Assume that people have very good reasons for what they do.

It may be that in some cases, the reasons are historical or social rather than your idea of pragmatic, but if you see their viewpoint, historical reasons make good sense. In other cases, people might explain the reasons to you, but you can't yet understand the explanation. When you have learnt more, the it might click into place and make perfect sense.

It may be that something doesn't have good reasons and some locals might want improvement. But you cannot assume phenomena don't have good reasons; give local people the benefit of the doubt so that you can explore.

Here's a simple example: Western newcomers always thought that the traffic is our city was chaotic, that it had no traffic rules. However, there were are two sets of rules, those that the police use to apportion blame, and those that everybody uses to get around. Most people obeyed those rules, and like anywhere, there is a small proportion of dangerous drivers. Part of the reason behind this thinking is that very "nonchaotic" (Western) road rules don't work when the roads are narrow for the very high volume of traffic and only twenty percent of the traffic is cars. The remainder comprises small motorcycles, oxcarts, pedicabs, bicycles, busses, minibuses, and trucks. All have different acceleration rates, traveling speeds, and abilities to weave, turn, and stop.

Learn to differentiate between intrinsic human nature and cultural traits. Don't presume that people in a different culture are completely different from yourself. They still get hungry, tired, happy, sad, jealous, angry, loyal, fearful, loving and so on. People might be friendly, envious, talkative, or suspicious.

It is not so easy to find out what is similar throughout a culture and what varies. For example, you might think that your target people take offence easily and that you do not. However, it is probably more accurate to say that you take offence equally easy, but the causes of offence are very different and that offence is shown in different ways. That is, you are learning about your culture by contrasting it with another.

Learning a culture means dismantling your own ideas so that you:

• are open to accepting explanations from people around you
• don't just find what you expect to find in a culture
• don't make unjustified generalizations about it
• are more accepting of unexpected incidents.

Here's a common example with rural tribal people where your own ideas or stereotypes will lead you astray:

You: "Are there any schools here?
Interviewee : "No"
You: "How many people can read and write"
Interviewee: "Very few"

Your conclusion: these people are uneducated. But you'd be wrong and here's why. Your stereotype assumed that the only kind of education is literate education obtained in schools. They almost certainly have bodies of very complex knowledge and people whose job it is to safeguard it and pass it on to others. This is because every culture seeks to makes sense of its world and needs to survive.

In many cases, there will be different bodies of knowledge and different groups of knowledge-keepers. Some knowledge may be kept secret, or difficult to learn, or expressed in ways you don't expect. Much might be memorized as stories or other forms of oral literature, or learnt as a practical skill rather than a body of theory. Their language may even have special dialects for discussing some kinds of knowledge, and they will know things that you will take years or decades to learn.

When you start to explore the nature of their knowledge and how it is used, you see their viewpoint on it. In some cases, traditional agricultural knowledge has shown to promote more sustainable agricultural models that modern "scientific" agriculture.

It may also be that they believe their local knowledge is better than school learning. This especially effects medical personnel who are normally frustrated when locals prefer their traditional medicine to more effective modern treatments, or who use modern medicine as if it were part of their traditional medicine.

Here's a list of tips to start you off:

• Realise that culture shock is normal; there's nothing wrong with you.
• Learn your way around and basic everyday skills you need for survival. Situation shock is normally fairly easy to get over. If you get this right in the first week, it will make you far more comfortable with other aspects of culture shock.
• Start learning language as soon as you can. Start simply and use it every day.
• Ask why.
• Have a support person or group
• Do not compare everything to your home country, and don't compare everything to how "good " things are there.
• Don't give your conclusions about your host culture to people in it; many people do not like foreigners making generalizations about their culture. Rather use those opportunities to ask questions.
• Expect everybody to have their own opinions, and give them that kind of freedom. They probably won't be uniform and might not appreciate being forced into a stereotype by your questioning. Besides, you might find later on that there are cultural streams or subcultures that are very different from each other.

BIG Hint Keep a diary of your observations and things to which you had to adjust.

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