Welcome to Part One of our Goer Essentials Series, where we’ve asked Goers to sound off on the essentials to thriving in life overseas. In today’s article, we cover dealing with culture shock. 

Goer Essentials:  10 Essentials to Thriving in Life Overseas

For this Goer Essential series, we surveyed 25 Goers who are serving two-year global placements in 10 different countries on 4 continents.  These articles are your chance to hear directly from Goers as they share their triumphs, best practices, amusing gaffes, and deep experiences of learning to live, thrive, and make an impact while immersed in a new culture!

About the author:  David Gee served for two years in a GoCorps placement in North Africa serving refugees from across the middle east.  In this Goer Essential series, he shares his own experiences alongside the stories and lessons learned of Goers serving all over the world using their unique skillsets and training to fight injustice, serve the oppressed and share the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Part 1:  Culture Shock

Ask anyone who has spent a good chunk of time overseas or even immersing themselves into a new culture here in the states, and you will inevitably hit on the subject of culture shock. Simply put, culture shock is heightened levels of anxiety, anger, or depression in response to the stress and discomforts of adjusting to the rhythms, languages, and norms of a new host culture.

I was no stranger to culture shock myself when I served as a Goer in North Africa for two years, but what I did find fascinating were the things that actually triggered it. For example, I could easily stomach the streets running with blood in the yearly holiday that saw thousands of goats slaughtered across my city in a single day, but when my African roommates refused to eat their food without first insisting I take some, I’d go bonkers.

Culture shock is a bit like a rainstorm. Some manage to dance in it, others hide under an umbrella, but at the end of the day, we’re all going to get a bit wet. The question then is how to deal with it.

So, whether you’re planning on being a Goer or just trying to understand more of the plight Goers face in adjusting to a new culture and country, allow the reflections of our current Goers to help shape your expectations of what it’s like to deal with culture shock.

Culture Shock is not a One-Size-Fits-All kind of thing

For starters, there’s no one-size-fits-all to experiencing culture shock. For instance, when we asked Hannah in Zambia to reflect on her experience adjusting, she shared the following:

I never had the one, big culture “shock” moment. Instead, I have had to evaluate some of my feelings to understand that I am adjusting to a new culture. Initially, I could drive in Zambia using my American driver's license for the first three months. But after that, I had to get a Zambian one. It turns out, the process of getting a Zambian license is hectic, confusing, long, and makes the American DMV look like a breeze. For most of the process, I had no clue what was happening and constantly found myself asking in my head, “why is this taking so long?”. At one point, we were even kicked out of the room we were waiting in because it was lunch break. Unlike in the States where you have people take lunch in shifts, Zambians all take an hour lunch at the same time. I found myself becoming angry and frustrated at the inefficiencies in the process.

So while the reality of getting a new driver's license wasn’t too much of a shock to Hannah, experiencing the process through the rhythms and lens of another culture became quite infuriating. When asked how she combatted these subtle emotions bubbling to the surface, Hannah reflected:

Zambia has a very flexible sense of time. This can be hard for very time-oriented Americans. To combat these cultural differences, we have to tell ourselves that our way is not the only right way. Something else that can help with culture shock is finding the similarities between your home culture and your new culture. We are more similar than we may at first see.

-Hannah, Zambia

However, it’s not always a subtle cultural difference that slowly pokes at us and causes culture shock. One of our Goers, Neema, in West Africa experienced one of a more drastic, and seemingly rude and offensive nature. She writes:

Say you are at your language partner’s home and a guest enters. In seeing you, they greet you by saying “Hello! The white person is here!”. Or in the street when kids see you they cry aloud, “White person! White person! White person!” How would you respond? I have chatted with many workers, trying to get insight on how they handled it. One person said they even asked a local in their community, who in turn explained they didn’t know it would be offensive. It turns out, in this culture, it is not respectful to call someone you don’t know (especially if they are older than you) by their first name. So, sometimes I simply greet and move on if I don’t need to interact with the person other than walking past them (respectful but setting boundaries). If I have a further conversation, I will say “My name is Grace” in the local language and ask what theirs is (if it is culturally appropriate). If I am in the mood to joke, humor can be the only remedy. Then I will respond: “Yes, the White person is here.” I am still learning each greeting that comes my way.

-Neema, West Africa

Neema and Hannah’s stories may differ in terms of whether culture shock was as subtle as creeping irritation or as blatantly jarring as name calling in the streets, but both experiences required them to reflect deeply to understand themselves as well as the culture that hosts them. And in both cases, there’s a need for grace. Grace for ourselves as we experience culture shock, and grace for our hosts as they supply it. Something Julie in Ecuador articulates well:

Honestly, I had a really difficult time with culture shock. I was fully immersed in the local culture. I lived with a host family while doing language lessons 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, and ultimately felt isolated from my team. Fortunately, I was really well informed on the symptoms of culture shock and was able to identify that that is what I was experiencing, rather than something more serious like depression. Identifying it offered a huge relief because I also knew the culture shock would eventually settle, and it did after about 3-4 months and a move to live with North American roommates. However, during the height of it, I also learned to give myself grace. After being in Spanish class all morning, I didn't need to make myself watch a Netflix show in Spanish. It was ok to just rest or watch something in English. My brain needed a break and that was okay! I'm also a firm believer in moderation and I learned how to apply that to culture adaptation. I was eating, sleeping, breathing Ecuadorian culture. So, if the one time I was free to choose my own place to eat lunch, I wanted to choose Dominos or Subway, that was okay! Culture adaptation is about a marathon, not a sprint!

-Julie, Ecuador 

Culture adaptation is about a marathon, not a sprint!

Let Julie’s last sentence sink in. It’s a marathon of being transformed in the process, not a sprint to skillfully adjust overnight.

Another GoCorps Goer named Hannah, in Mexico, also offers her encouragement and approach:

Culture shock itself manifested for me in a lot of anxiety, paranoia and mistrust of the people in this new culture, and it’d even culminate in a longing for home that made me almost physically ache. But the best thing I did that ended up helping was to press into it. When I felt lonely and sad, I confided in my host sister about it. This had the double benefit of both bringing comfort by processing with a person face to face and building trust in my relationship with her which is a huge part of creating an essential support system in a new culture. And then, when I was feeling like staying in the safe space of my bedroom, but needed to run and errand and no one in the family was available to go with me, facing the fear and discomfort of venturing out on my own to find the bank, the grocery store, or even just explore the shops near my house, built steps of confidence that I could continue climbing, one at a time. I think it's very important to stay connected with family and friends at home-- those are your people-- but it's equally important to be super intentional in building relationships of trust and support in your new context.

-Hannah, Mexico

Conclusion

Dealing with culture shock is one of the hardest realities to adjusting to living life overseas. Even if we’re caught up in the dream of living out the calling God has given us, there are always days that seem impossibly hard, and those are the days we lean on God and allow his grace to be enough for ourselves, as well as our hosts.

Thanks to the Goers for sharing their stories and reflections so openly, and stay tuned for the rest of our Goers Essentials series where we’ll unpack everything from loneliness and language learning to airport survival and more.  



Next Up - Goer Essentials Part 2:  Loneliness

Some Takeaways:

• Culture Shock is triggered and manifests itself differently in different people and at different times.
• Culture Shock is normal and should be expected by everyone who is immersing themselves in a new culture.
• Before you go, have a baseline understanding of culture shock so you can recognize when you are experiencing it.
• Voicing and verbalizing your culture shock feelings with others on your team from your home culture is the first step in effectively dealing with culture shock.

Want to dive a little deeper? Check out these Goer blogs related to culture shock:

• Learning and Unlearning - Emily, North Africa
• When the Going Gets Tough - Evelyn, Central Asia
• A Good and Tough Month - Evelyn, Central Asia
• Like a Newborn - Mariana, Bulgaria
• Hope and Hopelessness - Fabian, North Africa

Check out other blogs in this series here.