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- A year ago I left New York to travel around the world as Business Insider’s international correspondent. Over that time I visited over 20 countries.
- I spent the last three months of the trip in Africa, visiting Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Kenya, and Tanzania.
- While each country had its own distinct culture and customs, I experienced many culture clashes while visiting Africa.
- Two of the biggest culture clashes I experienced were getting accustomed to not using my left hand to eat in Nigeria and underestimating the extent to which traffic impacts the pace of life in Lagos and Cairo.
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Culture clashes are impossible to avoid, particularly when you are an American.
For better or worse (but most likely worse), we have a tendency to think of our way of doing things as the "right" way. When you start traveling, you realize that the American, or Western, way of doing things is just as strange to people from other cultures as theirs may seem to us.
While you are likely to have some cultural mix-ups as an American visiting European countries, it’s nothing compared to Africa, where things seem to work completely differently than they do in the US.
Of course, Africa is not a monolith. The continent is larger than North America and is comprised of over 3,000 ethnic groups speaking over 1,500 languages residing in 54 countries. Regions and countries are sometimes so different that they are as different from each other as America is from them.
For example, many North African countries use the Arabic word "inshallah" constantly, whereas the word is unheard of in many sub-Saharan countries. A common ingredient in food in southern Nigeria is locust beans, which isn’t used in the north of the country or most other countries’ cuisines.
I spent the last three months of my travels in Africa, specifically in Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Kenya, and Tanzania. During that time, I experienced countless culture clashes, culture shocks, miscommunications, and misunderstandings.
Here are just a few.
1. Dress in Morocco, Egypt, Tanzania, and many other countries is more conservative than the US.
Unsplash/Sergey Pesterev
In just about every country with a large Muslim population, the rule of thumb is to dress much more conservatively than in the United States. While many Westerners tend not to associate Africa and Islam, it is the most common religion on the continent.
Countries with significant Muslim populations and customs informed by Islam included every country I visited: Egypt, Morocco, Tanzania, Nigeria, and Kenya. Generally, men and women are expected to keep their shoulders and knees covered and swimsuits are only worn on the beach.
The level of conservatism can vary greatly depending on what part of the country you are in. It would not be uncommon to find people dressed very liberally in resort towns like El Gouna or Sharm El Sheikh, or to find young people dressed in clothes you’d also find in New York City or London in upscale urban neighborhoods like Westlands in Nairobi, Kenya. But you have to pay attention to where you are.
2. In Nigeria, as well as many North African countries, it is considered bad form to eat or greet people with your left hand.
Mattias/Flickr Creative Commons
While it varies greatly from country to country, it is fair to say that in most African and Middle Eastern countries, you should avoid leading with your left hand.
In Nigeria, it is frowned upon to greet, eat with, or take or receive items with your left hand. It is similar in Morocco, Egypt, and other Middle Eastern countries.
As a left-handed person, I found this difficult to get used to. While I’m used to greeting and shaking hands with my right, it was very strange to try eating with my right hand. That said, locals in any country tend to give plenty of leeway to foreigners for mucking up cultural norms.
3. The electricity is always going out in Nigeria.
REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde
Electricity is notoriously hard to come by in Nigeria. Much of the country lacks a power grid and, even in Lagos, the business hub of the country, power can go off for hours at a time without notice.
Most businesses and major complexes like hotels, company campuses, or schools have their own diesel generators that kick on when the power goes out, but sometimes generators break.
While visiting Business Insider’s Lagos office in January, there was a power outage followed by the office building’s generator breaking. With a couple hours left in the workday, some employees started heading home.
Hours of productivity and economic output are lost every day to Nigeria’s power grid, marking a stark departure from the consistent presence of electricity (Wi-Fi) in my NYC-based life.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
See Also:
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- I’ve been using the Marie Kondo method to pack for trips around the world and it’s completely changed how I pack
Source: Business Insider – hjacobs@businessinsider.com (Harrison Jacobs)