4 Stages of Culure Shock::

4 STAGES OF CULTURE SHOCK:::
(excerpts from Center for Global Education Handbook)

-:- HONEYMOON -:- HOSTILITY -:- HUMOR -:- HOME -:-

1) HONEYMOON: everything is exciting and exotic
- "people seem so relaxed, unrushed; they really have their priorities right."
- "the tropical plants are gorgeous."
- "despite their poverty, people are incredibly generous."
- "People really know how to enjoy life."

2) HOSTILITY: everything is dreadfully chaotic and frustrating
- "People (systems/traffic/etc.) here are irrational."
- "Things are so untidy here / people are so dirty."
- "Things are so inefficient/people don´t plan ahead/people are lazy."
- "People here are supposed to be open and warm, but they´re actually very cold."

** in a reverse-hostility situation a sojourner´s hostility may also be directed towards one´s home culture. **(which we actually see quite a bit of here)

3) HUMOR: is reached when the sojourner is willing to make light of his or her confusion and discomfort. =) laughter eases the tension of not knowing what is appropriate or how to make sense of something. Easing the tension in turn, frees one to ask questions and continue learning

4) HOME: indicates that the cultural sojourner has reached a general level of comfort within her new context. there may still be questions and akward moments, but she has grown comfortable with a certain level of discomfort. she experiments with strategies to learn what she needs to know. She recognizes strengths and weaknesses of the cultures of both her home and new contexts.

MOLLY::: somewhere between hostility and humor. I´ve mostly been in the hostile stage admittedly - feeling that everything happens a bit too slowly and haphazardly around here, but i noticed myself crossing into the Humor stage a bit lately - making light of the constant fire crackers exploding outside of our windows, or while walking down the street for example. =) Anyways, I certainly don´t feel at home here. I think the key step towards progress in this are is: RELATIONSHIPS, the more people we get to know, the more we will trust we will build between us. I think TRUST is key to overcoming culture shock.

OTHERS::: Everyone who is living abroad is somewhere in regards to their new culture, any comments?

Shakin it up in Guatemala

interesting events from the past week::

- we had a small earth quake // tremor in the middle of Thanksgiving mass in a crowded room with about 100 people. it was one of the craziest sensations, i felt dizzy afterwards and confused until it dawned on me that it wasn´t just my chair that turned to noodles, it was everyones´ and well, it wasn´t the chairs that were moving, it was the ground! it was quite the rush.

- yesterday evening we had another slighter tremor, but i was sitting on the bed for that one. the door to our room started shaking in its frame and i was bouncing around on the bed, which is more vulnerable to shakiness anyways. this one was more scary, i asked matt to hold me and told him i didn´t want to die.

anyways, here´s a photo of the room we´re staying in, it is one of many rooms that make up Señora Rolanda´s lovely courtyard of a house.