Today was pretty fast, culture lecture, language class, and a company visit. The culture lecture was about the food and transportation here, he spoke briefly about how they live like in huts and the architecture behind it. Language class was really fun, I sat with two girls who thought I was so funny because I have trouble pronouncing the words and when you pronounce the same word wrong, it had a different meaning. Apparently, I was saying the funniest stuff but they didn't want to tell me what it was because it was inappropriate. After class, we went to the same lunch. I didn't have my sidekick for yesterday and half of today. I'm talking about Liebersohn, he's been sick. However, Greg, Corey, and I had a blast in the back of the bus. We always make each other crack up, I'm so glad I've met these kids.
The company visit put many things in perspective. We visited a joint stock company bank called navi bank and it was difficult to understand the people, in fact we needed a translator. There weren't too many eventful parts to the day so I'm going to discuss the language barrier here and the struggle to be a tourist in a county like this one. The company visit was interesting. I found it difficult to stay engaged because there was not much English to hear. It made it hard to understand the company as well as asking questions. The business students obviously had interest in the bank and wanted to know more but the questions were not fully answered because of this barrier. Do not get me wrong, seeing and learning as much as possible about the bank was really cool and worthwhile. The barrier is so hard to break. When we go into a cab, we need to have the address at hand and cannot tell the guy if he is riding around to get more money. We can't say to him to stop short of change the place. We once had to go somewhere else and get out of the one cab to get another which is costly of our time. None of the maintence people speak English and at restauraunt, it may take 3 or 4 waiters until they understand what we want. Last night we went to a French place which was phenomenal but they used 5 different waitresses and each waitresses English got progressively better. Communicating is the source of knowledge and basically how anyone can interact and here, it is just so difficult to get thoughts across. We are all starting to feel homesick, not like crying about missing our mommy but we just miss talking to people and being comfortable walking around. It creates such a dilemma eveytme we want customer service and such. The cleanliness here is obviously different and I sometimes just wish I can be home. My expectations are definitely met on this trip. I do not want to steer you in to the wrong direction that my time is here is average, the trip, the country, it's all incredible. Just coming from across the world is a giant culture shock, one that I handled well but it is starting to get a bit old. I see plenty of people peeing on the street and lots of unclean things like cooking on the ground. It is a sight to see, one that I will never experience again but I just sometimes feel like I want to be back in America. I know the quality of my food, water, and service. We are all managing really well and helping each other it is just difficult. You should always do this everywhere but keeping my hands in my pocket and thinking everyone is out to get me is a pain. We can't stick up for ourselves so if someone is staring for whatever reason, it is nearly impossible to tell them to stop. I am always always holding my wallet and iPhone and the anxiety is becoming annoying. This blog was basically contrasting how a tourist lives here then say going to Europe where most people can understand broken English. The wallet worry is in Europe but I just get more scared here because people need the money here more for the most part. I am honestly loving it I just wanted to vent about being a tourist here.
Fun fact of the day: I wrote this 3 days ago but forgot to post it
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