Complexities of Culture

My Spanish teacher is a bit of an odd guy. Besides being a self proclaimed rebel, rocking the long hair, and wearing at least one large silver or gold ring on each finger, he approaches the world and its diversity with some pretty strong and interesting opinions. He has told me stories of using his status as a basketball player for the Guatemalan army during the war to escape torture. He has recounted telling a variety of very important people to "Come mierda"  because they didn't like his hair and rings or they simply obligated him to do something. He apparently hates being obligated to do things. He has participated in multiple strikes here in Guatemala during his time as both an urban school teacher and a rural school teacher working with indigenous children who only speak the language Kachiquel, he is a "professional singer" (which I often get impromptu samples of during class), and he is a very talented artist. The shear dynamic nature of this guy is overwhelming and makes him a bit of a cultural phenomenon in and of himself.
In my 9 hours a week with this gentleman we dive into conversation of human rights, Guatemalan women, the culture of the United States, the death penalty, education, same-sex marriage, and really anything else we decide we would like to discuss. We sit on the terrace of an Italian restaurant in Guatemala and discuss the depth and breadth of the Guatemalan culture.

During my most recent class, a conversation  with this Guatemalteco about the indigenous culture gave rise to a discussion of cultural conservation and change. Here in Antigua, it is not an uncommon sight to see an indigenous woman, dressed fully in traditional traje, talking on a cell phone, while riding in a tuk tuk, a woman conserving traditions from before the conquistadors while also participating in contemporary society. In one small moment, you see the new and the traditional abruptly coexisting.

We had the opportunity to visit a group of indigenous Kachiquel women in San Antonio Aguas Calientes who demonstrated their indigenous roots by showing us how they traditionally weave, grind coffee with a stone, have elaborate marriage ceremonies (of which I was a part), and cook tortillas over a fire. While there I almost forgot I lived in a world with cell phones and the internet... until one of the women answered her blackberry during their presentation. What a fantastically odd cultural phenomenon, seeing a woman who uses a stone to grind her coffee answer a smart phone that had been tucked away safely in her indigenous güipil. I saw two worlds collide in the hands of someone who speaks a language tracing its origins to before the conquest of the Americas.

It makes me ponder the idea of conserving culture. Can the indigenous culture truly be conserved as if existing in a vacuum far removed from the "developed" contemporary world and its technology and ideals? It is always a bad thing to allow culture to change and be transformed by the times, to not preserve the culture? Could this idea of "culture"..."our culture"..."indigenous culture"..."developed culture" to which we often apply inherent worth, actually separate people sometimes because we want to conserve our separate "cultural identities" so fervently? How do we preserve the wonderful values of some cultures that are countercultural to the majority? How do we comprehend the mixture that comes from the new and old colliding? How do we reconcile a world of many cultures when those same cultures, be it North or Central American or any other, sometimes contribute to human rights violations, misogyny, hunger, greed, and structural violence?

These are the questions my Spanish teacher and I attempted to answer in our 3 hour class this past Thursday. Obviously we haven't solved the worlds' problems yet, but our discussion did seem to boil down to the idea of "dialogue.  We found that it is not that change in culture is always a bad thing; rather change is unjust when it is forced by the hand of another. When respectful dialogue occurs between cultures, those qualities that make a culture rich and beautiful can be preserved, while those qualities that lend towards more negative effects on our world can fall away into history. We realized that we have to approach other cultures... actually we should approach any conversation in general... with intent for dialogue.

As occupational therapists, especially those that cross the larger cultural spectrum, it is important to approach your client with a listening ear, an ear ready to converse and discover the most appropriate goals and methods. It is in dialogue that we uncover the most valuable and effective ways to walk with our clients. We first must be ready to listen and take the time, sometimes the large amount of time, to truly understand our clients. In reality we need to take the time to truly understand our friends, our parents, our teachers, and even our enemies. We can use dialogue to discover a stronger truth and see the humanity in the other rather than separating ourselves into cultures of "us" and "them".
It seems to me, that it is in that dialogue that we break down the complexities and deceptions of our world that allow us to persecute and oppress our fellow human beings. We then can walk with each other toward a simpler, more loving human culture -- a simple human culture expressed through the filters of our diverse experiences, resources, and actions.