Cultural Adjustment

Last year all of the women on our team went to Ghana for the Women of the Harvest retreat.  While we were in Accra, my dear friend Becky looked out the car window and said, "Is that a really cute dress or have I just been here too long?"  We have a running joke that when we go back to the US, we need a friend that will do a wardrobe review, to tell us what is out of style and too worn out to wear in the pristine land of America.  It's a joke, but it represents the very real phenomenon of spending so much time and energy embracing your host culture that you lose touch with your home culture.  In other words, the phenomenon of becoming a weird missionary!

Enjoying a different culture for a few weeks or months is pretty easy.  It is fascinating and intriguing.  But to stay somewhere for a few years and be happy to do it, well that takes work.  What is it that enables a person to go beyond that initial romance and come to a place of giving up their own culture in order to embrace a new one?  Our team has always put a very high emphasis on learning the local language, and after having lived here for six years and seeing others who have come to live and work here, I have to say that what I've witnessed confirms that value.  The Kabiye people relate to me differently as my ability to speak with them in their terms grows.  There is also the practice of appreciating the elements of their culture.  I find that I sometimes have to be very intentional about this.  I like to drive through Kabiyeland and look for the beauty of Kabiye culture that I have begun to overlook because it has become commonplace to me.  An example is watching women laugh and talk as they carry their loads to market in the next village.  Another is seeing people cultivate their fields together, using the labor of their hands to provide food for themselves and their families.  Another is seeing school children jump and wave excitedly as I, the white person, pass by.

I have been so blessed to have had teammates who have done a great job loving and embracing living in Togo.  I have seen that that doesn't just happen.  It takes commitment and determination.  It has to be a goal, and one has to work toward it.  It is much like a marriage in that respect.  It seems romantic at first, but then when you really get deep into it, you find find that truly investing yourself is much harder than you thought.  But also like marriage, they reward of cultivating that relationship is pretty amazing.