I’m not Tica. I don’t belong in Costa Rica. Nor do I belong in Panama. Nor Nicaragua, Argentina, or Bolivia. And I’m finally okay with that!
I remember going to Argentina with this illusion that I’d be able to start to fit in after a while. I was so excited that everybody was pretty much white so I could blend in without a problem, at least visually. While that eventually proved to be completely false, I never had a chance to blend in in Costa Rica. From the beginning, I looked funny, talked funny, and even thought funny. No matter where I traveled or worked or lived, there was never a thought that I would be able not to stick out. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. And if you can’t join ‘em, embrace the differences.
Something I had to learn to deal with this summer with was my identity as a foreigner. At first it was weird. I just felt like I didn’t belong. But after a while I kind of started liking it. Even though foreigners aren’t overly popular in that region, we also weren’t hated. I found out that people were interested to hear my stories and opinions, just because they might be different from their own. It was fun to be intriguing rather than “just another person walking by.” When I needed help, it was really convenient to be a traveler. People were much more willing to answer my stupid questions than they might have been if I were someone who was “supposed” to know the answers. And even though my Spanish was good, I still have a very obvious non-native accent that seems to automatically give people a bit more patience with me than they might have if I were a local. I don’t expect those experiences to translate to every community or region of the world, but in the places I’ve been, it’s worked pretty well.
Accepting being a foreigner doesn’t mean accepting being clueless. I can still walk around with a distinct air of “Yeah, I’m not from here. But I still kind of know what I’m doing.” It doesn’t mean I have to roll over and play dead whenever I’m confused. But it does mean I have to get used to not understanding everything that happens and I have to approach every situation with extra humility (something I really struggle with). Knowing you’re outmatched allllll the time culturally and linguistically changes how you tackle learning and questioning for the better in my opinion. It also forces people like me, who always want all the answers, to accept that there are things that we can’t learn instantly and that that’s actually okay and the world won’t end.
Being the extranjera can be uncomfortable, confusing, and a little unsettling at times. But it’s also something that can be embraced, appreciated, and used to connect to a culture on another level. While we can’t change our ethnicity or native culture, we still have the opportunity to experience the worlds of other people, just from a different playing field. In some ways, it’s a little unfortunate that we can’t perfectly integrate. But it’s what we’ve got, so we may as well roll with it.