Vanuatu

*So, I'm NOT an expert on collective cultures?*

During one of my Peace and Conflict Studies courses, our professor, who is an experienced negotiator and mediator mentioned an anecdote from his expereince in South Africa: he met some local guy and invited him to come over and stay whenever the local guy was in the town where the professor stayed. We were talking about cultural misunderstanding, and the professor told us how, in that cultural context, his "stay with us for a few days" invitation was mis-interpreted as "stay with us, period." by the other.

Honestly, the thought that crossed my mind while the professor was relating his story was that these "white" people, have no patience and absolutely no experience of communal living. Of course, if I *with arrogance* was ever in that position, I would've never wanted him to leave and would've certainly dealt with it in a better with. After all, I did live in Pakistan for 13 years of my life (which, in my eyes, automatically made me an expert on *all* collective culture living-strategies).

Last weekend, I had a very strong reminder of my arrogance and ignorance. There is a village close to town, called Mele. There's a muslim community there, with the total number of muslims ranging anywhere from 30 - 70 people. So, I make sure to go out there every Friday just to have some contact with others of the same religion. So, last Friday, when I went out for Jumah (the Friday prayers that are said in congregation at a mosque), I invited these girls over to my place for the weekend and told them that they could sleep over at my place if they wanted. I guess my intended meaning and the received meaning at their end was completely different - they did come over but did not leave until I had to leave for work 3 days later. Even then, there was the expectation that I should tell them to stay over at my place while I was gone to work.

Girl uses cellphone to make calls to Fiji and other Pacific countries. I should give benefit of doubt, and assume that she doesn't realize how costly international calls are? Or maybe, it's a culture thing, where whatever is mine is theirs and tehre isn't that increased sense of material attachment we in the West experience? But there's always that nagging sound that will come up with rebuttals, such as, "if she didn't think it was wrong to call, why did she call only when I was gone out or in the washroom? Why did she think she would have to hide if she didn't know that it was wrong?".

All these constant negative feelings, especially those surrounding money, are really annoying and distracting, especially because I always prided myself on being as un-materialistic as is humanly possible for me.

Also, I always frowned at those volunteers or expats who said things like "these people always walk slow" or "these people this" or these people that." So, again, it's extremely disturbing to realize that I myself take on taht condescending tone when frustrated, tired or mentally-exhausted with cultural stuff.

But one positive thing is that I am finally starting to understand, a bit more, the tendency of humans to stick wtiht hose simliar to them, be it by virtue of language, culture, origin, ethnicity or religion. Also, I have new found respect and admiration for those who can somehow magically happen to cross these invisible borders. And needless to say, now I see the rationale behind all those organizations throwing huge amounts of money towards thigns like inter-faith/inter-ethnic/inter-cultural dialouge. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that while infrastructure funding is certainly important in conflict or post-conflict situations, the same, if not more money, should be spent towards re-building the emotional bridges between the affected communities.

posted by faa-T @ 5:06 PM