Be Careful Of What You Say

The little darling sound asleep.

The dog whined and barked and whimpered all night long.  And I do mean ALL night long.  They had it in a kennel out on the porch.  I saw it there the day before, so I knew exactly where the little fellow was when I heard him that night.  In the US, some might consider keeping him caged like that as cruel and neglectful.  I don't know why they caged him, but I assume that it was a new puppy and they didn't trust it not to run out into the street.  I'm not going to get into an animal cruelty discussion here -- I already had a heated discussion over that on Facebook last week -- that was enough.  Anyway, I didn't get much sleep and when I got up on Sunday morning I must have looked terrible, as my host family told me I should go back to bed.  The funny thing is, when I got back to the hotel, I could see that little dog in his kennel - fast asleep.   Oh well.  That's how my day started.  I grabbed a few hours of sleep before hearing the pup once again start its whining and such.  It was time to get out and do something anyway.

So one of the lessons I've learned here in the Philippines is to be mindful of what you say to people.  I had one experience when I was here in February that should have served as a warning, but I didn't get the message.  I won't go into details, but I had mentioned that I was thinking about doing something, some "project" for one of the churches here.  I have news for you . . . to say that you're thinking about doing something is the same as saying you're going to do it. Now I'm fortunate that my host family understands this phenomenon and is able to figure out when I'm thinking about something versus when I am actually planning on doing something.

Haggling over the price of eel at the market in Carmen.

Communication here is a little peculiar too. I'm still struggling with how communication works here.  I'm trying to decide if it's just the personalities of the people I've been dealing with or is this a cultural characteristic.  Let me just put it this way . . . interpersonal communication here stinks.  I'd blame it on a language barrier, but most of the people here have a decent command of the English language, so I don't think that's the issue.  More likely it's some cultural norm about sharing information. I always feel like I don't have quite all of the story.  There's either a "back" story that I'm missing in the discussion (and it's assumed that I already know it) or it's a control issue and I'm being kept in the dark on purpose.  It's not like someone is trying to do harm or anything -- they just aren't being clear in communicating plans and ideas.

Now I'll be the first to acknowledge that I need to be checking my own communication skills.  Maybe I'm not listening.  But I did spend two years of graduate school in speech communication and I taught interpersonal communication for several semesters as a graduate teaching assistant.  So it's not like I am unaware of how to communicate.  No, I genuinely think something is amiss, but I can't exactly identify the problem. Suffice it to say that this is one of my "projects" when I get home -- to have some discussions with people who are more experienced than I am in cross-cultural communication.

This isn't just a mild aggravation.  It has actually impacted some of my primary activities here.  I won't go in to detail at this point, but the failure to share information has caused some aspects of my assignment to fall short of the mark.  I'm chalking this up to experience.  As much as I have intended this visit to be about accomplishing some specific tasks, it has also always been an opportunity to learn more about the people here and their needs.  Just like it's been valuable to learn that there are only three towns in all of Bohol where I can get money from an ATM, it's been equally important to learn about interacting with people here and trying to understand their quirks and cultural mores.

Unlike with the dog from the story above, I haven't lost any sleep over it; however, I am hugely aware of the necessity for clear communication -- never assuming anything and being terribly explicit in my conversations has become standard practice.  Every day is a learning opportunity.  Just like last night, when I happened to bump into the owner of the hotel.  He asked how I was doing and if I was enjoying my stay.  I could have complained about the cold water "shower", but that's just part of the culture here and is not likely to change any time soon. I told him that I have been very comfortable, which is essentially the truth.  I did joke about the dog keeping me up all night.  We both laughed about it, and I acknowledged to him that it was surely not the hotel's fault.  Strangely enough, the night has been very quiet.  I haven't heard a single noise coming from the house across the street.  Was it something I said?