After reaching the 5 month anniversary of my arrival in Buenos Aires last week, I sat down and examined some of my experiences down here. A common theme amongst my thoughts was figuring out this weird twilight world that I exist in between being a gringo and a porteño. My cultural awareness after living in another country for this long (outside of the study abroad bubble) has skyrocketed.
Any news I read online about Obama or current events in the US in general is reflected through the lens of Argentines when I hear it on the streets. It’s an odd sort of distortion, but it forces me to analyze the news with a more critical eye after hearing so many different viewpoints. I get to participate in all sorts of Argentine traditions that don’t exist or are very different in the US (asados = barbecues, maté = coffee, etc.).
I’ve also been fortunate to have a window into how people in other countries live through my English teaching. Family here in Argentina is very important. Most of my students were middle-aged professionals with children, and they loved to talk about them. I see adults walking with their elderly parents everyday, and family meals I’ve been invited to can stretch on for hours. It’s refreshing, and something I’m not used to coming from the go go GO culture of the states.
I’m only in the beginning of my travels, but already I can tell I’ll end up as a smorgasbord of different traditions and lifestyles. Few things bring me more joy than learning about distant peoples and traveling to new places, I love to explore. I’m getting giddy right now thinking about the plans I have for the next year…
Travel can seriously broaden your horizons if you’ll let it. I constantly find myself checking my assumptions because of my time here, examining it through the eyes of people outside the microcosm that is the United States. Give travel a chance and you’re sure to have a similar experience!
You can see the earlier posts from this series here:
- What Can Long-Term Travel Teach You? Pt. 1: Self-Sufficiency
- What Can Long-Term Travel Teach You? Pt. 2: Patience
- What Can Long-Term Travel Teach You? Pt. 3: Thriftiness
No related posts.
“Travel can seriously broaden your horizons if you’ll let it.” I totally agree with that line. I will never know what kind of surprise I may find in new places.
I still think learning cultural differences from long-term travel, only scratches the surface of the learning experience. We begin to reunite with planet Earth in a way that there are no boundaries and that the cultural differences are really only the superficial part.