is secondary to the fact that they are there.
Maybe my rambling has sparked attention to expectations, emotions and behaviors. May we all allow His grace to define us in increasing measure each day.
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