Culture Shock and Rural Realities

This week, I want to talk about the realities of living in a foreign country. Moreover, I want to contrast different phases that appear to come and go in a sequence. I believe that the fundamental principal which is guiding these is probably the psychology of culture shock and the waves of motivation or level of comfort which can result at various stages. 

To explain the diagram, Position A would be the initial arrival in the new foreign country. Often, then the level of motivation and positive energy are high and climbing because the new sights, sounds, customs and processes are exciting to experience and because it is new, it is a positive experience (Position B). Then, after some time, usually a period sets in when the person may come to see all the differences that were at first so exciting to be quite overwhelming and troubling because of the lack of familiarity (Position C). Then, after some time, usually the person recovers and is now on a more realistic level of excitement as he/she accepts the different environment to be normal and gradually acclimatizes to the surroundings (Position D). There may be periodic sways in motivation and energy after Position D but these are customarily only small in nature when compared to the initial significant increase and decrease in motivation.


In my own experience, I can attest that my energy and motivation has definitely undergone a similar progression as indicated in the curve. As open-minded, multicultural and diverse I consider myself, I have experienced Position C, but have since then gone beyond Position D. 


Position A to B was definitely the first 2 months or so. I was immersing myself in the local village and culture intensively. I was excited to be living there and it was like I had a positivity filter for some of the things. Of course, there were also some low days but overall, my motivation was high. Learning the local language, the daily life of the family, roaming around the village and helping my family with their work. (See picture: I am unloading a bucket of manure from the animal pen on the field to spread it as fertilizer)

The decline came around the same time that the incident with my host family occurred that I blogged about last week where I came face-to-face with the stark poverty that existed around me. I realized that even though on an interpersonal level I had great connections with many people, and felt a bit like a child to my host-mother and a brother to the children living in the compound, on some other dimensions like the amount on my bank account, the educational opportunities I have been fortunate to enjoy, and the outlook I have for the next year and the next 5 years. For me, living with the family is a temporary experience that I personally want to have in order to understand the realities of rural farmers. However, it was during this time that no matter how well I learnt the local language, immersed myself in the culture, lived according to local customs and made friends with the people in the village, my experience in the village would always be from a position of financial security and safety. I will never know what it is like to be sick and to have no money to pay for a doctor and no health insurance. I will never know what it means to farm for one season and to have part of the harvest destroyed by a drought or pests and to face the reality that I will not be able to feed my family for the next months. Even though these conclusions may seem obvious from the start, I believe that initially, I was acting on the assumption that if I did all of these things very well and immersed myself completely, then perhaps I could place myself almost directly in the shoes of a rural Ghanaian farmer.

So, how have I managed to reconcile these ideal expectations and the reality?


On a daily basis, I believe that I am now much more conscious of the differences but also of the similarities between the people in the village and me. I can see my mother doing her best to take care of her children just like any good mother around the world. I can see love, caring, support and generosity alongside the daily struggle to attain a good harvest for the next year and to keep everyone fed and happy. I have come to realize that whenever I can let go of those things that I cannot change and focus on those that I can, I am much happier. When I accept that I cannot alleviate poverty in this family, this community or in this country but that I can do the best work in my job and help my family as best as I can, life becomes quite a bit easier. In moments when I am successful in doing this, I can feel at peace with my immediate surroundings and even draw energy from it.