Relationships are at the heart of life, our friends and our family members are what we value and they consume much of our time. But what that looks like and to what extent that is true depends a lot on what culture you come from.

During my time abroad I lived with an Argentine family, who I quickly claimed as my true second family. I have a host sister, 16, and host brother, 13, as well as both my host parents. My family at home is incredibly close, so as I began to prepare to go abroad I was very nervous and emotional about leaving them for so long, I knew I needed people in Argentina who would love and support me during my time abroad just as my family back home would be doing from afar.

I had nothing to be nervous about. From the moment I arrived I was greeted like an old friend, with hugs and kisses and a seat at their table. I was called “hija” or “daughter” from my first day in Argentina onward and I quickly adopted calling my parents “mama y papa” in return.
Although my relationship with my host family is not the same as that with my real family it is as genuine and simply takes another form as it has been built around a different culture. Family is important in the U.S. but I often find that I am much closer to my own then most of my friends. It is a pillar of love and support in most peoples lives but often there are many familial divides or disconnections. This carries over to Argentina to some extent but the value of family connections is cranked up a notch. Time is spent and allotted for family. Meals are incredibly important, even more so that in the U.S., and especially on Sundays. I can recall hours and hours of moments spent sitting around the kitchen and chatting with my host mom and siblings while we pretend to work on homework but really are just watching our mom cook, laughing about the last thing my host brother said. These moments are what made my exchange so incredibly wonderful, all crafted around my family.

Argentinian Families

Argentine extended families are also on another level, they are generally larger, louder, and live closer together. These are the general trends that also tend to differ from most American families. My family in the U.S. is very large, larger than most, as I have over 40 cousins! I knew going into my year abroad that I would miss the big holiday gatherings or weekend trips to my grandparents house, yet when I arrived in Rosario and was greeted by my host family I was greeted by nearly 40 extended family members as well. A couple times a month we would head on over to one of the aunts houses and have a big family barbecue with good games, great food, and better company. And this sort of thing is commonplace amongst Argentine families, they tend to not stray far from one another and they make time for one another.

Now that I am back in the U.S. I find myself going through a reverse home-sickness, I ache to give my host mom another hug or to laugh around that kitchen table with my host siblings again. I loved the culture of Argentina, but more so I love and miss the family culture within it.

Un año atrás no entendí nada de español, pero ya pasó un año y tengo otro idioma para ayudarme en el futuro, en cualquiera parte de mi vida.

(A year ago, I couldn’t understand Spanish at all, but now that a year has passed, I have another language to help me in the future, in any part of my life.)

Likely most readers would not understand what the first sentence means but there are another 5 billion people that don’t understand this sentence. Just consider that for a second.

The world is both divided and connected by languages and the way that people communicate greatly affects culture and their own personal backgrounds, so one of the first places to start when trying to understand culture, is the language.

We are so fortunate to be native English speakers. This language that is so natural to all of us is a struggle for so many but also such a key part of global communication, business, technology, and more. As you can see, over 1.5 billion study English compared to the 14.5 million that study Spanish, the drastic difference is easily explainable when we see how the English language is applied to Global culture, but does that lessen the importance of the cultures that associate with Spanish or Japanese or any of the other 7,102 languages that are spoken throughout the world? Not at all.

Washington Post Article

When I left for Argentina I only had one year of Spanish from 8^th grade under my belt, I essentially knew nothing. So, when I arrived in Rosario, I was a little confused, well a lot confused, for many months. My host family and friends didn’t speak any English so I was forced to learn quickly if I really wanted to be committed to these relationships! It was a long process of trying to understand very simple things as I pushed myself to remember vocabulary, understand verb conjugation, pronounce sounds I had never even heard before, and comprehend what others were saying to me but even more so, how they were saying it. Connotation and tones give a lot to conversations and when you can’t depend on understanding the words spoken you rely on understanding the ways they move their heads or their arms, the way their voice rises at certain conversational points, or how their facial expressions reflect their feelings.

In my experience, language is more than just words, it is a form of communication and when you begin to understand it better you begin to understand the people behind it even more.

Language and Culture in Society

At my fifth month mark on my exchange, I dreamed in Spanish, and it freaked me out! But from that point on I felt more and more like a native in Argentina. It didn’t matter as much to me that my accent still needed (and needs) a lot of work or that I looked like a foreigner, I felt more comfortable because I could understand the place that was becoming my second home and I could understand the people that made it feel that way.

Understanding another culture, another country, another population is no simple task and it is one that is never finished but the process of doing so is made so much simpler once the language is understood.

So, stretch yourselves and tap into that part in your brain you didn’t know you had and learn!

Great Spanish Web Page

The diversity of the world is intensely overwhelming.

Everyday we pass strangers we will never see again and that is just in our immediate surroundings.

Expand this scope to our state and suddenly there are more than half a million people, at least.

Take another step back and solely within the United States there are over 300 million people.

And when we look globally? Over 7.5 billion. Intensely overwhelming.

 

I come from a town of roughly 42 thousand people, and as I grew and learned and read, I realized just how limited of a scope I had on the rest of the world. And so I did something about it.

 

I left. Well, more like I expanded. I expanded my mindset, which expanded my possibilities and opportunities, which expanded my reality, and before I knew it I had landed in Rosario, Argentina for an 11-month cultural exchange.

I didn’t know Spanish, I took Latin in High School! I couldn’t have told you the capital of Argentina before a month ahead of my departure date. I’m not sure I could have even pointed Argentina out to you on a map a year before I left, but before I knew it I was by myself heading to Miami for my orientation before I spent nearly a year in another country where I didn’t know anybody and didn’t speak the language.

 

Somehow, I found myself not scared, but simply excited. I couldn’t wait to meet the family that had taken me in for the year and all my new classmates and try all the new food I possibly could. Yet I quickly realized that a whole new culture meant more than just the food and language. It meant perception of time, history, traditions, mentalities on physical touch and on gender roles within their society, and so much more. Exploring all of this was overwhelming. Overwhelming in the most beautiful sense of the word.

And the world itself is intensely overwhelming, but again, in the most beautiful sense! There are over 7.5 billion people to meet, people who don’t simply exist but people who live, who have dreams and ambitions and loved ones. There are hundreds of countries to explore, each with a culture and history different from the last. So why do we as a race settle so often and so easily in the culture we are born into without ever truly giving others a chance? There is an aspect and argument of familiarity and comfort levels, yet if this is all that ties us down to our birth countries it seems we are simply not pushing and challenging ourselves enough. We need more explorers and people with a desire to learn and push themselves if the term “global citizen” will every have any real weight to it.

What does it mean to be a “global citizen?” – Kosmos Journal

Throughout my future blog posts I will be addressing different aspects of culture that I encountered in my real life experience abroad in Argentina. Hopefully this will challenge people to explore those aspects in different cultures around the world, learning a little bit more about Argentina specifically, and realizing that when people disagree or have misunderstandings it so often connects back to where they come from and some aspect of their culture that has shaped who they are. There is more to a person than just what is seen.

 

One of my intercultural program’s greatest missions is to make us, their exchange students, see that every person is individual and special but we are more similar than we are different, no matter where we are from, or what we believe, or what language we speak. Going abroad isn’t the only way to see this. Simply look around you. Every person has a story and something incredible about them, we simply need to view them as more than one in 7.5 billion to see it.

 

Program Specific Information:

My program is called AFS, it is an organization that sends students around the world to different countries to promote a greater global understanding and appreciation in hopes of producing a more peaceful world.

And more specifically, the incredible full scholarship that I went abroad with – The Speedwell Scholarship 

They are always looking for more host families and more students, they have many scholarships available and different program lengths and locations!

Rotary is another great exchange program and worth looking at as well if you are interested in gaining international experience:

 

My name is Tori Lenze and I am a first year student at the Pennsylvania State University. I am an honors student with an intended major of biomedical engineering and I am pursuing a minor in Spanish as well.

The Spanish part is what’s important for this blog as I spent 11 months, my senior year of high school, abroad in Argentina. I studied abroad with AFS intercultural programs and spent nearly a year in Rosario, Argentina. I lived with a host family, went to school, joined a basketball team, and learned everything I could about the Argentine culture, from the language to the greetings to the best desserts.

Even now that I am back in the states my mind often wanders back to my home in Argentina so I aspire to continue to live in an international/global mindset and share my experience with another culture in hopes of inspiring others to explore others as well.