The bigger picture of my exchange.

8 July 2015, Melbourne, Australia.

It become clear to me how my exchange year impacted my relation with other people around me only a few months after returning home. This thought had come to my mind before whilst I was on exchange. But I saw the bigger picture when I settled back home. On a certain point in time, when I was struggling to make friends beyond the superficial level I figured it must be because I didn’t know all the social connections in my classroom; ‘who dates who?’, ‘who are the cool guys’? etc. Throw in a language barrier and profound cultural differences and you’ll probably recognize a familiar picture. On top of this I also beared in mind that I just brutally stormed into their easy going lives and stirred up some things in an usually pretty average Costa Rican classroom. Yep, making good friends was difficult the first months. However, language barriers were broken and social connections appeared to be close to irrelevant. Nevertheless, the struggle for deeper friendship remained; and that I attributed to the cultural differences. I often thought I understood parts of the culture and tried to apply them in my day to day life and I would end up looking back a month or two later and I would laugh about how foolish I was acting. Culture isn’t something you apply, culture should come genuinely. It is to be integrated in not only behaviour but also in your line of thinking. I can happily say that after 11 months this had come a far way and great friendships have come hand in hand with that. (Sidenote: doing sports is a GREAT help in making friends, in my experience that is.)

When my host family dropped me off at the airport I collapsed and bursted out in an endless stream of tears which continued during the long hours of travelling back home. I quickly wiped away my last tears as I entered the arrival hall and finally got to hug my family again. The novelty was great, there were numerous photo’s and stories to be shared. I spent weeks catching up with old friends. Finally I got to eat all the dishes I missed and walk around my home town as if I had never left. But soon the novelty faded away and everybody’s life continued just as it did when I wasn’t there. This was when I started feeling out of place again and struggled picking up many of my friendships and old patterns; I didn’t get passed the superficial level. The same feeling I had in Costa Rica arose. However, this time I knew the social connections, I knew the language and I knew the culture. Why was it then, that I was struggling with these problems once again?

For me it then became clear why I had had the issues before, and why I was experiencing them again. Whilst trying to make friends and making emotional connections I have always been very eager to share pieces of myself and my culture. Unfortunately this is often hard for other people to understand and / or appreciate. In Costa Rica my 17 years of Dutch life had little meaning to the people I was trying to share it with. And vice versa, in The Netherlands my year of Costa Rican life had little meaning to the people I was trying to share it with here.

And from this arises one of the many beauties of doing an exchange. It requires you to let go of all you know to be able to fully enter into a culture, it requires you to find who you are for who you are regardless of country and culture.