Due to the high costs of overseas programs, many people consider alternatives to the traditional study abroad experience, as I did. There are definitely other questionable and frighteningly unpaved roads to explore. The Peace Corps is one inexpensive and altruistic option; a research-training program funded by the National Science Foundation is another.
When I did my own traveling, it was through a research grant. I traveled to Romania with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, eager to take a bite out of the infamous European lasciviousness. I was getting a free ride via my academic credentials to do something called “Developing Indicators For Sustainable Development.” I wasn’t sure what sustainable development was, but the interdisciplinary program accredited anthropology students as well as many other majors, so I figured I might come in handy. Who knows? All those classes I took have to be worth something! Plus, I’m Eastern European; I’d fit right in.
The 24-hour-long plane ride stopped for layovers in Detroit and Amsterdam (where I prayed they might leave me). On June 20, 2007, it finally arrived in Bucharest, Romania with yours truly, eight other jetlagged students from Wisconsin, and one professor. Sweating, we jostled our luggage past throngs of people screaming in foreign tongues, and hiding our wallets after a stern warning that theft was a common problem. On the ride over to our new home village, we fell asleep on each other in the van; the sweetness of momentary relaxation overcame us. We were greeted warmly and served a large dinner, complete with toasting Romanian Swika (whiskey) and homemade wine over blintzes until the wee hours of the morning.
The next day did not find me as uplifted. I suddenly realized that phone conversations with my parents, friends, and boyfriend could not exceed a total of five minutes daily, and that I really didn’t know who the hell these people from Wisconsin were, having just met them two days earlier. Even worse, and I have a hard time admitting it to this day—my culture shock exceeded anything I had ever expected. You could make a list of the symptoms, and I’d check off on every one. I ate an unprecedented three Kit Kat bars a day, and somehow lost weight. I looked like a masticating zombie with bags under my eyes. I refrained from fun activities like roaming around foreign cities and drinking in European taverns with my new Mid-Western cohorts for fear of getting utterly lost and never being found again.
My anxiety was no more alleviated by the fact that people in Romania were not very receptive to foreigners. Romania was, and still is, in a state of political turmoil, experiencing the legacy and aftermath of almost thirty long and grueling years of communism. I found out, not long after my arrival in Bucharest, that Romania had just entered the European Union, and we were there to study its unabashedly pessimistic transformation to a capitalistic society. Their political, social, and economic stress bled through every aspect of the culture. They were suspicious of foreigners and sometimes resentful. I felt it every time a waiter pretended not to understand my clearly pronounced order in Romanian, and I felt it when I heard Romanian students talking about America like a dream they’d never see come to life.
The lack of clean amenities and basic comforts was shocking, and though I saw clearly through my own ignorance and spoiled Americanism, this knowledge did nothing to alleviate the grim reality of my own situation. We were asked to share beds, which turned into the sleepover from hell. My Romanian bedmate consistently kneed me to the edge of the pullout couch, and denied the very possibility of sharing it in her awakened state. The cow pies were more numerous than the people.
Culture shock can be experienced in the mildest of climates; it even occurs with the most welcoming of natives. As an amateur anthropologist, this fieldwork proved invaluable to my understanding of my own field of study. It demystified the idea of hands-on experience and dispersed the idealistic stereotype of the foreign lab-coat specialist mingling, happily, with the citizens of another country. The truth is, that people who engage in this kind of work are often faced with taxing obstacles such as native resistance, health risks, and the inability to acclimate.
Elina
Pulse Editor
