#goadjust

By Lilly Hearle, Social Media Scholarship Recipient, Summer 2017, Street Scenes: Imagining Cosmopolitan London 

Plugs, voltage, electronics, I hate them all!  Well…it’s a love-hate relationship.

My flight was at least seventeen hours long.  I went from Salt Lake City Airport to LAX, sat around for five hours, and then took my ten hour flight to London Heathrow.  After that I waited in line for an hour just to show my passport and letter.   By then, even with my extra battery, my phone was dead as a student with a twenty page paper due in at midnight and it’s 11:58.  But that was not the end!  Never!  I waited at the station for another hour for our no-show-group.  From there it was a forty-minute train to Gloucester Road and then another twenty-minute walk to our flat (it took so long because I stopped at the metro gate house first on accident).   Of course my phone needed charging. It was practically screaming in its dead dementor breath scream to GIVE IT LIFE!!!  

So, when I was all settled and my suitcase was open and scattered all over the floor, I found my adapter/ converter and plugged it in.  Yeah. Then my floor manager came in and asked me and my roommates if we were plugging stuff in…

But never fear!  It wasn’t mine.  God bless me. Mine was planning a last-minute-just-when-you-need-it-the-most sneak attack.

Of course I had other problems with that darn adapter, too.  My laptop would make an obnoxious buzzing sound which was especially annoying when using headphones (I fixed it by touching the metal lining on my laptop—shock absorption), and my multi USB brick adapter thing completely gave up the ghost.   But on the last day of my trip, just as I was getting ready to leave for a nice little one-night-stay at a hotel near the airport, my phone stopped.  Yup, it just stopped and then it was gone. I tried plugging it in, for perhaps it was just sleeping, having exhausted its limits. And it became a heated brick of fire!! You see, the thing you learn about adapters and stuff is that when it starts to get bad, it will only get worse. At the start of my trip, the adapter sometimes wouldn’t work on my phone.  I would sleep all night and not wake up in the morning because my phone had died, leaving me without an alarm.  By the end, my laptop was having trouble with heating up when I plugged it in, too.

I’m not sure that all of these things constitute culture shock, but all of them are things that surprised me or that I’ve noticed to be different during my time living here in Puebla, MX. If you plan to travel to Mexico in the future these are some things you may want to keep in mind.

1. Water: Do not drink the tap water! You won’t find drinking fountains on campus or anywhere else for the same reason. The tap water is not purified or treated to be safe for consumption in Mexico and could contain any number of unsafe chemicals, metals, bacteria, etc. This means you will have to budget water as a daily expense. 

2. Toilet Paper: You can’t flush it down the toilet. Almost everywhere in Mexico you will see a little waste bin right beside the toilet, this is where you have to dispose of toilet paper as the plumbing system in the vast majority of the country is not built to handle it. 

3. Items unattended: If you’re from the US, you may feel comfortable walking away from your laptop at a coffee shop or a public place for a few minutes to use the restroom or what have you, this is not advisable in Mexico. This is even something that the officials at UDLA warned us about during our first week. If you leave your items unattended in a public place for too long or forget them behind, there is a good chance you are kissing them goodbye. The people of Mexico are wonderful and kind, but you need to keep in mind just how valuable a single phone or laptop may be worth in a country with widespread poverty and a very low minimum wage. 

4. Punctuality/Ahorita: This generally doesn’t apply as much at school or work, but in casual life you should probably get used to issues of punctuality. It’s not uncommon for you to have a date or a plan to meet friends and have them show up or be ready anywhere from 30 minutes-2 hours later than planned. It’s just more of a casual culture when it comes to time. A very common word in Mexico is “ahorita”, which means “right now”. Just keep in mind when someone tells you “ya me voy”, “ahorita vengo”. or “ahorita me voy” you should consider “right now” to be meant in el sentido mexicano, not in the literal sense. 

I am not a good journaler. When I am at school I try to keep a beautiful organized bullet journal but always end up with a mess of sticky notes and scraps of paper.

When I’m traveling, especially on such an intense trip as my learning abroad adventure to Havana, I find myself needing to journal every night. I take time to process feelings, remember funny anecdotes, and write down names or places to research.

Your journal is for you.

If something is bothering you while you are traveling, write it down. Get those thoughts out of your head-space so you can continue soaking in your new surroundings.

I worry a lot about losing things when I’m traveling. I’m one of those people whose internal mantra is PKW (Phone, Keys, Wallet). Where are they and are they safe? On my trip to Havana, I lost my sunglasses in the ocean. I was standing in the water talking to my friends and drinking fresh coconut juice (how could I be worried about anything at that moment) when a wave washed over me and the ocean took possession of my prescription sunglasses. Trying to play cool as my friends felt around aimlessly in the sand for them I retreated to my backpack to put on my hat and write in my journal.

It’s silly that something like losing sunglasses could stress me out, but it did. Writing down those feelings helped me process them faster and get back to having fun.

I also used my journal to write down things I wanted to tell my parents, friends, and siblings about—specific details that I knew they would enjoy and I didn’t want to forget!

Of course, since I was traveling with a class I used my journal to take notes for my research paper as well. I am writing about biodiversity in Cuba and so I used my journal to write down questions for later, helpful organizations, and bird species that I spotted while traveling!

It’s okay to fill in the journal later.

Now after telling you how great it is to journal in the moment, I also want to say that you shouldn’t be chained to your travel journal. If you’re walking around in a museum or just too tired to open your journal on your way to bed, don’t do it. You can fill it in later or just let that day be remembered in photographs and stories.

As part of my trip to Cuba with the University of Utah’s Cuba Complexity, Community and Change program, I was able to stay with a host family. This was my third time staying with a host family (previously in Russia and France). I have always had good experiences with host families and I was thrilled to meet my Cuban abuela! 

I am a firm believer that host families are the BEST form of immersion in a culture. Why? Well...

If a different language, you are in the prime environment to learn. Especially if there are children in the home because kids often do not mind teaching you new words and helping with your grammar. 

You can ask questions to a reliable source who can explain from the perspective of a local.

You can get recommendations for local spots: bakeries, hikes, restaurants etc. They live there and definitely know the BEST places for whatever you are looking for! I have never regretted following a local’s advice. 

You get to taste local dishes for a fraction of the price! Some dishes, especially if they are well known, will be overpriced because they are marketed to tourists. But if you live with a host family, odds are they will eat that same food often! 

Eating in Ghana was quite an experience! Shown below are some of the dishes that I had the pleasure of enjoying: 

Shown below is Jollof Rice - a mixture of rice, vegetables, tomato sauce, and spices. Sometimes it was served spicy, other times it was more bland. It was extremely filling and delicious though after a long day of work in the field. 

Whenever you order fish in Ghana, typically the whole fish is served. This was the fried Tilapia that I ordered. It was challenging to de-bone the fish however it was tasty!

This is fufu - a traditional Ghanian dish. The dough is meant to be pinched off, dunked in the broth, and swallowed whole. This dish was challenging for me to enjoy as I am not accustomed to swallowing my food without chewing. The flavor of the broth was delicious nonetheless. 

This was one of my favorite dishes - Groundnut Soup. In Ghana, peanuts are called groundnuts. The soup was full of flavor and was a filling meal after a long day of work and fun. In the middle is a ball of rice, which was served separately with the intention of putting in the soup. It was stick-to-your-bones good. 

This was an amazing dish of Creamy Black Beans and Rice adorned with Mango and Avocado. It was one of the best vegetarian dishes I had while I was in Ghana. The flavors were perfected. 

This is Chicken Shwarma. We bought these wraps a local gas station while we were in transit. The wrap was one of the best thing I ate in Ghana. It was full of flavor and savory goodness. I’m dreaming about these right now... 

Plugs, voltage, electronics, I hate them all!  Well…it’s a love-hate relationship.

My flight was at least seventeen hours long.  I went from Salt Lake City Airport to LAX, sat around for five hours, and then took my ten hour flight to London Heathrow.  After that I waited in line for an hour just to show my passport and letter.   By then, even with my extra battery, my phone was dead as a student with a twenty page paper due in at midnight and it’s 11:58.  But that was not the end!  Never!  I waited at the station for another hour for our no-show-group.  From there it was a forty-minute train to Gloucester Road and then another twenty-minute walk to our flat (it took so long because I stopped at the metro gate house first on accident).   Of course my phone needed charging. It was practically screaming in its dead dementor breath scream to GIVE IT LIFE!!!  

               So, when I was all settled and my suitcase was open and scattered all over the floor, I found my adapter/ converter and plugged it in.  Yeah. Then my floor manager came in and asked me and my roommates if we were plugging stuff in…

               How did he know, you might ask?  Cause we were trippin!  The power.  

               But never fear!  It wasn’t mine.  God bless me. Mine was planning a last-minute-just-when-you-need-it-the-most sneak attack.

               Of course I had other problems with that darn adapter, too.  My laptop would make an obnoxious buzzing sound which was especially annoying when using headphones (I fixed it by touching the metal lining on my laptop—shock absorption), and my multi USB brick adapter thing completely gave up the ghost.   But on the last day of my trip, just as I was getting ready to leave for a nice little one-night-stay at a hotel near the airport, my phone stopped.  Yup, it just stopped and then it was gone. I tried plugging it in, for perhaps it was just sleeping, having exhausted its limits. And it became a heated brick of fire!! You see, the thing you learn about adapters and stuff is that when it starts to get bad, it will only get worse. At the start of my trip, the adapter sometimes wouldn’t work on my phone.  I would sleep all night and not wake up in the morning because my phone had died, leaving me without an alarm.  By the end, my laptop was having trouble with heating up when I plugged it in, too.

Written 06/09/2017

I have always considered myself an outgoing person. I love talking to people, starting conversations and laughing with strangers, and I’ve always felt confident in my ability to do so in English, my native language. Being thrown in to immersive language classes, however, and interacting in a society where English is rarely an option has stripped me of these abilities, and it has been a disarming experience.  

Learning a language in a country without safety nets has lead to a slew of challenges that I never faced growing up speaking English in America. Simple tasks, like finding breakfast or catching a bus, become something I plan out in my head, practicing things to say and ways to ask for help if I should need it. Being immersed in a language has made me reevaluate parts of my identity that I previously assumed were innate.

In China, I have realized that language, and the way individuals use it, is central to the identity we cast for ourselves. If I don’t feel confident using my voice and talking to people, two things I considered defining personality traits, then what other aspects of my character show through? How can I use what language skills I do have to show those parts of my personality? This has been one of the most challenging adjustments to make while abroad.

These worries, I think, are normal — being stripped of language makes you feel vulnerable and being immersed in classes and culture is a daunting challenge. However, the growth and improvement I have seen in my language ability in just three weeks makes me think that all this uncertainty might be worth something. Truly, I think the best way to learn is to make yourself feel uncomfortable, to throw yourself in just a little too deep and a little too fast. Eventually, you’ll find your stride and begin to work around the barriers you encounter.

While language learning has trapped some aspects of my personality in limbo, it has also allowed me to develop other traits. One characteristic that I have had to practice is a willingness to laugh off mistakes and avoid taking myself to seriously. When overcoming a language barrier, there are bound to be many funny or awkward experiences. Last week, for example, a few friends and I wanted to go to a museum. I went to the ticket window to purchase the tickets and asked if they had a discount for university students. The ticket officer responded with what I now realize was something like, “No student discount, the tickets are free,” but I only picked up the part where I was told “No.” Then I asked, “So how much are three tickets?” The exasperated ticket officer repeated again — “They are free!”

On the whole, this was a funny and harmless mix-up. I laughed about it later with my friends, and it makes a silly little story to tell when people ask about my experience in China. In the moment though, this little error was humiliating. It can be easy to let small mistakes like this make you more reluctant to speak in the future, but the trick, I think, is to understand that these errors are essential to learning. Once they are made you’re able to progress even more. Plus, you’ll have more funny stories to share when you return!

After not having any wifi at our hotel in Melbourne, we’ve made our way to Canberra and I can finally post an update on my trip! Here’s what I’ve been up to for the past few days.

HiSense Courts and the Melbourne Cricket Ground

We were able to play a match of tennis at the HiSense courts, which professionals use to train. I’ve never played tennis before but it was tons of fun to learn about and get tips from some of the trainers. Afterwards we walked next door for a tour of the Melbourne Cricket Ground. We learned about the history of cricket, the stadium, and got to tour some of the more behind the scenes part of the stadium, like the press briefing room. Later we got to watch an AFL game and experience what it’s like to be at an Australian sporting event.

Exploring the City

There’s lots to see and do in Melbourne, which is a mix of very old and very new buildings. There’s street art all around the city, especially on Hosier Lane which is known for its murals and art. There are museums, galleries, restaurants, brunch spots, and the possibilities for activities are endless. We walked about twelve miles each day while we explored all that the city has to offer!

The Great Ocean Road

We spent an entire day touring The Great Ocean Road outside of Melbourne. It was interesting to learn that the entire road is actually a war monument and that there are three coasts along the Great Ocean Road: The Surf Coast, The Green Coast, and The Shipwreck Coast. It was incredible to be in one of Australia’s National Parks and witness some of the most amazing natural sites in the world, like The Twelve Apostles. AND we got to see koalas in the wild!