Stranger In A Not So Strange Land
Growing up in a military family afforded me a number of rich experiences in travel and exposed me to several diverse cultures, languages and monetary units. As an adult, I continue to travel extensively and make monthly trips to Canada where there are cultural, monetary, linguistic and measurement idiosyncrasies that are quite different from my own. However, the most unique place I lived was actually in Nortonville, Kansas in the heart of the United States.
Having lived in major metropolitan areas such as a suburb of Tokyo, Japan, Brooklyn, New York, San Diego, California and several others, moving and adapting to, and living in the extreme rural Midwest was quite a culture shock, and it taught me the value of respect, trust and confidence.
Despite a supposed common language and some familial ties when I moved to this town of 600 people, I found I had to learn to dress differently, adopt the language of the farm, and adapt to a closed community of people - most of whom had never ventured beyond the state lines, and many of whom had never left the county. These were mostly small farmers, raised with no exposure to anyone other than more German-Americans, instilled with strong prejudices regarding other cultures and minorities, and deeply entrenched in their ideas and belief systems. To try to impose my own views or share the experiences of my travels was irrelevant to their daily lives and served little purpose.
Instead, the only thing I could do to gain their trust and live comfortably among these people was to dress more like them, integrate into the community by working beside them, and share in their cultural traditions with church and community events. But, most importantly, I had to listen. I sang in the church choir, worked for a number of local farmers, baling hay, weeding fields, plowing, sowing and taking care of animals. I joined 4-H and taught communications, entomology, care of poultry and rudimentary botany. Eating at the local cafe allowed me to understand more of the traditions of the community and, after a time, become less of a stranger or outsider.
Sometimes, we don't have to travel to far-off destinations to find challenging environments where we are the stranger and have to build trust and confidence in who we are and what we do. Sometimes, we are the strangers in our own lands. This experience was helped me to understand how to better integrate into a wider stratum of societies, and that will be the biggest help in serving through the Peace Corps.
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| Downtown Nortonville, KS - a different culture. |
Well written!
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