Isolation

Elie Mamiye 06/27/15

CIEE Community Partnership

I wrote this paper for a pass/ fail class while studying abroad in Cape Town. Only made a few edits, their are mistakes, its not the best writing, but its me.

A desire I have is to be able to understand people’s different mindsets being in different social contexts. I have fulfilled this desire by traveling and being social. I put a high value on learning about others, as a result of this anxiety built up before meeting the group in Cape Town. I was afraid that if I showed too much of myself to quickly, I might repel those people in the group who I could potentially find fascinating. The anxiety of this situation carries on in interactions with people outside of the group, where I attempt to find a comfortable position to penetrate their mind. In the context of South Africans, I find that regardless of the portion of myself I am deciding to share it results in being given some sort of status. In the coming paragraphs I am going to share some of the factors that cause stress upon me when traveling. From the list of the ten assigned stress factors I have decided that cultural emersion, visibility and status are the topics that have taken up a lot of space and energy in my conscious life since I have set out for and been engaged in this experience in South Africa.

I am a selfish traveler. When traveling, I attempt to implant myself in settings that are rich in local cultural activity, however I am commonly just a speculator. I care more about making my own theories on the presented circumstances, than actually engaging in the same activities as the locals. During this engagement I am making my own judgments and connections then compartmentalize my learnings (in the sections of my brain) where I see fit ad potentially applicable to past or future experiences. Therefore I never truly lose myself in cultural emersion. By this I mean, I don’t suspend my own moral compass and purpose when engaging in most cross-cultural interactions. I recognize this way of treating cross-cultural interactions may result in learning less and demining the connection that can occur when one is engaging in the same activity as the locals. However, I am commonly not looking for major social norms to obstructively implement in my life back at home. I find that my goal in many cases is to more so pick up on personal ideologies and subtle social queues that I see applicable to my own progression. This approach to cultural immersion comes as a result to my general understanding of the path I have set out for myself in order to accomplish my desired larger goals.

I find that all of the factors behind my engagement in cultural immersion is drastically different from my contemporaries, both on this trip and around the globe, puts me in isolation. I was born into a tight-knit, traditional Jewish community where much of the human products of the community are homogeneous. In contrast I have developed a personality and way of life that is influenced by a combination of (in the context of my community) many distinct cultures and matchless heterogeneous experiences. This sets me apart from an overwhelmingly vast majority of my fellow community members. However, in my vision of my own life trajectory, I find a lot of my time and influence will be involved with helping my community prosper. Consequently the dissonance and self-imbedded separation I have when interacting in cross-cultural experiences, is partially due to the connection with my roots. Therefor this connection if quarantined is the cause of me being isolated from the new cultural experience, my community, and my contemporary who’s at face value having the same cultural experiences, but experiencing polar affects. In short the more cross-cultural experiences I immerse myself in is a progressive of isolation; needless to say this is a stress factor.

Another contributing factor to the feeling of isolation is the separation from my loved ones at home and the though that I cannot manifest a similar relationship here. I have been out of the country and away from my family, best friends and girl friend since may 12th, and I will not be home until August 15th. The connections I share with these people are the most powerful and fulfilling things I engage with. Though traveling is a privilege, thinking of the time I could be spending with these people separates me from my cross-cultural engagement. Due to some of my personal circumstances, the pathways of communication with these people are somewhat blocked. Though in the group, I am not the only one going through the progressions of homesickness, it is not a common topic of discussion. This could be because it is a common stress factor amongst us all, and we do not want to sulk in our privileged issues during our valuable time abroad. Therefore I try to make this portion of myself invisible to others. By repressing the portion of longing my loved ones I am subsequently internalizing many of these thoughts that are commonly painful. Though it is only a portion of my overall well being overtime the affects of internalizing a painful topic could result the thoughts to build up and increasing the intensity of those occasional thoughts.

In my previous essay Langa Love Story, I spoke a lot about the anger that arises when I am given a position of high status when I do no deserve it. In this paper I spoke about an experience where this situation was clear with a man from Langa Township, in Cape Town. As I exclaimed, I did not deserve this odd position of status. In this excerpt you will see the progression of my stress coming from being given a status. ‘The initiation of this progression began with my negative emotions towards him that came from me feeling unworthy of his respect. This anger turned to shame, a feeling in which I am still exploring the roots of. The shame turned into sympathy because I couldn’t understand the influences behind him sharing his love with me. Then the sympathy, led me to try and understand where he was coming from. Soon after I began walking down that road it was clear to me that he has been faced with many challenges I never had to.’ This excursive in empathy building helped me to elevate the anxiety that came from the initial intensity of the situation where I passionately felt as if there is an injustice by receiving respect merely because of my skin color.

From confronting these circumstances as stress factors, I am now able to think about them constructively. In this learning process, I hope to learn how to separate emotions, and focus on the situation and how it pertains to my own goals.