Can you easily write the following?

My Culture Shock

In 2011, I had a chance to visit some parts of United States for a short-term workshop. It was my first time visiting a new country so it was interesting and scary. I went to different States and observed their different cultures, language and weather. It gave me a wide knowledge and interesting experience in my life. After I got back to my country, I shared my experience with my family and friends and then I started thinking that I would love traveling to other countries too. After my trip to US, I got married to an American woman and traveling become part of my life. However, when I started to think about moving to Rwanda for my wife’s job, I felt nervous. Rwanda is a very close country to Ethiopia (my country) but we have big cultural differences, such as language, culture and weather.

The Negotiation Phase:

It was mid-year of 2017 when I first thinking about moving to Rwanda and at first, I was thinking about it and talked about it with my friends. When I told them about my plan to move to Rwanda, people shared their knowledge about the Rwanda from the past history believing that it not a safe place to live. I was able to explain how Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda looks like from my two-day visit last year. After a few months went by, I started feeling nervous that it really was going to happen. I kept telling myself things would work out fine and I would be happy, but I had no idea how life would be in new place. My flight from Ethiopia to Rwanda was two and half hours. When I first arrived in Kigali, Rwanda it was January 2018 and it was a sunny and warm day. I know the country has so many rainy seasons , so I was happy to be there when it was nice weather. However, I started feeling the culture shock after a few days passed by. I felt loneliness and isolated by the different language and culture.

I am not like other people who are very excited to move to a new place and explore new things. I always have questions: How I am going to fit in different society? How do I learn the new language and culture? The national language is Kinyarwanda but most of the people speak different languages, such as French, English and Swahili. I only spoke English to communicate with the people and communication was very challenging. It was hard to have a clear conversation with people so sometimes I tried body language to communicate. Other times I just gave up and told myself it was a mistake that I moved here. I used to feel lonely and sad. After a few weeks went by, I started to understand few words which help me a lot to communicate with people, and then I met some people around my house and they helped me to understand some things about the culture. After a lot of challenges, I decided to learn more.

The Adjustment Phase:

I started to meet people from my country and joined the soccer team. I started to feel a belonging in that community. Also, there were a few local people on the team and I became friends with them and that helped me to have more knowledge about the culture. I learned what is right or wrong in the culture. For example, eating food while you are walking on the street is not appreciated by the culture and waking barefoot is also a taboo in Rwanda culture. This knowledge created a strong relationship between me and the new place. My new friends told me about the country history and I started building a strong relationship with the culture and the people.

Rwanda is a landlocked East African country with a green, mountainous landscape, volcanoes, and a national park that is home to mountain gorillas. The more I traveled around the country and learned about the language, the more it helped my adjustment.

Honeymoon Phase:

After several interviews, I got a job with an organization working with youth in gender equity and sports, outside of the city. I was so happy to get the chance to work with the children again. My previous job was with youth and sport development. My new job provided a great learning experience. Mostly I learned about gender equity between boys and girls. Gender was a new area for me so I learned how gender inequity usually affects the girls. For example, girls and women are not allowed to milk a cow. Rwandans believed it a curse for women to milk a cow.

Also, girls usually do not get the chance to go to school because families think it is a waste as once the girls get married they become another's family property so they can’t help their own family. Therefore, the family only spends money and time on the boys so they can get support from them when they grow up. Girls are the ones helping with the house, including farming, cooking, fetching water and cleaning, while the boys are out playing soccer and do nothing to help in the house. So, this program helped me a lot to understand the culture and the history of the country.

The Mastering Phase:

I understood so many things about life in Rwanda and things started to make sense after a while. I respected the difference between my country’s culture and this one. I often communicated with new people and when I told them I am from Ethiopia, their faces changed with smile and joy. They usually told me how Rwanda and Ethiopia are related. The common example, most of the time, was our skin color and face structure. I used to get questions from children who wanted to know why I was not speaking their language. They asked this question because of my skin color and they thought I was from their country. I started feeling we are family even though we speak different language and have different cultures. Each culture has given me unique learning experience. When I speak with my Rwandan friends in their native language, I find I can connect with them on a more intimate level. After all, I feel like Rwanda is my other home and the people are so nice to welcome me anywhere as one of their family.

Dealing with Culture Shock:

My journey helped me to understand the new culture and to deal with it in different way. In my opinion, we should be open to learn new things every day and try to be positive with different cultures and languages. This will give us a wide knowledge of the world and help us enjoy our time with the new culture. My time in Rwanda was a life experience and I am grateful to share it with anyone I know. It makes me a better person to this day. In my opinion the most knowledgeable people are the ones who travel a lot.