Course description. When I signed up for DEVS310 there was no forewarning about the interactions I was going to have with the opposite sex down south, except maybe for the mentioning that they might whistle, cat call, and say “hey mommy” to me every now and again. Falling in love was not part of the course description, nor was how to have cross-cultural romantic relationships. I guess this was my extracurricular material for the course! Many other girls I know who were there, or were traveling also were in casual or serious relationships with men of the country. So here is a little bit of what I have gone through and learned….
Background. I met my boyfriend while in Bolivia, at a local hippy-reggae bar where he worked. I had been soaking up the attention from all the local men in my city, and when I met him I really didn’t think I would trade in my care free singleness and all that fun entails for a serious relationship. Long story short, we became very good friends, then more then just friends. ☺
Confusion. Doing ‘love’ or a ‘relationship’ while in another country is super confusing. I didn’t realize how appropriateness, intentions, and interactions could be different between two young, contemporary thinking individuals of different countries. In my relationship we had to both learn each other’s culture, and try to understand where the other was coming from. This was easier for me, since I was emerged in his culture, and spent time with his parents. Now that he is here in Canada with me, he understands much more about me.
Thinking back, one of the main things that confused me in the first months was our communication. My Spanish was far from perfect, and his English was nonexistent. I would get frustrated because I couldn’t fully explain myself to him, vent my anger, or joke around with him as I would have in English. We had many an argument simply because of my mix ups in Spanish, which I wouldn’t even realize were mistakes until he would get huffy. I also went through a big period of confusion after he told me early on “Te Queiro”- a phrase that falls somewhere between “I love you” and “I like you a lot.” It took me awhile to decipher what he really wanted to say by that phrase.
Hanging out with his friends was horrible at first because after an hour or so I would be bored of stressing to understand every second word, and eventually drift off into my own world.
In terms of appropriateness, I was in a very conservative country, with a boyfriend from a very conservative country and family. I had to learn to adapt my wardrobe (I hadn’t realized my skirts were see through or that my gym shorts were super short before hand), my language (to use respectful Spanish with his parents and not slang). Many girls failed to recognize that SHORT SHORTS ARE NOT APPROPRIATE in this country, and as a result attracted attention from men that was purely sexually based- and then they wondered WHY are guys harassing me, or even grabbing me. Be aware of the message your clothing sends.
Many guys in the city know foreign girls are there to have fun, and therefore they seem to think it is their obligation to try to show them how to have that good time, in and out of bed. My city was a revolving buffet door of foreign girls for men to feast on, therefore many weren’t concerned about finding a serious relationship, but instead they were looking for a dancing partner, or someone to fool around with. Commitment among many was inexistent (girls and guys) and it was not uncommon to be seeing more then one person at a time. This was confusing for me at first, because naively I fell for the first sweet words a guy fed to me within the first 3 weeks of being down south, thinking I had found a great, charming, gorgeous catch of a guy. That lasted all of two days until I found out he had a girlfriend. Beware of wolves in sheep clothing. My boyfriend had to prove to me big time that he wasn’t like that.
SEX.
Most Latin American countries appear very conservative when it comes to sex which is commonly a taboo subject. Even though sex may not be dinner conversation material, people most definitely are having sexual relationships.
BE CAREFUL. I know of 4 different cases of girls who visited the city I was in, found a guy, became pregnant, and had to make a trip home to ‘visit’ in the middle of the semester. One of these girls went home, had the abortion, returned to Bolivia only to discover that the man she wanted to be with was married and had 3 other children!!!!
On another note…. Sexually transmitted diseases follow backpackers like crazy, and run rampant in many communities. Since casual sex is common, (although not talked about or acknowledged by the many conservative locals) lots of people or both sexes have various different bugs. Protection protection protection.
Rape is not an easy topic at all, but it does happen, so I feel like I should mention it especially since foreign girls I know were targeted. A friend of a friend had too much liquor one night so her friends loaded her into a taxi and sent her home. She lived a distance from downtown, and her driver ended up taking a different route home, stopping to rape her. He was found out because one of the girl’s friends had memorized the taxi number. There were a few other cases of assault that I heard of in side streets at late hours. I was very uncomfortable taking taxis after I heard about this, but a safety is to be on the phone with a friend during the drive, tell a friend you will call as soon as you get home, or have a friend take down the taxi number and taxi drivers name, with him seeing, so he knows that someone has his information.
Now what. I couldn’t stay down south for ever, so we were faced with the question of what to do now with our relationship. It is a risk to start a relationship with a local when you are on exchange, doing an internship, because you now after a set period of time, you will have to go home. In my case, the risk was worth it, but we had to fight for our relationship. My boyfriend worked two jobs for 5 months to be able to come to Canada. Here he continues to fight against the hierarchical system that is brain draining many countries, as he looks for labor work, and attempts to get his work permit. Getting his permit seems next to impossible because he is not a ‘trained skilled worker’ which Canada would gladly allow to come work, bettering their economy and factories. A work permit isn’t granted just to any regular Joe who wants to come, work (whether it be cleaning toilets or bussing tables), even if he has good intentions.
He has also has to fight against racism and stereotypes, plus feeling unwanted by a country which professes to embrace people from all different nations.
It is easy to fall in love in a country where everything is different, and men treat you special but being in love and in a relationship is not as easy and takes a lot of work as my boyfriend and I have discovered. I love him like crazy, and all the obstacles we have faced have brought us closer together. He may not have been part of the DEVS310 plan/deal, and Peter’s prep work for the internship didn’t include falling in love, but I am so thankful for this ongoing learning relationship that I have.