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.

The Puffy Shirt

One of my favorite Seinfeld episodes, and there are many, is entitled “The Puffy Shirt.” For those of you not familiar with the plot of this particular show, it centers on Kramer having a girlfriend that is a low talker. During one scene, Kramer, the low talker, Jerry and Elaine are all out to dinner. After Kramer excuses himself to use the restroom, Jerry and Elaine are at the table with the low talker and attempting to make small talk. The catch is that each time the low talker responds they can’t hear her. After asking for her to repeat herself a couple times, they just nod and say yes. So this continues on as Elaine mentions that she is running a charity event and Jerry is going to be appearing on TV to promote the benefit. After Elaine mentions this, the low talker mutters something that is inaudible. Not wanting to go through the whole “what did you say routine” again, Elaine and Jerry quickly said “sure”.

The next day, Kramer comes over to Jerry’s apartment and is holding an ugly, white, puffy shirt that resembles something a pirate would sport. Jerry asks Kramer what’s the deal with the shirt. Kramer tells him it is his and that he agreed last night to wear it during his time on TV. As you might imagine, Jerry is incensed and asks when he agreed to wear the shirt. Of course, it was during the time when Jerry and Elaine just hastily responded yes.

What does this have to do with me being in Panama? Well, two things. The first is I miss watching Seinfeld. It’s my favorite show and nothing else is really even close. The second and more important is a couple weeks back I felt everyday had “Puffy Shirt” potential. Allow me to explain.

For starters, when I arrived in Panama, my Spanish was basically non-existent. During the first few weeks, I was in a pretty sheltered environment where I was able to work on my Spanish without worrying about any potential landmines. That changed during “Cultural Week” where all the new crop of volunteers visits the province where they will be living and spend a week with a volunteer that has already been living in the region. It’s a great week where you really get your first taste of what life will be like in Panama. The one catch is you are staying with a host family that lives in the country.

What that really means is you get to learn to speak like most Panamanians. In other words, fast and the words aren’t fully pronounced. As you might imagine, it was a bit overwhelming, especially considering the father of the house took those two characteristics and pushed them even further. After he would ramble something to me, I quickly realized I was having a potential “Puffy Shirt” moment. At times, I would ask him to repeat what he said, but you can only go to that well so many times before you just start to feel a bit foolish and disrespectful. Sometimes, I got the drift of what he was saying, other times, I would have no idea, but still just nod my head and say yes. Each morning I was waiting for my own puffy shirt with a Panamanian twist, but thankfully it never came.

Now, my Spanish has improved and I’m much more confident and what’s going on in a conversation. However, that doesn’t mean I’m out of the woods just yet. Last week, I went to my site for first time and I found myself lost amid somebody talking faster than the old Micro Machines commercials. I’m hopeful when I return to site next week, I didn’t agree to something outrageous.

There would be a bright side. I’m going to be living on the ocean for the next two years, so if I get stuck wearing a puffy, pirate shirt by ‘accident’ I won’t look completely ridiculous. Just ridiculous.

Getting Started

Bienvenidos to my blog! As you know, I’m going to be living in Panama for the next two years working with the Peace Corps. As a way to keep everybody in the loop about my experiences, I, like many others, have started this blog.

Now what you will get with my postings is not a day to day description of what’s going on with my life and work. Instead, I’ll be focusing on a particular topic and tie in a variety of things, be it a story or experience from Panama, something back home in the States, or just life in general. The postings will vary in length. If I have something good, I could ramble on for a bit. Other times, it could be short and not sweet and you might utter under your breath, “boy that was a waste of time.” I’ll do my best to limit those postings, but that will fall back on my writing ability, so I can’t make any promises.

That said, the goal is to come up with a posting once every week/week and a half. For those technologically advanced, this will include my parents soon, I’ve added the RSS feed, so that way each time I post something, you will know without having to check the site everyday. If you miss me that much and want to check the site everyday, that’s your decision and I’ll support it 100%.

Please feel free to leave comments with the posts, or if you would like, you can send me an email directly to dylansacchetti@hotmail.com.

One final thing, I have listed other blogs of friends also right now in Panama. Feel free to spend some time on their sites. Well, as long as it doesn’t take away too much time from mine.

Dylan