For this post I am going to talk about the process and demands people have adapting to a new culture and/or society being an alien to it and vice versa. Among the readings for this week I would like to talk about an ethnography, Guest of the Sheik by Elizabeth Fernea, dealing with a village in southern Iraq called El Nahra. Fernea went to El Nahra accompanying her husband for an anthropological fieldwork and research. To help her husband, she decides to record all her interactions and relationship with the people from there.
What first stroked her, when she got to Iraq, was the fact that she had to use the abayah (the Muslim veil that women use). She knew that every woman was required to use it, but at the beginning she did not wanted to wear it. However, her husband told her to wear it because then everyone would stay staring at her, and at the same time she would feel more comfortable going around and interacting with people. At first she found it uncomfortable, but with time, she got used to it. Fernea had to start making relationships with women and be part of their social life, and share with them in order to record her experiences and observations. After a while she got the opportunity to get together with a group of women. At the beginning it was difficult for her and for the other ladies because of the cultures differences and the language barrier. But then, little by little she learned to adapt, and she was accepted by the women, and even at the end of her fieldwork, she got really good and close friends.
A specific situation where Fernea had difficulties adapting and been accepted, was when she was for the first time invited to the Sheik’s house (a religious leader in the town) to have dinner with his wives. There, she faced the language barrier—she did speak Arabic, but not as fluently as the other women. In that occasion, women were making fun of her because of her accent and pronunciation, and she could not express clearly because she did not dominated Arabic very well. Besides the language barrier, later on she had other situation where culture differences were very notable. One day, some women went to her house to visit and they were talking about what Fernea knows to cook. They tasted some food and then the other women were laughing at her, because they said she did not know how to cook rice, and that that was why her husband went somewhere else to eat. That night Fernea felt really hurt by those comments. But, the next day, other women that heard what she was told, came to her house to teach her how to cook rice as their style. Fernea, eventually felt better. As time went by, she determined herself to learn to adapt to that society and culture, and to be accepted by them. She started to practice and improve her Arabic with the help of her servant, and later on, she got better on it to the point that she could easily communicate with the people in town, and clearly express her thoughts. As for the cooking, one night she invited the Sheik to her house to have dinner. She looked for help from some friends and learned how to really make a good feast. After that, she got more accepted by the group of women. With her efforts, she learned to be part of that community—not anymore an alien.
Since I am an international student from the Dominican Republic studying in the United States, I deeply relate to this. My country is very economically influenced by the United States, and that brings together with it the cultural and social influence as well. However, although there is a lot of Americanism in my culture, there are many differences, many different customs and many attitudes. As Fernea did going to Iraq, I had to learn to adapt to this new culture to me, and struggle to try to fit in and be accepted into social groups. When I came here, I thought that adaptation was going to be easier that it really is. I have had to learn to apprehend in my life new customs, and many new things. What I have learned in the process of being and alien to a culture and try to merge into it, is not to go to the “extreme corners”. By this I mean that one should not stay too close minded that one remains with it own believes and customs, and refuse to interact with new culture’s people to learn from them, nor one should not forget from where it came from and appropriate all from the new culture. What I have done is to try to blend together both my own beliefs and the good ones from the new culture in order for me to get through this experience, and to grow as a person. I believe this balance in very important for surviving as an alien. I am who I am because from where I come from, but it is also important to have a wider view of the world by learning from other cultures.
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