Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Cultural training

On Monday Emma and I had a full day with a cultural trainer, learning about the overall culture of India, and the more subtle, under-the-tip-of-the-iceberg things. Plus we were taken for a delicious North Indian lunch at Namaste Cafe in Uptown - highly recommended. Some of the things we were told weren't a giant surprise, like take off your shoes when you go to someone's house, and some were just good advice, like be OK if you or the kids feel like you just want to be home, or just want to watch a familiar TV show or have familiar food. Especially the kids will probably need the support of mac and cheese, or Spongebob, and we need to accept that, at least to some extent.

Also helpful was learning about the different levels of acceptance of being in a new culture, and how you work through impressions of a new place and new ways of doing things. There will likely be the sense of amazement, then often a sense that our own ways are so much better and why is everything so much worse in a different place, then getting used to it (the training was better worded of course). The general message was that we should reconcile ourselves with not finding everything easy, or exciting or fun.

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