Cultural Epiphany

Last week when I was in Santo Domingo I had a cultural epiphany. Jared and I were waiting in the truck while Mercedes made copies of some documents (our copier is having some trouble.) Anyway, a five year old boy walked by and stopped right in from of an ice cream sign. He started pointing and apparently was talking to himself for a few minutes about the various ice creams that he wanted. It dawned on me that Lucas does the exact same thing when passing by these signs. It took the behavior of a five year old to realize that despite the obvious differences in culture, we have a lot of similarities. I guess when you are an outsider; it is easy to focus on the small things that are culturally different.

As I get a little better with Spanish, I am finding that my patients in Ecuador are really very similar to the States and there seems to be the exact same mix of patients. Some patients are very motivated and will do everything you tell them to do, others will do some of what you tell them, and still others find it difficult to do anything you tell them to do. Some patients are afraid to do anything and other want to push themselves a little too hard. Sound familiar?

I would argue that one of the best services you can do for yourself and other people, is to focus on these cultural similarities when visiting another country. Sure, you will want to keep the differences in mind so that you don’t do anything stupid. However, over the last week, focusing on the similarities has helped me to relax a bit.

We continue to make progress with patients in Santo Domingo. This week will be cut short a bit because Good Friday is a national holiday. We will try to squeeze as many patients as possible in a 2 day period. The extra day off will be a good chance to reflect on holy week and to see the processions in the streets of Quito.

Miss you guys - Matteo