This past weekend we all had fun
experiences staying in Ocean View with various families. I ended up staying
with a lovely and welcoming woman named Shireen. Shireen lives alone but is
close with her neighbors, especially the children who come by unannounced
regularly to visit, or as we experienced Saturday, tag along to the beach.
Despite expecting a cultural shock and then being surprised at how similar the
area was to many places I’ve seen before I learned a great deal about things I
didn’t quite expect to.
The first night we were comfortably
getting ready for bed so we left the bedroom to go brush our teeth. However on
our way to the kitchen we realized our host mother was sleeping on the floor on
the living and that the bedroom she had set us up for the weekend was her bedroom. When we offered to sleep
on the floor she said something about enjoying the ground because it reminded
her of camping and insisted we take her bed. I spent each night sleeping
guiltily for knowing she was giving up such a crucial aspect of her privacy
just for us to stay with her.
The mission of this trip is for us
as students to learn about the South African culture but I’ve also been learning
much about how South Africans view American
culture. When my host mom was discussing the crime problem in South Africa
she mentioned that “your people don’t have this crime problem because you have
the death penalty so people are too afraid to commit crimes.” After a few
comments similar to that we explained that the death penalty isn’t even legal
in some states and that it’s sometimes viewed as an ineffective punishment
because it takes decades to be finally decided on. Shireen didn’t seem to
understand and as we talked further I realized most of the information she was
getting about the US came from American criminal detective shows that air here.
I think this may be the first time I felt frustrated at another’s
misunderstanding of my home country, the way in which I’m sure many people feel
frustrated when their countries are being misunderstood. This makes me realize
the importance of listening to what people share about their cultures with an
open mind and no preconceived notions.
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| Melanie, Host Mom Shireen, Emily B |
Shireen being a Muslim woman taught
me a lot about Islam which was great considering it’s a religion I haven’t had
much exposure to. I loved learning about it and hearing her philosophies on
religious tolerance. However, I also experienced a more guilty phenomenon I wasn’t
expecting. In a service learning class I took at UConn we read “The Scholarship
Boy” which was an essay representing the feelings of a young boy growing up conflicted
between his families culture and the dominant culture which he lives in. I’ll
never know what that feels like but my time with Shireen gave me a glimpse of
how that might be hard. For example, feeling left out on Sunday morning when I
knew all the other students were heading to church and we were not. Or taking a
walk on the beach with other students and worrying that my host mom might find
it insulting that I left for a few minutes with people more similar to myself.
Overall I wouldn’t trade my
experiences for anything. I think the best way to capture the weekend was our
monopoly game on Friday night. Even though it dragged on until late it was a
fun way to joke around, pass the time, and laugh. In my family we play monopoly
every year when we go to New Hampshire in the winter, so despite making me a
bit homesick in the start I found it symbolic of that way I was welcomed into
the community like family. I left Shireen’s house with lots of memories,
pictures, and plans to meet up again soon. 
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