{"id":1640,"date":"2013-02-01T11:33:04","date_gmt":"2013-02-01T15:33:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crosscultural\/?p=1640"},"modified":"2013-02-01T12:14:37","modified_gmt":"2013-02-01T16:14:37","slug":"vulnerability-and-suprises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/2013\/02\/01\/vulnerability-and-suprises\/","title":{"rendered":"Vulnerability and suprises"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Zach<\/a> The culture shock described in our readings this week was presented in a very real way, but I can\u2019t identify with it. I feel comfortable with the customs and ways of the people and seem to be able to relate and find common ground with them. What is the hardest for me is the shallowness and childishness I feel. My knowledge and language are at a place where I cannot be quite as extravagant in my Spanish conversations as in my English. Spanish is a beautiful tongue and has the potential for weaving beautiful webs of words, strings of images and wisdom. I\u2019m not there. Someday, yes, but I am still stuck, an adolescent in a man\u2019s body, while I am among lots of sophisticated native speakers. It is through this language vulnerability that I have an opportunity to grow and receive from others.<\/p>\n

– Zach Coverdale<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sunday January 20, 2013<\/p>\n

After an exhausting first week did I really want to get up at 5 a.m. on my Saturday morning to hike a volcano? No. But a wise man once said, you more often regret that which you did not do than that which you did. A convoluted way of saying YOLO.<\/p>\n

So I\u00a0decided to go. Plus everyone else was going. It\u2019s a volcano in Guatemala, of course I\u2019m going.<\/p>\n

How beautiful. After some curvy roads we arrived at a base point, greeted immediately by young children waving walking sticks. \u201cStick!? Stick?\u201d they would ask us, offering us a walking companion. I didn\u2019t buy a 5Q (less then $1) walking stick. I wish I would have now\u2026darn wise sayings.<\/p>\n

The hike was great exercise and oh so rewarding.\"\"<\/a> It took about an hour and a half to get to the top. The views were breathtaking and impossible to capture with pen or\u00a0camera. The steaming volcano was a great reminder of Nature\u2019s power. I don\u2019t care what human structure you build on the side of that sleeping giant. If that thing erupts, my money is on the volcano.<\/p>\n

I hope I have the energy for the coming week. Lord, give me the strength to keep actively listening, persistently questioning, and always applying.<\/p>\n

-Everett Brubaker<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Chris<\/a> Monday, Jan. 21st<\/sup> a mi casa, 9:47 p.m.<\/p>\n

Wow!\u00a0 At first, I thought I knew little to no Spanish at all.\u00a0 While this is mostly true still, I need to acknowledge that I just survived a 3 hour conversation one on one.\u00a0 My sister, Alejandra, or Ale, is out for the night at her university; so naturally, me and my mom made dinner together and began to converse about her job.\u00a0 As I aspire to be a social worker, it is beyond perfect that she has been working in social work for just over 27 years!\u00a0 Somehow, I understood 90% or more of the conversation and pieced together the rest.\u00a0 She showed me how she evaluates custody and pension between separated parents and children by drawing out budgets, estimated costs, and evaluating living situations.\u00a0 Ironically, Myra and her ex spouse went through the same process she now does for other people, and I am humbled that she used her exact, historically accurate situation as an example, while also letting me learn from what she and Ale went through as a result of the father\u2019s irresponsibility.<\/p>\n

Obviously I was extremely in the social work process here and as the conversation went on, I found my brain slowly switching into Spanish mode.\u00a0 I had my first functional, lengthy conversation!\u00a0 And the best thing is, the social problems\/social work process here is not so different from those that exist in the U.S. and those that I began to explore last semester.\u00a0 I have never had a sister before, or a mom that needed a male in the house (as my Mom in the States deals with me, my two brothers, and my dad all by herself).\u00a0 So it\u2019s wonderful for me to experience these strong, hard working Guatemalteco women – and I am growing quite fond of them rather quickly.\u00a0 They have already taught me a lot, and from my conversation with Myra earlier, I can see I have a lot to learn about myself as well as the social work process as a whole.\u00a0 I\u2019m blessed with the wonderful presence of these fine women.<\/p>\n

– Chris Bates<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The culture shock described in our readings this week was presented in a very real way, but I can\u2019t identify with it. I feel comfortable with the customs and ways of the people and seem to be able to relate and find common ground with them. What is the hardest for me is the shallowness … Continue reading Vulnerability and suprises<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4015],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guatemala-colombia-2013"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1640"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1644,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1640\/revisions\/1644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}