Bridging Two Cultures

This past Wednesday, I was officially sworn in as a Peace Corps volunteer. Now, I’m ready to head to my site for good today. It’s an exciting, yet a bit nerve racking, because I’ll be on my on for good. But that’s what I wanted, and that’s what I’ll be getting.

To prep for this time, Peace Corps sends you off a couple different times during training to help get your feet wet, so to speak. During these times, you get to experience Panamanian culture. Immediately you begin to recognize the difference between the cultures in how certain gestures are done in Panama. For instance, when a Panamanian wants to show how big the size of a fish is, they don’t use both hands like in the States; instead they hold out their arm and then put their hand to the spot of the length. Another favorite is how they handle a situation where they don’t understand what has been said by another. When an American encounters this predicament, they usually raise their brow or shrug their shoulders. Here? Not so much.

What they do, instead, is scrunch their nose a couple times. The first time I was on the receiving end of this expression, I was pretty startled and taken back. I was like, “what just happened?” Eventually, I realized what happened and tried to throw together some broken Spanish again and cross my fingers it would work. It did, I think.

Finally, there is my favorite cultural wrinkle I’ve come across here thus far in Panama. When you need directions to a certain location, usually in the States someone would point a finger in the direction. In Panama, one puckers their lips and moves their head in the specific direction. It’s quite a scene, really.

While picking up these little differences, I would occasionally come across something that bridged both cultures. For instance, one night I was watching a playoff baseball game with my host dad. I noticed he had gotten up and a minute later he came and sat back down. When I looked over I saw he had gotten himself an ice cold brewsky. Immediately, I thought, “hey, I’ve done THAT before. Maybe we aren’t that much different after all.”

With that, I’m off to site.