Experiential Learning

I was rereading my journals a couple days ago. I've been stuck at home for 2 days. Not because of anything dramatic (though I have been a little sick), but because my floor is being re-tiled and someone needs to "supervise." So while the tile boys do their thing, I perused my old thoughts and prayers. Now before anyone gets excited about all the juicy tidbits I'm about to drop here, I'll say that it's always interesting to see how one's prayers and thoughts grow over time… and how they don't! What most interested me were the thoughts I had about my first trip to Cambodia.

I see lots of volunteers come through (and we had another team here just a couple weeks ago), so I hear lots of first impressions, lots of initial thoughts, and lots of misguided assumptions. In rereading my own thoughts, I am certainly guilty of them as well. This reminiscing about my own early perspective has coincided with revising our volunteer orientation manual… so I've been inundated with the "Cambodia Introduction" process. It's a little scary to be reminded of the way I thought and what I did (or didn't ask).

As part of my work, I answer many questions, and many of the same questions (and rarely—although I won't say never—do I outright make up answers). Some of them are relevant for orientation manuals (currency exchange) while others are… not (how long it took to get used to driving in Cambodia). I once answered the same question three times in a row in the span of 5 minutes. Not only am I a friendly fact source about Cambodian history, current events, and culture, I'm also the "appropriateness police"—reminding people when their outfits are unacceptable, to please not point their feet at that monk who is growing more and more offended, and oh, by the way, that question is way out of line and can't be translated anyway. Why keep answering these inquiries when it exhausts me or I've said the same thing five times in one day? Well, sadly, I understand the purpose.

None of the "Cambodian experts" we have on staff got that way by being quiet. We ask questions (even when they are dumb), and we ask them of our Khmer friends, neighbors, and church buddies. Just the other day I asked someone if it was all right for me to do something, or if I was crossing a cultural line that I couldn't quite see (the answer was, fortunately, no). So we became experts not because we're any smarter or better or innately understanding of things, but from living and breathing in the culture, from experiencing the kind of things that happen here, and from trying to make sense of the unknowns by talking with others who have been there.

Where, then, is the disconnect? When does asking questions turn into tedium? First, I think it's when people assume they know the answers. Often, one of our visitors will make a statement about The Way Things Are, followed by that lovely transformational phrase, "right, Kate?"—instantly hoping to soften the assumption by dressing it up with a question. I hate it when I have to "answer" by saying "well, not really." The second problem is that a lot of people ask a question and don't listen to the answer. Lots of the tougher "why" questions here are countered by some up-front information; Cambodians are very relational… that informs the way they live, work, shop, eat, everything. Thinking through the implications of one statement can inform later questions. Third, sometimes people don't think before they ask. Although I know a lot about Cambodia, that doesn't mean I'm the expert on Malaysia (and why I sometimes have to make things up). This is also where insensitivity rears its head. If you wouldn't want someone to walk into your house and ask you how much money you make, or what your daily schedule is, you can assume that others don't want to answer that either. Deep down, though, I know that people mostly have good motives. I know they want to understand everything about this culture… about the people… about what they are to do with what they see here. Unfortunately, that's not what it looks like all the time.

We learn from experience. We store up all the things that happen to us, cross-reference them with what we know about the world, and draw conclusions. Maybe we change our behavior, maybe we communicate differently, maybe we soak it all up and do nothing. Cambodia can be a great ultimate experiential learning… experience. Because there is so much that is different, so much to see, so much to process, people leave trying to make sense of what it is that is going on outside. So the questions stem from our internal balance being off, our need to be familiar and comfortable before we can feel productive. It is, as many have said before, about stress.

Where the stress transfers to me is when I realize so many of our volunteers are asking the wrong questions. Although a trip to Cambodia should never be completely self-focused, so few people leave asking themselves (out loud, anyway) "what has this changed in me?" "What has shaped my view of Cambodia?" "Why did I have so much trouble with the culture?" "Why did our village experience bring me to tears?" The introspection is just as key to understanding the experience as the cultural anthropology. At the end of the day, few people remain in Cambodia. If all the questions don't get answered, if there are cultural things left unknown, it's okay. The bigger issues of what this trip will change at home, of why it is a significant experience, of what can be learned… those should be sorted out, worked through, and talked over. That learning process might take a lifetime, but would be worth so much more than knowledge of just historical facts. Those are the questions I would love to answer, especially since I'm asking so many of them myself.