Why Culture is Complicated

"...the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete."

- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I love this quote, and I've come to understand its implications in the world far more since being in Ecuador. Culture is incredibly complicated. What I mean is that culture encompasses so many facets of the way people live and interact, that it's impossible to ever truly understand a whole culture. Also, every individual that exists as part of a cultural group lives a different reality than the rest of the group. Everyone eats food and has a family and goes to school, but we all eat different foods, go to different schools and interact in different ways with the people in our lives. When we talk about culture, we tend to make generalizations and stereotype, because if we tried to describe the experience of every individual or even every family in a country or ethnic group, we'd never finish.

I struggle a lot with making generalizations when I talk about culture, because I know that what I experience is only a small fraction of an infinite whole, and I don't want to diminish something so beautifully complex into one sentence. Lets use food as an example (because ya know, food!).

 It's hard to describe typical food in the US beyond hamburgers and french fries (which, as some of my friends would point out, are Dutch, not French, or American), because typical food differs from region to region. You can find different specialties in the south or New England or the southwest. On top of that, in the US we tend to eat a lot of food originally from other countries. I eat a lot of Italian and Mexican dishes, and when my family goes out to eat we can find restaurants that serve anything from sushi to tandoori chicken to pizza and everything in between. Why? Because the US is a country made up almost entirely of immigrants, and as a result our culture is a hodgepodge of other cultures. I love that about the US, because what is better than delicious food? A million different kinds of delicious food, that's what! But as much as I love it, it's also hard to try and explain this to people when they ask me what typical American food is. Maybe I'm making life harder for my self, because saying that hamburgers, fries and chicken wings are typical is an easy response to that question, but I don't want to perpetuate stereotypes.

Now I don't know if there's any real severity in letting people believe that we Americans only eat fast food, but this way of generalizing culture is something that I'm wary of. Maybe stereotypes about food seem harmless, but what about stereotypes about poverty and malnutrition? About lack of education or unemployment? Those kinds of stereotypes can be harmful to the way we see and interact with different cultures. It's easy to assume that everyone from one country or culture is rich or illiterate or living in poverty when all we hear about that culture are stereotypes. I think that generalizations them selves are not bad, in fact, they can be extremely useful when describing cultural norms. The danger comes in believing that the generalizations we make are true of everyone who pertains to a cultural group.

There's a lot more I could say about this, but instead of writing a novel here on my blog, I'll just recommend that you watch Chimamanda Adichie's TED Talk. She's far more eloquent than I am, and explains the idea better anyway. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg

 What I need you all to understand is that what I write here is only my personal experience. While I'm trying my best to describe Ecuador and the culture that exists here, I can only truthfully describe the things that I've seen and done. I'm sure to make generalizations, and I promise that what I write is true of my own life, but remember that it just might not be true of the whole country. I've only been here two months (and three days technically!) and I can already say that my life, and life in Guaranda, is very different from life on the coast, in the amazon, or in big cities like Quito and Guayaquil. Ecuador may be significantly smaller and more homogeneous than the US, but there is plenty of diversity to go around.

And now I'm going to talk about myself, because I figure this blog is supposed to be about my life and the things I do with it.

The Friday before last, I got chosen to be the "madrina" of my class, for the inauguration of the in-school basketball competition. Every class chooses their team, has uniforms made, and chooses a madrina to represent the class during the inauguration. Basically, this means that as the madrina, I got to dress up, curl my hair, wear makeup, and even put on my heels, so that I could walk around the school courtyard in front of my class' team in line with all of the other teams. I was told that usually during the ceremony there's a beauty contest between all of the madrinas, but they skipped over that part this year, which my classmates were disappointed about. Regardless, it was fun to see each class decked out in the uniforms they designed, especially the super little kids! I wish that I had a picture from the actual ceremony, but I wasn't in a good position to take any, and trying to take pictures while holding a bouquet of roses and trying to not run into the girls in front of me is a little above my capacity for multitasking. I took some picture afterwards with my classmates, and I thought I'd share them :)

I'm currently in Quito with my family. My sister, Christina (Who would have thought that I'd come all the way to the southern hemisphere only to have a host sister with the same name as my actual sister?), goes to university in the city, and we came to visit her for the weekend. Let me tell you something: I love coming to Quito. There are a lot of strangely comforting things about being in a big city. I was so incredibly happy to go to the grocery store with my mom, because it looked like every other grocery store in the US. I have never been happier to push a cart down the aisle. Ever. Also, there are malls, with movie theaters and food courts. I hate scary movies, but I was happy to go see Annabelle with my family on Saturday night, because the movie theater looked exactly like the ones at home. I find myself comforted here by things that I didn't necessarily love or do much in the US, but that exist here. Stores and brands and restaurants become comforting just by being familiar. I don't think I've ever eaten at a T.G.I Friday's, but there's one in the mall near my sister's apartment, and I smiled at the sight of it, despite not even being a huge fan of the kind of food they serve.

Seeing all of these things that are achingly familiar make me long not only for the US, but also for the opportunity to live in a big city again. I can't help but wonder what life would be like if I'd been placed in Quito. But at the same time, it makes me grateful for my life in Guaranda.I'm on exchange to experience a new culture, a different life style. I don't doubt that life in the big city here is drastically different from life in the US, but I'm glad that my life here is nothing like my life in the US. Its both draining and exhilarating to be experiencing something so foreign, but I  know that no matter how hard things might be sometimes, I'm going to want to keep getting a peek into unfamiliar cultures for the rest of my life. I thought I had wanderlust before I left, but that's going to be nothing compared to what I feel after this year.

Hasta Luego,

Elisa