Culture Conflicts

When I found out that one of our closest neighbors had given birth to a baby girl, I was faced with a cultural dilemma. In the culture of this island, any time someone has a baby, gets sick, or has a family member die, everyone who knows them, including all their neighbors, are expected to visit them.
Thus, people wind up hosting the greatest number of visitors in their homes when they are sick, grieving, or recovering from childbirth. So I felt a little uneasy when I heard that my neighbor had her baby, because I knew I would have to swallow my own culture and go to visit her. I felt like I would be intruding on her and creating work for her when she needed to be resting, because my cultural background told me that only her closest friends and family should be there, and the rest of us should stay away until she at least had some time to recover.
Still feeling uneasy, I asked my friend Annie (another missionary in language study who happens to live in the same neighborhood) to go with me.
It was such a relief to get to our neighbor’s house and be treated as if they had already been expecting us (which, I guess, they had.) There were already snacks set out in the visiting area, and within two minutes we had cold bottles of tea in our hands. Our neighbor seemed delighted to see us and show off her baby. We had a wonderful visit, and I learned a little more about one aspect of the culture here. Hopefully I won’t be as nervous the next time I have to visit someone at what we Americans would consider “a bad time.”
We continue to learn culture as well as language here. You really can’t learn one without the other. It’s amazing how many things we assume are just “normal human behavior” until we move to a different country and learn that people here never heard of doing things the way we do. Many of our adjustments are small and some are pretty big, but we’re thankful we have the chance to see things from another perspective. It helps us to sort out which of our values are based on Scripture and which are just American culture. We appreciate your prayers as we continue to learn and adjust.