| Friend: |
Were there any real surprises? |
| Peace Corps Volunteer: |
Not really. I mean, you're not prepared for every little thing, for all the particulars. But you know the people are going to be different, so you expect that. You may not know all the ways they're going to surprise you, but you do know you're going to be surprised when you go to a foreign culture. |
| Friend: |
How did the host country people relate to you? |
| PCV: |
It's funny you should ask that because it was surprising. |
| Friend: |
What do you mean? |
| PCV: |
Well, we thought we were prepared for that, but we weren't. After all, if you go in knowing these people aren't like you, then of course you also know that you aren't like them. But we had trouble believing that they found us strange sometimes. Doesn't make sense, does it? |
| Friend: |
So it's easy to accept that other people might be strange but hard to believe you could be? |
| PCV: |
That's what I experienced, anyway. |
| Friend: |
I wonder why. |
| PCV: |
I think it has to be that while you are actually having the experience of their strangeness, they are the ones having the experience of yours. You never really experience yourself as strange, of course, so it just doesn't seem real. You know it must be, but you have to take their word for it. |
| Friend: |
So you think Volunteers go around never quite convinced that the local people don't always understand them? |
| PCV: |
If you listen to some of the complaints PCVs make, I think that's at the bottom of a lot of them. |
