CONADE and the shock

From last Wednesday to this Sunday, I was at CONADE, the Brazilian national AIESEC conference. It was there, that culture shock finally hit me, and it hit me hard.

Rita and I left at 4:00 am on Wed morning and took a cab to the subway station where we were meeting everyone. After a long bus ride we made it to Caraguatatuba, where the conference was being held. It was really nice to see the countryside for the first time. There were hills covered in trees, farms, cows (vacas!) and it was very beautiful. The view on the drive into the city was amazing. I could see the water and the city all surrounded by trees. It was really nice to see the water as well. I keep looking out over Sao Paulo half expected to see the ocean in the distance, but instead I only see city. Seeing the water was a special treat, and I didn’t realize how much I longed to see it.

When we were almost to the… I guess you could call it a resort, the bus broke down. We had to wait about half an hour, but then it was working again. The result, however, was that we missed most of opening plenary and had to run onto the stage to do our dance as soon as we got there. Haha, good thing “U” is near the end or we would have missed it entirely.

CEEDers!

The first day was corporate responsibility day. They had a bunch of guest speakers to give a talk, but it was in portuguese, so Rita, Sue and I escaped and did some exploring around the place. There was a pool and soccer fields and tennis courts and palm trees everywhere. The rooms were in these odd little round structures. I have never skipped a track before, but I wouldn’t have learned anything. Later we went to presentations by some companies about social responsibility. Two were in English, so I picked one of those. The presentation wasn’t the best, but I did learn about the concept, which honestly I didn’t know much about before. Then we went and got dressed up for the banquet. At Canadian conferences we always have the banquet on the last day. Here it’s on the first. Part of it was a “cocktail party” so they had these free drinks. I tried this one that was passion fruit and cachaca. It was really good…. And really strong!! I had two and I was a bit wobbly. Haha, but not enough to stop the AIESEC dancing!!

@USP looking good!

Ooo ahh oo ahh ahh Victoria!

Thursday was good and bad. The Work Abroad track in the morning was rather boring, and I can’t say I got much out of it. We painted pictures and meditated. To me, that’s not the most efficient use of a conference, but whatever. A lot of the main tracks were in Portuguese, so I had to follow along with the English powerpoints or have someone translate for me. Some of the members were really good about helping me. Jorge, Maira, Renata, Tiaia, Koge and Rubens all translated for me. I really appreciated it, especially on this day because the speakers were talking about social entrepreneurship and it was really amazing to hear their stories. Although I could follow along, I found it a bit frustrating that I couldn’t contribute. I was kind of stuck just listening. After the speakers we had a world café, which was awesome. I helped J-Max, from Quebec, to talk to the new members about volunteering and NGOs. I finally felt like I was able to contribute something, and I really liked that. In the evening we had a soccer tournament. I said I would play for team USP, so I headed off to the soccer field. When it came time to actually play, I didn’t get to. I was a bit disappointed, because I had been looking forward to it. Granted, it was all guys playing and they were really intense, but still. Later they asked me to play in a girls game, so I said I would love to. We couldn’t get enough girls from USP, so I played with a team of girls from Recife, which is in the north east of brazil. Amazingly enough, I scored the first goal! Haha, kind of a fluke, but I’ll take it. After the soccer, it was a costume party. Lots of people were dressed up in crazy outfits, so it was pretty funny. But during that party, there were very few people dancing. Instead, the were all outside either playing or watching Johnny Cash Mo!! Hahahaha. It was hilarious. Rita, Sue, Igor and I taught everyone how to play and they LOVED it! It was a huge hit. Even the next day, people were asking me how to play it. So there we were, at a national conference in Brazil playing Johnny Cash Mo. Pricesless.

Friday was very hard. At this point had had been dealing decently well with the Portuguese. Getting by at least. But after a while, it starts to build up. All the tracks were together on Friday, and they were all in Portuguese. We did break into smaller groups a few times and did some worksheets in English, but much of the day was sitting in the plenary listening to the externals. And it started to get to me. I read the powerpoints, so I had a general idea of what they were talking about, but I find it very taxing to sit and listen to another language and not understand. Even though I know it’s Portuguese, my brain is trying so hard to hear familiar words and make sense of it. I hear words and it doesn’t make any sense and it can be frustrating and mentally exhausting. I think I might have gone mad if it wasn’t for Igor. We ended up playing tic-tak-toe during the session.

This was the day I truly felt what I would call culture shock. It had been building up during the days before, but on Friday it finally got through. We talked a lot about culture shock at CIL training, and I thought I would be able to handle it. At least I am able to recognize that that’s what I am feeling. At CIL, they warned us against blogging during culture shock, because you can be overly negative and give people the wrong impression. However, I recognize that I am experiencing culture shock, and I think writing about it will help me a lot.

Having most of the sessions in portuguese was mentally straining. But I could read the powerpoints and at least follow along a little bit. What was the hardest was the social activities and intstructions. Whenever the facis told us where to go next, I had to turn to somebody and ask them “what are we doing now?” “where are we going?”. I felt very helpless and dependant on others. Especially on the weekend, when I switched tracks, I had to rely completely on Diogo to tell me where to go and what to do. During the breaks, I found it very awkward. Normally, if I don’t have anyone to talk to, I would just wander over to a group of people I know and join in. But here, everyone was speaking in Portuguese. I could hover around and pretend to listen, but I felt very isolated. I hate to ask people to speak English, especially when I am joining the conversation late and when I know that some of the members struggle with English. So I ended up “floating” a lot. The members did try to help me out. They would come talk to me and say hi, and Jorge was really good about including me. He would stop everyone and say “Hey, Jess is floating again. Speak English!” Haha, so I appreciated that, but I still felt like such a burden. Sometimes we would have a session or a conversation in English, and it would be great, I would be able to contribute and understand and learn, and then I would be hearing Portuguese and be completely cut off and isolated. It’s hard, because I totally understand that the sessions need to be in Portuguese. We were learning about some very in depth concepts and while most of the AIESECers speak English, it is very hard for them to understand complex concepts in English. It’s just unfortunate for me. And after a while, it really got to me.

LC meeting

That night we had global village. It was good, but I think I would have enjoyed it more were I not so exhausted from the day. We set up the Canada booth with pins, a flag, maple syrup, Canadian Club, and some postcards. After about an hour of telling people about Canada (how cold is it? Are you from the French part? What is maple syrup?) I escaped for a little while to look at the other booths. There were booths from all the internationals plus each of the regions of brazil. Igor told me about the different foods and drinks from brazil, and got me to try a weird seed which actually wasn’t bad, if a little hard to eat. I went back to the Canada booth to find that it had been populated by USP members who were teaching others what I had taught them about Canada! I thought that was kinda cool, actually. I ended up going to bed early (well… relatively) that night because I was soooo tired I honestly thought I might fall over.

mmmm ... maple syrup

Saturday was the best day of the conference. Instead of going to the work abroad track, Diogo asked me to attend the leadership role track to better understand the reality of the LCs in Brazil and where USP fits in. Of course, this meant that more of the information was in Portuguese, but I managed to learn a lot. We broke up into groups to discuss the areas where AIESEC brazil is the weakest with the intent of discussing solutions and creating a library of good case practices. Diogo told me to go to the Talent Management group and ask for them to do it in English. So, I did. The faci asked everyone if they were ok with speaking in English, and a couple people objected, saying they preferred Portuguese. Livia, from Curitiba, rescued me though, and said that I needed English and she thought I would be able to contribute a lot. I was really grateful, because I did learn a LOT from that session, and did give some input of my own. I had some really good discussions with a few people about managing human resources and I felt very empowered for the first time at the conference. Unfortunately, after the break, someone stopped me to ask me some questions about Canada, which was cool but caused me to be a little late for the next round of discussions. And they had already started in Portuguese. I was, once again, left floating. Later I went to some workshops. One was in English and the other Rubens translated for me. I did manage to learn a lot on Saturday though, about AIESEC in Brazil, about USP, about implementing structures and other things. That night everyone had free tequila! We did some AIESEC dances and I talked to people and hung out.

Sunday was not quite as good. I got up early and packed and went to opening plenary, and there were hardly any people there. Too much free tequila ;) So we had to wait around for everyone. Then we started to sessions. I went to the leadership track again, but I lost Diogo in the crowd so I had to just read the powerpoints and ask random people to translate the instructions for me. I still felt somewhat isolated, esoecially since I was the ONLY person in both the leadership role and taking responsibility tracks that didn’t speak Portuguese. At one point on Sunday the Chair was trying to explain something in English and he turned to me in front of everybody and said “I’m sorry do you mind if I say this in Portuguese?” I said it was fine. I did, however, have a really good conversation with Mao, one of the trainees from Curitiba, about the city. He started telling me all about the recyling programs that they have there and how it is a world leader in standard of living. He is from Columbia and I could tell that he was really impressed with the city and the programs there.

Closing plenary was a bit rushed, and we had to leave a bit early to catch our bus back because the people from Salvador had to catch their plane. The ride back was fairly uneventful. I was hoping to sleep but of course didn’t. I talked to Jorge and Fuspa about lots of things, from video games to languages. Over the weekend I did get to know most of the new members better, which is really nice. I’m feeling more comfortable with them now.

Today I was back at the office. It felt weird to be back in Sao Paulo. Familiar yet not. I managed to get sick today with a cold, so I haven’t been feeling well. I had two naps at the office because I was so tired. I did manage to get some stuff done, and I had several meetings with Diogo to discuss plans for the coming weeks. I think he has a knack for making this more complicated than they really are though. He makes it sound like what I have to do is really intense. I’m going to see how it goes and do what I can. Diogo has a very different focus than I do, so sometimes our initiatives don’t match, though I think we understand each others perspective. Today I also went to the university cafeteria, where you can get a whole meal for R$1.90. Crazy, neh? And then we went to the anthropology department and looked into some seminars being offered. Diogo was really trying to help me, but of course the seminars are almost all in Portuguese. Today I still felt really dependant.

Culture shock is a process though, and if I work through it I should be fine. The limitations will not disappear, but I have to learn to adapt and to get around them as best I can. The initial “OMG I’m in Brazil” has finally worn off, but that means soon I will be ready to start to have a deeper understanding of Sao Paulo and the people here, at least I hope so.