My highlight for this past week was going to Pampolona for the San Fermín running of the bulls festival. This event might also be one of my favorite things I have done during my time abroad! It was an incredible experience to be a part of, and it was a very rare opportunity that I am glad I was able to participate in. We arrived Saturday evening, and seeing the sea of people in the typical white and red uniform was so cool. San Fermín is unlike anything we have in the US, so it is hard to find something to compare it to. Some of the traditions throughout the festival are the white clothes with red scarves, the bull running beginning at 8 AM, and the streets filled with people dancing and singing all day long. 4 hours north of Madrid, the San Fermín festival was an incredible show of Spanish culture.
Also this week I visited the Reina Sofia museum, where I got to see famous Picasso paintings and other artwork and photographs from different eras of Spain. It was a cool museum, although the lack of painting descriptions was making it hard for me to put it above the Prado Museum. I continued to do as much as I can around the city, trying new restaurants and even went to a karaoke bar (FYI, they play a ton of American music from the 80s. Nobody knew the words). I do as much as I can as far as exploring Madrid, but the summer of traveling and full time work has been taking a toll on me. (By that, I mean I have been napping from the hours of 3-5 every single day. Siesta is my way of cultural appreciation). I will say, as I am coming to terms with the fact that this weekend will be my last in Spain, my personal goal is no more napping. I feel the pressure of needing to make the most of my time looming over me. (That being said, today is Monday so Siesta is almost mandatory).
As I am on my last two weeks of work, I am reflecting on the most important part of this internship and experience: communication. Learning to communicate has always been at the forefront of my internship. I wanted to learn effective communication and communicating with coworkers all while doing this in a different culture and language was a daily challenge. Something that surprised me about the communication barriers was the difference between low-context and high-context communication. Low-context communication in the US is a method of communication where everything said is very direct and not really up for interpretation. In high context cultures, conversations rely more on nonverbal cues and understanding conversations in high context places means understanding the culture. Before my internship, I knew Spanish was a high-context language and communication is not as direct as it is in the US. This, I thought, would not be a problem for me. I was wrong. This is not something even at the end of my internship I can say I have mastered. There is more to high-context communication than just ¨common sense¨. This was a hard reality I had to face, as that was my exact thought process before coming to Spain.
Oftentimes, I have the hardest time with this type of communication when talking with my direct supervisor. She will often give me a task to do, and I often have to ask her a lot of follow up questions. Originally, I thought maybe I was just given incomplete information, but now I know I am in a country where detailing every thing for every task using direct commands is unheard of. This is something I struggle with even today. I ask my boss several questions, just for confirmation. Confirmation and asking for clarification is something I do often in America with no thought. Direct communication with specific rules is something I have always been on the receiving end of. I am a very detailed person, so growing up like this was perfect. These days, I cringe at myself every time I ask yet another question when given a task. I thank Sharon (my supervisor) for her patience. I cannot imagine having a clueless American at your side each and every day. I am getting better at asking questions in Spanish, however, so at the very least, while my high context communication skills are lacking, my Spanish proficiency is improving.
