Culture Clash – through a porthole

“Madame Ally there is a problem here with this computer”

I had been using the computer to show some of my Congolese colleagues where I lived and worked in the UK. Google street view is like a dream. They loved it. Lots of “woah” and “ahhh” it’s a bit like fireworks night to be honest! But then a patient called me over and so I left the computer for a few minutes. When I came back google street view had crashed. This sometimes happens here as we have so many people using a such a small amount of data.

“Madame Ally you can fix it, you are the best one here to fix this problem”

Cultural note: as I am married without children the Congolese call me Madame Ally. Typically after getting married the equivalent respectful title of our Mrs would be Mamma, however as I don’t have children I default to Madame Ally. Just in case you were wondering.

After a few minutes we were back online.

“Ahhh Madame Ally you are computer expert, you have fix the computer”

I replied ” Oh I’m really no expert. I didn’t even do anything”

“But Madame Ally of course you are an expert because you are sleeping with the computer specialist on the ship”

With my confused face I giggled and asked why that would help.

“Because Madame Ally it is in your blood” as I thoughtfully imagined tiny little computers floating around my vascular system I confirmed…

“So because I, in your words ‘sleep with the computer specialist’ that automatically makes me a computer specialist?”

“But of course”

“We believe that when two people are married they are one, they share each other’s knowledge through the blood. They share everything!”

I pondered for a while: “So may I ask you a question, would you trust my husband if he was the nurse looking after you? Even though he has no training in nursing?”

” Sure, I would trust him”

” would you let the surgeons wife operate on you?”

“Yes, it’s in her blood”

” umm interesting”

He seemed to be confused when I said that I wouldn’t let the surgeons wife operate on me. She’s a clever lady but she’s no surgeon and she’s definitely not coming at me with a scalpel. After debating this for some time we came to the conclusion that we would agree to disagree and I decided I love that we think differently and that my whole congolese team of colleagues automatically think I’m a computer expert and that Ally is also a nurse …. double qualifications!

Embarrassment : A Cultural Incident.

After weeks of bonding with the same patients and we had arrived at common ground. We danced together. We taught each other songs and prayed together. I would laugh at the way they would mimic my mysterious english words and they would cackle and fall to the floor as I tried to learn congolese dances and speak in their mother tongues. We had come to know each other although we could not understand each other on a linguistic level there was a trust and a deep recognition of compassion and love from both sides. When there is trust and those initial walls break down you begin to really see the cultural differences and learn a lot about each other…. maybe more than I expected.

One day whilst working on the ward I was preparing some medication and then it happened; my cultural incident.

The mammas had been discussing something about the nurses, they would occasionally look at us and smile. They were analysing something. Then one of the older Mammas approached me from behind and grabbed my breasts!! She quickly squeezed them and then ran away laughing like a little girl. The whole ward fell apart laughing including one slightly embarrassed Nurse. I called a translator who found the whole experience very funny. He got to the bottom of the matter once the laughter dyed down and informed me that all the mammas were desperate to know what our breasts felt like. She said that our white breasts point a different direction and she didn’t understand why. We entered into a nice chat about bras and the fact that none of the white nurses working at that time had children and so hadn’t breast fed. This was also very funny to them as we are all old enough to have had many children. What followed was an comical few days on the ward where if you got too close to the mammas they would aspire to follow the first mammas example and fuel their own curiosity. I learnt a lesson in trust. I learnt that if you are willing to whole heartedly integrate and trust someone from a completely different culture you have to expect to be surprised, prepare for the odd red face and be willing to laugh and to learn together.

A little embarrassment won’t hurt anyone…