You Looking Good

The Ugandan people like dressing smart. They believe the better you dress the smarter that you are. One of my friends here has facial piercing and one of the native did not believe think that my friend know how to read because of the facial piercing. I’m really happy I did not get my nose pierced before I came here. Dress being so important to the people who live here. We are trying to blind in as much as possible. Dressing in business professorial and business causal when we go to the store or class. I believe that following the custom of the culture here is a way to show respect and to honor them. I have noticed many Westerners, including myself, have a mindset that we/I should be made comfortable and catered too. This is not a thought that we openly think but it’s just a thought that comes without any thinking. Being here I am trying to put my opinions to the side and try to understand and serve the culture. Duane Elmer writes in Cross – Cultural Servanthood that “we serve people by entering into a relationship of love and mutual commitment. Paul shares in 1 Thess 2:8 “we loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well. Dressing the way that the culture dress is a way of honoring them and showing that I am here to serve them. I did not think dress was as big of a deal till I was sitting down in the dining hall and a group of Ugandan males walked by and said, “you looking good, you looking smart.” I mean any girl wants to hear that they are looking good, but hearing it from people I do not even know and in a different culture makes me realize how important it is to them. Besides the fact that I was ready to marry the guy and drop out of school, I realized that when you are in a cross culture setting the visitor does not always know what is best and should listen and copy what the natives do.