After my first week here, I’m beginning to think that I’ve forgotten what is “normal” to me. I hear the other students talking about the things that have shocked them and what they think is just “so weird” and I realize that I expected these shocking things to happen. And then I realized that when these shocking things happened, I didn’t even give them a moment’s thought. For example, we saw a woman being harassed the other day while we were in San José. She had been sitting alone and three men approached her and I can only assume that they treated her as if she were a prostitute. But she didn’t say anything to them and at one point when one man reached out to touch her knee, she merely moved her leg out of his reach and then all three men left. I could sympathize with her, but I didn’t think anything more of it. Later on, I heard one of the girls who had witnessed this describing it to her boyfriend and she used the words “it was so intense.” After being followed to and from school at least twice a week last semester and being hesitant to even look people in the eye, I felt that this was a low-key harassment. I would have much preferred to go through what this Costa Rican woman had gone through than to how I was treated in Morocco. Here, once it was made clear that the woman was not a prostitute, the men just left her alone. In Morocco, whether you were treated as a prostitute or not, you were not left alone until the men tired of following you, talking to you, yelling at you, etc. (which could be anywhere from 30 seconds to 45 minutes).
I also haven’t been shocked by things like the traffic, which seems tame even though we have almost been in accidents at least 5 times and we drove for 32 minutes on a slashed tire. Having less personal space hasn’t bothered me at all either. I am so used to eating dinner with my host family members almost sitting on my lap and having their plates of food overlapping mine so that more than once the backs of our hands would brush against the food on someone else’s plate. When our professor here stands only 16 inches away from us while giving us a tour, I look around and realize that I’m the only one who isn’t backing away. Other students were bothered by their host mother coming in to clean their rooms and make their beds, and even to rearrange their clothes. Granted, my host mother has only entered my room to sweep it, but I would hardly be bothered if she did more. Last semester, my host sister would usually help herself to whatever was in my closet that she felt like playing with, including clothes, medicine, pens, textbooks, and my laptop.
I am not sure how I feel about not being shocked by these things and more. On one hand, I feel like it’s no big deal. I have traveled before and I have no doubt that these experiences once did shock me and that I did think certain things were weird. On the other, it makes me feel a bit worried. I like traveling. I like experiencing new cultures and new perspectives. But I also like returning home. I like my American culture and I like identifying myself as an American. So when other students here are shocked and I am not, what does that mean for me when I do return home? Will I not be shocked by things that should be shocking back home? Or, what if I am the one shocking people back home with my behavior? When I returned home last semester, I repeatedly sat down next to my mom on the couch and more than once she asked me to move over a little because I was too close to her. I hadn’t felt too close to her at all! This goes both ways too – I’ve also been shocked by things that other students felt were normal, like the tight clothes women wear here and men and women holding hands and making out in public. I was startled when my host mother asked me if I would be going to the bar last night. When I said no, she was the shocked one. When my host family assumed that I would be showering every day, I was also shocked. Last semester, it wasn’t strange if you and your host family only showered once a week. A shower everyday now seems like a lot, when last year it wasn’t strange if I showered twice a day. I don’t mind understanding more about another culture, but I wish it were easier to still understand my own.
