Male madeet!
I have been looking over the basics of the Nuer language. Male madeet means “a big hello”!
Okay, so one of the things that we have talked a lot about it our team trainings is the culture shock that we need to prepare ourselves for in Africa. They have an expression that we will hear frequently, “TIA!” It means, “this is Africa”…and everything is subject to change all of the time! Almost everything about Sudan (and a lot of Africa) is the complete opposite of how it is here in the U.S. The pace of life is slow…almost at a standstill a lot of the time, there is NO technology at all, their society is very communal and dependent on each other (in a good way) instead of competitive, and there is a simplicity that maybe has never existed here.
Anyway, so I have been preparing myself for that type of culture shock, but I was completely blindsided a couple of days ago by something else.
We are flying into Dubai, United Arab Emirates on our first leg of the journey as a team. We will be spending 11 hours there in hotel rooms and touring the city. I am really excited about that, but I have been so focused on what Africa will be like that I forgot to think about being in a Middle Eastern city. The rules are different. The religion is different. The expectations are different. I looked up the baggage information on Emirates Airlines, and then I happened to stumble upon some other essential information…namely banned items in their country. Some banned (illegal…as in, they will arrest you at the airport if you are carrying these) items include many medicines that we use here for depression, hormone replacement, and even schizophrenia. Normal meds like Zoloft, acetaminophen, and others are illegal. Also, because it is an Islamic society, non-Islamic religious materials are also banned. That presents a dilemma. We are each carrying Bibles, Bible storying manuals, and any other religious materials. Hmmmmm…..
I know that Aid Sudan does this all the time, so if it were truly an issue, we would have been prepared for what to do. However, it made me really stop and think that I have no idea what it is going to be like in a Middle Eastern country!! So, I will experience culture shock after culture shock…probably at each new destination along the way!
