When working in a country where you do not know the system, there are so many things that are out of your control. Throughout our visit in Ivory Coast, I needed to rely on local people for almost everything, such as transportation, food, setting up meetings, shopping, and so on.
One of the most difficult challenges that I face in working with people from Ivory Coast is our different concepts of time. I was born and raised in Japan, where everything was structured and punctual, and then moved to the USA where people were rather relaxed compared to Japanese, yet the adjustment was relatively easy and sometime quite pleasant–I do not have to be nervous all the time as I do when I go back to Japan. Though my husband from Ivory Coast prepared me for last ten years, adjusting “African time” and coordinating a great deal of work in a short period of time with Ivorian were quite stressful. For instance, our Ibasho team was supposed to be picked up at 9:30 am for the meeting at 10, so all of us are ready to go by that time, and wait, wait, and wait…. until 10:30. Then, our local colleagues showed up with big smile, as if nothing happened. At many occasions, meetings were re-scheduled or canceled on the spot. Then, we were completely confused and frustrated.
Interestingly, we learned not voice our opinion as days go by, and go with whatever local colleagues instructed us to do. I even started to think that “I will be so happy if I could accomplish 30% of what I had planed.” Of course, I was still dissatisfied about the situation, yet I almost gave up and decided to give my sense of control over to Ivorian colleagues who organized our life there.
Last day of the visit, I was sitting with our colleagues from US and Canada in the living room feeling awfully guilty about making them wait for several hours to have our partner to show up to inform our schedule, as usual. I felt quite helpless because there was nothing we could do but simply sit and wait. At that right moment, I realized clearly that “This must be how elders in long term care facilities feel. I may be experiencing learned helplessness myself. I have never thought that I would experience the concept that I always taught others!”
The local people who looked after us were so wonderful, and they did their best to make us feel welcomed and comfortable. Because they understood how system work in Ivory Coast, they kindly organized our daily schedule from morning to night. They did have the best intention to care for us. On the other hand, we were quite confused by the different cultural system in unfamiliar environment. We struggled at first, then voice our frustration, finally learned to give up our sense of control at the end. We learned to let other decide our daily schedule, because we felt that there was nothing we could do to change the situation which was derived from the deeply rooted cultural behavior.
This was a bittersweet experience that deepened my insight about the life of elders in long term care environment. We should not allow elders to be parked by staff members on hallways and wait until other staff members to come and push their wheelchairs. Just thinking about it breaks my heart.
