Raeleen and I are advocates for travel, and for experiencing other cultures (in their own environments).
It presents a way of stepping out of our mental and societal boxes and realizing different ways of life, mind-sets and traditions that you never knew existed.
We also believe it wise, and paramount that people connect with the various cultures within their own communities.
When you live in the same town/city as people of different nationalities and cultures, and you don't make the effort to understand their traditions and why they do what they do, it becomes very easy to judge, alienate and marginalize them. Even more importantly, God loves all of His creation equally, and us not taking the time and energy to connect with them means that we don't care enough about what is important to God to step out of our comfort zones and lower our guards to the unknown.
There are so many people in this world that don't have a voice, and this will never change until people are willing to tear down their own walls to reach and connect with them- to speak out on their behalf, and to help sort out a way to remedy the problem.
I think that most people would agree that it would be ignorant and offensive to tell a deaf person "I can't hear you, sign louder!"
Also, that doesn't even make sense.
Yet being around cultures that you don't understand (and don't care to give the effort to), and expecting them to speak your language and communicate the way you do can be akin to the same thing.
Raeleen and I have lived in North America our whole lives (albeit various areas with their own sub-cultures), and we've always been the ones "on the inside" so-to-speak. We thoroughly understood our culture, and knew the language proficiently.
People that we met who were new to North America seemed to always have this bizarre difficulty adjusting.
To a certain extent you just get it-
They don't speak English, and this is a new country for them.
It presents a way of stepping out of our mental and societal boxes and realizing different ways of life, mind-sets and traditions that you never knew existed.
We also believe it wise, and paramount that people connect with the various cultures within their own communities.
When you live in the same town/city as people of different nationalities and cultures, and you don't make the effort to understand their traditions and why they do what they do, it becomes very easy to judge, alienate and marginalize them. Even more importantly, God loves all of His creation equally, and us not taking the time and energy to connect with them means that we don't care enough about what is important to God to step out of our comfort zones and lower our guards to the unknown.
There are so many people in this world that don't have a voice, and this will never change until people are willing to tear down their own walls to reach and connect with them- to speak out on their behalf, and to help sort out a way to remedy the problem.
I think that most people would agree that it would be ignorant and offensive to tell a deaf person "I can't hear you, sign louder!"
Also, that doesn't even make sense.
Yet being around cultures that you don't understand (and don't care to give the effort to), and expecting them to speak your language and communicate the way you do can be akin to the same thing.
Raeleen and I have lived in North America our whole lives (albeit various areas with their own sub-cultures), and we've always been the ones "on the inside" so-to-speak. We thoroughly understood our culture, and knew the language proficiently.
People that we met who were new to North America seemed to always have this bizarre difficulty adjusting.
To a certain extent you just get it-
They don't speak English, and this is a new country for them.
That's an over-simplification, but you get the idea.
The problem is, what they are going through is so much bigger than that.
To a degree it could be tantamount to sitting a baby in an office chair at a NASA facility and telling him to adjust the trajectory of an orbiting satellite...blindfolded.
Let me be clear that Raeleen and I have always had great respect and sympathy for anyone brave enough to start a new life in a completely unfamiliar culture- but being in their shoes now has turned our world upside down and completely over-hauled our perspective.
To a certain extent we have had it easy, because we moved to a country that still has English as it's first language. That is only one detail, but an important one none-the-less.
However, living in Scotland, for us, isn't what you would picture it to be: one English-speaking person conversing with another. It's much closer to one English-speaking person conversing with someone with extremely broken English.
But we're the ones with the broken English.
The mixture of thick accents, cultural idioms, and a whole dictionary of different words made it feel like we were pretty much learning the English language all over again.
But that's just the beginning.
Even though we tried to do our homework before we moved here, and learn as much about Scotland and the UK as possible- nothing could have prepared us for the culture shock electric fence that we were about to sprint face-first into.
The problem is, what they are going through is so much bigger than that.
To a degree it could be tantamount to sitting a baby in an office chair at a NASA facility and telling him to adjust the trajectory of an orbiting satellite...blindfolded.
Let me be clear that Raeleen and I have always had great respect and sympathy for anyone brave enough to start a new life in a completely unfamiliar culture- but being in their shoes now has turned our world upside down and completely over-hauled our perspective.
To a certain extent we have had it easy, because we moved to a country that still has English as it's first language. That is only one detail, but an important one none-the-less.
However, living in Scotland, for us, isn't what you would picture it to be: one English-speaking person conversing with another. It's much closer to one English-speaking person conversing with someone with extremely broken English.
But we're the ones with the broken English.
The mixture of thick accents, cultural idioms, and a whole dictionary of different words made it feel like we were pretty much learning the English language all over again.
But that's just the beginning.
Even though we tried to do our homework before we moved here, and learn as much about Scotland and the UK as possible- nothing could have prepared us for the culture shock electric fence that we were about to sprint face-first into.
If I were to try and put it into a percentage, I'd say we were expecting Scotland to be about 20-25% different than Canada. A very noticeable difference, but hey, we're all still a part of the British Commonwealth right? It ended up being more like 75-80%.
Conversations were constantly fragmented, interspersed between awkward silences and bewildered responses. Learning countless new words is exhausting enough, but couple that with the fact that there are still a myriad of other words that we have in common, but mean completely different things, and your brain just starts to short-circuit.
We had to re-learn the most basic fundamentals of day-to-day life.
When we first moved here, we didn't know how to turn on the shower, use the electrical outlets, debit machines, washer, stove, anything that you would use on a regular basis (in western society) without giving a second thought to. We didn't have phones, a bank account, any sort of healthcare, or vehicles. Considering we gave away all of our possessions, save for a hand full of suitcases, we didn't have anything at all really.
We had no idea where we were, how to get anywhere, or even who to talk to if we had questions, aside from Carlo, who we didn't want to burden with all of that. He'd done so much for us already.
He wouldn't have known the answer to a lot of our questions anyways because we were trying to establish things that he hasn't had to worry about for decades, if at all.
He wouldn't have known the answer to a lot of our questions anyways because we were trying to establish things that he hasn't had to worry about for decades, if at all.
We've had our share of awkward moments trying to pay for various items with cash. It seems silly, but British money looks and feels completely different than North American money. The sizes and weights are different as well. This may sound like a small detail, but it really isn't, considering Raeleen and I still find it embarrassing (and frustrating) paying with cash in stores because he have to fumble about trying to figure out which coin is which.
Also, each individual bank in the UK has their own bills, so there are various designs of 5,10,20 etc.. pound notes.
We had no idea what was a good deal and what wasn't because of the currency difference and pay structure here.You would think that you could just convert the amount in your head and be done with it, but it's not like that. You have to understand payment structure, or you are going to think you have way more money than you do.
For example: In North America, the average starting wage for a Registered Nurse would be (approx.) between $27-$30/hour. In Scotland, R.N.'s would start between £11-£13/hr.
Minimum wage here for 21 and older is £6.31/hr.
Almost across the board, jobs in the UK get paid much less than their North American counterparts.
If you live here and this is the norm for you then this info would be neither here nor there. However, for us it really means a lot. Jobs that may start between $13-$15/hr. in North America may start at minimum wage to £8/hr. It isn't even linear or parallel, you can't just make one simple equation and apply it across the board, which makes it even more confusing.
Almost all of the food here tastes different than North America as well. That may sound weird, but it's just the facts.
We've had to rediscover food all over again. Some foods here taste better than their North American counterparts (in our opinion of course), whereas some others taste worse.
North America and the UK share very few brand names in the scheme of things, which means we've been learning all new brands through trial and error.
Many foods here have completely different names then their North American counterparts as well, which means you have no idea what you're looking for until you see it.
Which brings me to the next detail.
The UK has a very different logic system than North America regarding where items should be displayed in grocery stores. Grocery shopping for the first month or two almost made our brains explode, because a vast majority of the items on our lists were found anywhere but where we would have expected to find them shopping in North America.
The system here makes sense once you get used to it, just in a completely different way.
Before we moved to Edinburgh, we owned 2 vehicles. We could throw the kids in the van and drive anywhere we needed to at a moment's notice. Since we've moved here we've been relying completely on the bus system and walking. Mind you the transit system here is far more robust than anything we've ever encountered in North America, it's still a massive shock. We can get anywhere we need to in the city on the bus, but it takes much more planning now, and is more complicated with small children.
We are getting plenty of exercise, and our bodies are thanking us, but 2 city blocks for us may feel like 50 for Ryder. As such, we usually end up taking turns carrying Ryder through different parts of the city once his threshold is surpassed. Let me tell you, that boy gets heavy fast!
Probably within the next year or so Ryder will be able to do all the walking himself, as Halo rarely has any difficulties whatsoever, but for the time being, this is the way things are.
We're planning on acquiring a vehicle not too far down the road as it will be more of a necessity once we have additional foster children staying with us. Especially since at least one of them may end up being an infant.
We are able to exchange our Canadian drivers licenses for UK ones, however this means that we will be required to only ever drive Automatic Transmission vehicles unless we take their drivers test. You can't drive a manual transmission vehicle unless you have some sort of documentation on your previous license that states that you took your drivers test in a standard.
Considering most vehicles here are manual transmissions, we won't ever be borrowing anyone's vehicle for moving or anything like that.
Also, people in the UK drive on the left side of the road with the steering wheel on the right side of the vehicle. And because the road systems on the whole in the UK are far older than most places in North America, they are also much more confusing. Grid system? Not a chance.
Most places where you would expect to see traffic lights actually have "round-abouts" (traffic circles) instead. The idea of a traffic circle is quite simple, but not at all when you can have 6 exits within the circle at seemingly random intervals exiting you to even more confusing angles and directions. Also you have to know what part of the exit the sign will be that tells you the name of that exit.
Couple that with the fact that you practically never see street signs anywhere. The signs are to be found on buildings which means that you will have no idea which road is which unless you know which building to look at to find the sign. And many times the sign is only at one end of the street, so you can drive almost the full length of a street before you even know what the name of it is. By that time the name of the street can be changing as well. You can drive down a road and within a couple of miles (they use miles here) the name of the road may have changed 3 or 4 times.
The pedestrian laws are different here as well. Simply put: the pedestrian does not have the right-of-way.
So vehicles own the road here, not pedestrians. This doesn't stop pedestrians from randomly crossing the streets constantly. It just means if they get hit it's their fault. So people generally don't stop for pedestrians here, unless it's at a crosswalk (or zebra crossing as it's named here). Even then many people will just keep driving and you gotta squeak your way though.
Growing up we've always heard stories about gestures or words that may be polite or acceptable in one culture, but completely rude or offensive in another. We've been experiencing that first hand here.
For example: picture a slow dance in which it is completely normal and acceptable for one person to tap another person's shoulder and then butt in to the dance (you see it all the time in movies).
Now picture that, but in a conversation.
I could be chatting with Jack, and someone could come up, tap me on the shoulder and say "sorry to interrupt Mark but..." then that person completely changes the subject and starts a different conversation with the person you were talking to, or both of you.
At first Raeleen and I were really taken aback by this, as it's considered very rude to do in North America.
It's completely normal and acceptable here however, and it happens all the time. It's just another detail that we need to adjust to.
None of what I have said thus far is meant to sound negative, and I'm definitely not complaining about living here. In truth we absolutely love it here, and all of these things are just speed bumps (or humps as they call them here). We knew that our lives were going to change dramatically, and that there was going to be a steep learning curve, but we are honestly infinitely thankful for all of it!
None of the things that I have mentioned are bad, they are merely different.
It's all challenging, and invigorating. We have had our share of frustrations trying to adjust to this new life, and we know that there are more to come. But we now have a much deeper respect for those who are able to have the courage to immigrate to a completely foreign land and flounder their way through until the unfamiliar finally becomes familiar.
All of the details that I mentioned were examples of people moving from one first world country to another, which for us has been astronomically challenging in itself. But now try and picture people emigrating from a third world country to a first world, or vice versa.
Thank you God for continually working on our perspectives, humbling us and helping us to see other people's lives and circumstances through your eyes.
Considering most vehicles here are manual transmissions, we won't ever be borrowing anyone's vehicle for moving or anything like that.
Also, people in the UK drive on the left side of the road with the steering wheel on the right side of the vehicle. And because the road systems on the whole in the UK are far older than most places in North America, they are also much more confusing. Grid system? Not a chance.
Most places where you would expect to see traffic lights actually have "round-abouts" (traffic circles) instead. The idea of a traffic circle is quite simple, but not at all when you can have 6 exits within the circle at seemingly random intervals exiting you to even more confusing angles and directions. Also you have to know what part of the exit the sign will be that tells you the name of that exit.
Couple that with the fact that you practically never see street signs anywhere. The signs are to be found on buildings which means that you will have no idea which road is which unless you know which building to look at to find the sign. And many times the sign is only at one end of the street, so you can drive almost the full length of a street before you even know what the name of it is. By that time the name of the street can be changing as well. You can drive down a road and within a couple of miles (they use miles here) the name of the road may have changed 3 or 4 times.
The pedestrian laws are different here as well. Simply put: the pedestrian does not have the right-of-way.
So vehicles own the road here, not pedestrians. This doesn't stop pedestrians from randomly crossing the streets constantly. It just means if they get hit it's their fault. So people generally don't stop for pedestrians here, unless it's at a crosswalk (or zebra crossing as it's named here). Even then many people will just keep driving and you gotta squeak your way though.
Growing up we've always heard stories about gestures or words that may be polite or acceptable in one culture, but completely rude or offensive in another. We've been experiencing that first hand here.
For example: picture a slow dance in which it is completely normal and acceptable for one person to tap another person's shoulder and then butt in to the dance (you see it all the time in movies).
Now picture that, but in a conversation.
I could be chatting with Jack, and someone could come up, tap me on the shoulder and say "sorry to interrupt Mark but..." then that person completely changes the subject and starts a different conversation with the person you were talking to, or both of you.
At first Raeleen and I were really taken aback by this, as it's considered very rude to do in North America.
It's completely normal and acceptable here however, and it happens all the time. It's just another detail that we need to adjust to.
None of what I have said thus far is meant to sound negative, and I'm definitely not complaining about living here. In truth we absolutely love it here, and all of these things are just speed bumps (or humps as they call them here). We knew that our lives were going to change dramatically, and that there was going to be a steep learning curve, but we are honestly infinitely thankful for all of it!
None of the things that I have mentioned are bad, they are merely different.
It's all challenging, and invigorating. We have had our share of frustrations trying to adjust to this new life, and we know that there are more to come. But we now have a much deeper respect for those who are able to have the courage to immigrate to a completely foreign land and flounder their way through until the unfamiliar finally becomes familiar.
All of the details that I mentioned were examples of people moving from one first world country to another, which for us has been astronomically challenging in itself. But now try and picture people emigrating from a third world country to a first world, or vice versa.
Thank you God for continually working on our perspectives, humbling us and helping us to see other people's lives and circumstances through your eyes.
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