HEKIMA COLLEGE - AN EXPERIENCE IN INTERCULTURAL LIVING
Difficulties of adjustment, “culture shock” A number of students remarked about having had to adjust to the climate (they arrived in July or August), others had difficulty with the fact that Kenyans drive on the “wrong side” of the road. One student was puzzled by the Maasai roaming about the city with their cattle. Some were also shocked by the many incidences of violence in the city, especially by that of law enforcement officers, as well as by the lack of respect for traffic rules. However, the most common complaint was about “the social distance of the people in Nairobi, even in some church circles.” Virgílio who hails from Mozambique, writes: “I found the people in Nairobi in general not warm or welcoming. In my first week, I used to greet everybody, smiling, chatting, but I noticed that people were looking at me with a bit of suspicion to the point of one day--instead of replying to my greeting--someone asked me: 'Have we already met?' I had to invent an excuse to avoid the embarrassment caused by the question. In the bus, you sit near someone and you can be there together more than twenty minutes in silence, each minding his/her own business.... I found it quite strange. As time went on, I learnt also to keep quiet and mind my own business. Virgílio's experience is similar to that of Jacquineau from Cameroon: He writes: “The first time that I entered a matatu here in Nairobi, I greeted my neighbour, a lady, as I used to do in my country and other countries that I have visited. Her reaction was very surprising: she looked me over from top to bottom and kept quiet.” However, Jacquineau found that, when he visited Kisumu his experience was quite different. Germain, from Burkina Faso, goes a bit deeper into the reasons for greeting a stranger you happen to meet. “Saying 'hi' to somebody, even if you do not know him or her, is a way of telling the person that you recognise him or her as a human being who deserves respect. I was feeling very embarrassed by this way of life [not greeting strangers] that I consider as being poor in human relationships.” The use of a different language With respect to the learning of a new language, the students who had to cope with this problem were full of praise for the help received from their English-speaking fellow-students. Writes Virgílio: “My companions were kind, patient and even polite in not interrupting me when I was speaking. That helped me be more relaxed as far as language was concerned.” Another student, Jacquineau, had the same experience which he contrasts with that of students learning French: “In Anglophone areas people are not very demanding as far as English is concerned. People are not reluctant to communicate and exchange with somebody who is struggling with English, as long as the person can make himself understood. On the contrary, the Francophones value the quality of the language, so that they can easily frustrate the one who is learning French. The stress put on the quality of the French language is an influence of French mentality; in fact French people mock whoever is not able to speak 'good French.' ” Another student, Germain, also noticed the cultural differences in the speakers of the two languages and this gave him some problems: “The main difficulty I met was to reconcile two ways of expression. French people like talking too much to say few things while English speakers are very pragmatic and say things in a very short manner. My difficulties in English were also obliging me to enter in this way of expressing myself and it was not easy.” The challenge of a different type of food What many people miss most when settling in another country is the food they were used to at home. Here is Uwem Akpan's reaction to ugali as well as his musings about intercultural learning with food as a starting point: Ugali sits there on my plate. I don't know what to do with it. It looks like semovita or pounded yam. But there is no soup to go with it. Maybe I will get to like ugali, maybe not.... The other day, I was lucky to get some garri (from some friends in the city) which is a common meal in my part of Nigeria, and I was enjoying it with egusi soup.
'What are you eating?' one ugali lover asked me. He was so sure about it and the name garri never sank in. I wanted to be upset with him for calling my food Cameroonian something, but on second thought I remembered that I was reacting the same way to many of the things I was seeing here in Kenya. For meaningfulness I was comparing ... [things here] with home, which is what happens when one comes into ... an intercultural situation. For example, I keep calling chapati, which I like a lot, Kenyan pancake. So what was I so upset about when I heard 'Cameroonian ugali?” ” Most students, though, do not have such a strong reaction to food as Uwem. For example, Emmanuel from Zimbabwe says: “I had not fancied eating goat meat before coming to Kenya. But I simply adjusted through frequent consumption of it.” Other students talk about acquiring an “ecumenical” or a “missionary stomach.” The effect of being confronted with different ideas and value systems Bienvenue from the Democratic Republic of the Congo says this about the effect of meeting divergent points of view: “For me it was a kairos, a very important occasion to learn tolerance and to respect people who are different in their cultural origin .... I discovered the relevance and necessity of discussion and dialogue to avoid or resolve tensions.” And Uwem adds: “Intercultural living is supposed to teach us to confront ourselves--our idiosyncrasies and fixations.... It's great because it opens up new ways of doing things. But sometimes, it's like I'm living in a flux, with no permanent values. Thus the challenge for me is how to respect all these different cultures without falling into relativism. One way of looking at this and trying to make some sense of it is to see how I can love the people I live with .... I like to believe that there are values that are deeper than cultural ones, or, to put it another way, values that are found in every culture.” Germain adds another reflection: “In my ethnic group it is said that it is better to know somebody than to know a city or country. It means that nothing is ... [above the value of] human relationship. So, every unknown human being I meet is a potential known person and I have to open the way for an encounter.” Virgílio makes this observation: “In spite of ... great regional and cultural differences, it is more than evident that we have something stronger in common than what our differences of language and culture may suggest. And that is our religious formation and our conviction that we are called to a mission that 'transcends' (goes beyond) all differences. Thank God that our Jesuit training is done in such a way that one feels somehow at home in every house of the Society of Jesus in the world. For me that is fantastic, amazing.” Intercultural living as an enriching experience Living in an intercultural context, as one student remarked, can be either a blessing or a curse. Fortunately, the training the Hekima students receive during the course of their formation makes it possible for them to experience the intercultural context as a blessing. Bienvenu expresses this well: 'If we assume the ... right of others to be different, the intercultural context is an enriching experience. Living in Hekima's atmosphere, I discovered that it is possible to experience unity in diversity, and to live in harmony beyond our cultural differences or particularities. It helped my spiritual, psychological and human growth. It developed my social and ethnic sensitivity: now I have to take into account others' cultural sensibility when I ... say something. So for me, it is a very beautiful period of my life, a very important and real experience of a democratic and peace building culture.” Isidore from Ghana has also been enriched by living with people of many different countries. He says that it has deepened his “sense of openness to people and situations in general” and that it has helped him to overcome “subconscious prejudices in particular.” Virgílio goes into specifics: “I appreciate ... the talkativeness of French-speaking colleagues, their active participation in class, always with a question in mind.... I enjoy the discreet friendship of an English-speaking fellow, and the enthusiasm and sense of humour of a Brazilian struggling in learning English.... I have noticed that living with those who are different, I learn something about me, and to be a bit more broadminded, understanding and less judgemental.” Norbert says: “I learn so many things. Through this experience I have come to realize that people open up if you approach them kindly. But you have to make the first step. [It has helped] me to overcome fear, ignorance and bias toward people and situations.” Finally, Uwem sums it all up when he says: “At the end of intercultural living and experience, it seems to me that the basic hope is that we will come to befriend our world, loving and appreciating its rich cultural tapestry.”
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