There is no doubt that people change when they study, work
or travel abroad. It takes a certain level of confidence to successfully make
it in another country, conquer each day in a second language and take care of
mandatories like purchases, payments and transportation.
This week alone, there have been multiple instances that
require confidence and an overall sense of level-headedness to get through
without being the underdog. And I would not have had this if I hadn’t first
studied and traveled Buenos Aires.
First, I was buying a ticket to climb a mountain and only
had a 10.000 bill, equal to $20 USD. South American countries are notorious for
hating large bills and not providing change. But at the end of the day, that’s
what the ATM gave me and no one else could break it. The salesperson asked if I
had lower bills, no. Could I borrow from someone else, no. Did I have coins to
make it easier for them to break it, no. I wasn’t trying to be a jerky customer;
I sincerely didn’t have any of these. So what did he do? Took the bill and gave
me change. It was right there; it was just a last resort. Pre-study abroad
Katie would panic and start asking people in line to break the bill, but
traveler Katie knew you had to be strong in your words.
This situation can be repeated in various other contexts,
whether it was ordering soda in a restaurant (we don’t have that…but you did
before and that’s what I ordered…oh, okay, here it is), or buying tickets for a
bus (there aren’t any seats on earlier buses…oh, here’s two on the bus 30
minutes earlier). My personal favorite was going through security at the
Santiago airport. The woman tried convincing me that to fly back to America, I
needed a paper receipt that was not in my passport that proved the time I
entered into Chile. “No one handed me that,” I said, in Spanish. “I can’t let
you onto your flight unless you have that paper.” My first instinct was to
panic, cry and tear apart my bags, going back to get my checked bag from the
airline and search for where it was.
My levelheaded self paused and thought- there is no way
everyone in this international flights line has that sheet of paper. I stood my
ground, and she just handed me the exact same sheet of paper where I wrote my
name, address and passport number. And now I’m back in the United States.
My point in sharing these situations is not that South
American salespeople lie. Or that they are always seeking convenience and won’t
accommodate their customers. All of these attributes are a part of their
culture, and if you can’t assimilate into that in every moment, which not all
Americans can, you have to be assertive to not get shorthanded, robbed, tricked
or stressed.
At the end of my freshman year, I took a StrengthsQuest exam
and learned that my five strengths were communication, focus, woo,
responsibility and individualization. I was happy with these results, fairly
good attributes and described who I am.
Immediately after returning from my 2.5 month trip to Argentina,
I had to take StrengthsQuest again for a campus organization, and was shocked
to notice that in 15 months, my strengths were completely different. The
results showed that I had learner, input, arranger, responsibility and
achiever. I was pretty upset and started crying at this change; I wanted my old
strengths back. I hadn’t outgrown them, but these were just new strengths that
better described my personality in various situations. The ‘new’ strengths exemplified
the independence I gained while studying abroad, when my roommates and I
constantly took the next step to assert ourselves, get from point A to point B
safely and not settle for natives tricking the gringa Americans.
Elizabeth and I met some college juniors from Vermont at a
convenience store in Valparaiso who were studying abroad in Buenos Aires, and
when we established that we were all American, they asked us if we had any
suggestions. Naturally, we rattled off a list of the best things to do in
Buenos Aires, and as much as they were taking it in, they weren’t writing it
down or following up. We muttered how naïve they were for not asking for our
names to message us on Facebook, or writing anything down. Then…we realized
that how they acted was exactly what we would do our first time abroad too. Not
everyone travels with those strengths.
Independence, assertiveness, an inherent eagerness to learn
and self-confidence are things people must discover themselves and through
their own experiences. They can’t necessarily be taught, nonetheless forced
upon people. I urge you to unleash your confidence to have the best experience
abroad, and not feel ‘jipped’ when you’re paying hundreds of dollars for a
trip. Once you adopt these attributes, they’re difficult to hide in other
aspects of your life - look at anyone who comes back from studying abroad and
watch how they act when making plans. You’re in control of the life that is
yours, and it’s a good feeling.
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