¡Hola a todos!
Going into this experience, I anticipated that I would encounter many hurdles trying to navigate conversations in my second language, transportation in a new city, and cultural differences at work and at home.
The biggest challenge for me has not been cultural, but rather meteorological. I spent 8 weeks in Spain, and by the end of the experience, I still was not used to the unbearable midday heat combined with the lack of air conditioning and ice cubes. I am someone who loves to spend the middle of my day busy, outside, and exploring, so I resisted the siesta life at the expense of heat exhaustion, dehydration, and sunburn. Here are some fun pictures that remind me of the at times unbearable heat in Spain:
One weekend, my host family hosted cousins and nieces for an afternoon merienda, and I experienced a culture shock several weeks into my Spain experience. Each of them immediately went in for besitos, to my surprise (my host mom was not big on besitos). Throughout the night, my language skills were tested as I struggled to piece together the multiple overlapping conversations, fast-paced Spanish, and slang I had never heard. I feel like I got the authentic Spanish family experience, which was fun, but also so overwhelming and different than what I am used to.
Regarding communication, it was a learning curve for me to adjust to different cultural communication styles, both at work and with my host mom. The biggest difference I’ve noticed is that criticism is much more blunt than it is in America. Here, they don’t use a compliment sandwich to point out something you did wrong or how you’re looking after a late night.
This was a little jarring at first—during the first few weeks at work, most, if not all, of the feedback I received was largely critical, pointing out small mistakes without acknowledging the things I was doing well. This is very different from roles I’ve had in the past, where supervisors give a lot of positive feedback and compliments with small nuggets of “constructive criticism.”
I’ve adjusted to these kinds of interactions and learned to reframe them in my mind. I’ve also made an effort to spend more time talking with my host mom and supervisor to get to know them as people. Through these conversations, I’ve stopped noticing the blunt comments as much, because a larger portion of our interactions are now very positive. Both my host mom and supervisor are lovely people, and I know they mean well, but learning how to approach these kinds of interactions was a cultural hurdle for me.
There are plenty of other little things that I had to adapt to: having to chase the waiter down for the check, hasta luego sounding a lot more like “talego,” and everyone walking at a leisurely pace in the middle of a busy sidewalk. Additionally, flipping back and forth between Spanish and English was an unexpected challenge. I found myself texting my friends and home “vale” or “claro” unintentionally. When an English-speaking client came to my workplace, I was faced with the challenge of translating between my coworker and the client. To my surprise, I kept defaulting to Spanish, and I had to take a second to reset my brain to start speaking English again.
I expected to encounter some hurdles throughout my experience with the language and the culture, but many experiences were very surprising to me! By the end of the 8 weeks, some parts of Spanish culture became homey and familiar to me, and I was sad to leave them behind. I could not wait to be back in America and drink some ice cold water—you could say that leaving was bittersweet.
Un abrazo,
Rachel 💌