Culture Shock is Real

Dear reader, 

During the past few weeks in Mexico, it seems like I’ve felt every single emotion I could possibly feel and even more that I’d never experienced before. Though I have already been here several years ago, it was a completely different experience. I was with my family in a very touristy area, and young enough that I was completely oblivious to the challenges of navigating a new place with a culture and language different from your own. In Denmark I definitely experienced some level of this, but as nearly everyone there also speaks English it was still easy enough to get around and become adjusted to life in a new place. I thought that I experienced culture shock when I arrived in Copenhagen, but it was absolutely nothing compared to this. I’m not saying this as a way of invalidating the apprehension and nervous excitement I felt in those first few weeks, as it was most definitely a completely new experience and life to adjust to, but here in Merída it’s been entirely different. Just within the first hour of being here, I exited the small airport to eighty five degree heat combined with heavy humidity and the relentless sun beating down, with not even a whisper of wind through the dense air. The last time I was outside had been in Minneapolis just a few hours earlier, where I had stayed the night on my way from Europe to Mexico. There, it was around ten degrees above zero and cloudy, with a frigid wind that reminded me of the chill of Copenhagen. Getting off of the plane into Merída was like stepping into a different world.

The first week was an absolute whirlwind. Everything that I had gotten used to over the last few weeks in Copenhagen had been completely flipped on its head. I was no longer living in a single apartment, but in a house with a host mom and roommate. Everyone around me only spoke Spanish, including my host mom, the streets were loud and colorful and busy, and every person I met was kind and immediately wanted to know more about me. Every single thing about this new place seemed to be the opposite of what I had grown used to in Copenhagen. I was thrown into the new challenge of attempting to effectively communicate with people who do not speak the same language as me, and though I felt that I was arriving with a solid base knowledge of Spanish, I was quickly proven wrong. Three years of high school Spanish and an additional three terms in college felt like nothing alongside all of my peers who spoke fluently with the people of Merída. 

Every day here begins with an “hola, buenos dias” to my host mom, a small older lady who is divorced and whose daughters have moved out–but who is still living her best life with her countless friends and social groups. The moment I enter the kitchen each morning she launches into rapid Spanish, asking me what I want for breakfast, how I slept, what my plans are for the day, and whatever else is on her mind. My brain is stimulated the minute I venture downstairs in the morning in a way I have genuinely never experienced before. I have found that I am able to understand (for the most part) the Spanish that is spoken to me, but the real challenge lies in speaking it myself. I stumble through most of my interactions with local people, understanding what they are saying but struggling to reply in a comprehensible way. I am constantly mentally conjugating verbs based on what tense I’m trying to use, or combing through the chaotic, random Spanish dictionary in my head to find the right way to express what I’m trying to say. Every night, I go to sleep with a reeling mind full of excitement for all the new words and phrases I learned that day, along with just as much frustration at how difficult it is to learn a new language. Though it can definitely be overwhelming at times, this experience is exactly what I was hoping to challenge myself with in my decision to study abroad in Mexico. The people around me are patient and encouraging as I do my best to learn as I go, which never fails to reinspire me when I get frustrated. To be immersed in a language is undoubtedly one of the best ways to learn it, even though it is also one of the most difficult. Either way, I can confidently say I’m doing my best to take advantage of this opportunity, and I really can’t believe how fast it’s gone by so far. I’m so grateful for all of the incredible experiences of the past few months and all of the valuable memories I’ve made and lessons I’ve learned along the way–but that’s a topic for another day.

Love, Grace