Looking For The Greener Grass: Culture Shock at the Seas

On day 10 out of the 15 of my language sprint, I went to a summer house with my family. In America, when I hear summer house, I think of rich friends with super nice condos right on the beach. I knew, from earlier discussions, that my perspective needed to change. P had told us that owning homes in her city was expensive they would never be able to own one. She said, the best they could hope for was owning a summer house by the sea because those are much cheaper.

Rebecca and I geared ourselves up for a hot weekend not expecting an air conditioner at the summer house. We had accurate expectations. We went into the weekend with positive attitudes and smiles determined to have lots of laughs.

Piled into the car with all our bags

Happy smiles!

We arrived at the complex which consisted of lots of small homes in a small space. Once inside the house and P and her parents got busy cleaning the place. We tried to help the family but they told us to just go swim. This is a prime example of the cultural wars that happened during my 2 week stay. They wanted us to be comfortable but our parents raised us to help others with work. We weren’t comfortable because they wouldn’t let us help and they were comfortable because we wouldn’t just relax. I don’t know how many conversations Rebecca and I had trying to ascertain what would be the best way to show them love.

After the place was cleaned up, we sat on the balcony while the mom prepared dinner. There was a nice, cool breeze there so I thought the weekend wouldn’t be half bad. After dinner we tried to help wash dishes. They refused and instead insisted that we go swim in the pool. There were only three 2-hr periods when the pool was open. The complex uses the rest of the time to clean the filters. We also learned that only 2 people from each home were allowed to swim at a time. We obliged them and swam for about an hour. After we showered and put dry clothes on, we went to the sea to walk with P and her dad. It was only about a 5-minute walk from the complex to the sea.

A view of the pool, the complex, and
the sea.

We returned around 11pm and Rebecca and I decided to go to bed. They thought we were strange for going to bed so early. Locals here go to bed much later than we do (even children) and seem to get by on much less sleep than we do. We realized that the 3 of them were sleeping on the balcony and wouldn’t be using the single fan. We asked if we could use it during the night. We blasted the thing on high and were able to sleep in that hot room. Somewhere in the middle of the night, the mom came in from the balcony and turned it off. She said it was making her ill. We sweated our way through the remainder of the night.

Around 7:30 the next morning, we got up and went to the sea to swim. We didn’t stay very long before heading back to get breakfast. After breakfast, they again wouldn’t let us help clean but insisted we go swim. We decided to take them up on the offer since it meant at least an hour of being cool during the day. Afterwards we went back and worked on our pile of homework from T. P was also trying to teach us how to tell a story so we were working on learning the story. Around 2pm we practiced our stories with P. I wasn’t in the mood to be practicing and was getting grumpier by the minute. We were sitting out by the pool with loud music playing, I felt like I was getting corrected at every turn for incorrectly saying grammar that I only barely understand, and the heat was making me miserable. Did I mention that we didn’t get any lunch that day? Locals often don’t eat lunch if they had a late breakfast. I guess 9am is late to them.

So much homework!

After the practice session, I decided to try to take a nap. I thought it would help me get through the hot part of the day and maybe help my crabbiness to dissipate. It took forever to fall asleep because anytime I would roll over, the bed just radiated my body heat back onto me. I managed to sleep for about 30 minutes before waking just as crabby. I decided to work on some more homework before dinner. P came into the room as I was heading to the bathroom. When I came back, she declared that most of my answers were wrong. Uggh! That was my 4th page and I wondered if I had done any of my homework correctly. I was at a breaking point. She suggested that I take a break from homework so I did. I picked up my book and did some fun reading. I also reminded myself that my value comes from God, not on whether or not I can use accurate grammar in a second language. That reminder and break was the only thing that kept me from melting into a weeping mess in that hot summer house.

Napping. We learned how to say, "My sleep came" when
we were tired.

I wasn't the only one whose sleep came. P's dad slept
almost the whole time we were there. He said he was
on vacation and that's how he wanted to rest.

At dinner, my stomach started acting up worse than it had in a few days. Not only was I feeling like a language idiot and crabby from the heat, my tummy was also rumbling. Things seemed to be getting worse. After dinner, they sent us out to walk by the sea by ourselves for a while. I think P could sense that I needed a break. Rebecca and I walked and laughed a lot about our experiences with this family. We later met up with P and her mom for a little while.

Upon returning, I took a shower. While we’re on the subject, let me explain some bathroom frustrations. (Culture shocking?) The toilet had a bidet feature on it. A bidet is a portion of the toilet where you can spray water to clean yourself instead of using toilet paper. I don’t typically use them here because I don’t trust that they’re clean. This particular toilet’s bidet piece was sticking out and up into the seating area about 3 inches. I don’t know how many times, I sat down and jumped up because I had landed on the spout. Yuck. The shower was broken. When I say I showered, I mean I used a bucket to pour water over me. I spent my shower time counting up my remaining days left and wondering if I could make it the remaining 5 days. I seriously considered getting on a bus back to my city the following day. I had this conversation many days over my 2 weeks submerged in culture. I came out of the bathroom after my “shower” and realized there was still some dried sweat on my neck.

As I headed into our bedroom, P’s mom stopped me and offered to let me use her hair dryer. “No, I will not blow hot air onto my already burning body,” I thought. I politely thanked her but told her I was fine. She followed me into the bedroom and laid down a thick sheet to help with who knows what. Then she again said that I should dry my hair or else I would get a crick in my neck. She said, “I’m older than you and you should listen to me.” Had Rebecca not been there, I think I would have snapped at this point. Instead we laid on our bed and giggled for ten minutes about how funny it all was. Rebecca asked what I thought our chances were of getting to use the fan that night. She said, I probably shouldn’t ask since I have the wet head. We risked anyway and were successful in obtaining permission to use the fan on the second night. This time, we used our noggins and pointed the fan away from where the family was sleeping. We felt cooler air the whole night except when the electricity went out. Success!

I woke the next morning and was still a little crabby. After breakfast we thought that maybe P wanted to swim in the pool so we decided to swim in the sea. It was a great plan because it meant a break from them and we could make sure we got lunch that day as well. The minute we were submerged in the water, we knew we had made a good decision. We were stared at a lot but ignored the stares and instead enjoyed each others company. I am often stared at by locals. They just don't see many foreigners in these parts. After an hour or so, we went to hunt down some lunch. We found a great little place in the shade. We went back to the water and floated for another couple of hours after lunch. It was a well needed break.

We returned to the house to pack up our things since we were leaving in a few hours. I discovered that I had done a very poor job of applying sunscreen. We ate an early dinner with the family and laughed a great deal with them. The Mediterranean’s waters had washed away my crabby mood. I think the thoughts of returning to our tiny room with air conditioning helped as well. We had a peaceful ride back to P's house that evening.