Cultural Miscommunication

As is true with every person I know, there are things we do sometimes that make our friends and family role their eyes or shake their heads. Sometimes we do these things on purpose and sometimes they come by complete accident. I am happy to say that as I have grown up I think I have gotten better and at being more socially acceptable (at least fewer people seem embarrassed to be seen with me). And then I moved to Brazil where the rules are a little different. That is fine and after almost a year I feel I am starting to learn most of the rules and customs.

There are some rules though that I would inherently see as rude in any culture. One of those would be to impose on a family two days after they have experienced a death of a close family member unless absolutely necessary. And even more unacceptable would be to invite yourself over for dinner at their house two days after a death. Well thanks to the desire to help of our wives and the cultural gap that still exist within our language that is exactly what happened this past week.

This last Wednesday our dear friend Otovio lost his brother. It has been very difficult for this family since they also lost his mother two weeks earlier. At the funeral on Thursday Jennifer and our friend Mary Virginia wanted to help in some way and so told Patricia, Otovio’s wife, that they wanted to bring them dinner on Saturday night. They left believing everything was clear and understood. Then on Friday Jennifer informs me that what Patricia understood was that we had not simply volunteered to bring food, but had invited ourselves over for dinner. (just wait it gets a little worse) Embarrassed we decided we would just make the most of our cultural misunderstanding and work to take food and love on them for the evening. So Saturday night we get our food ready, pick up the Maberys, and go to Otovio and Patricia’s house. When we arrive though we find out that they had actually thought we invited them over for dinner and we in fact at the Mabery’s house.

We soon got everything strengthen out and they came back home, we eat, we prayed, and shared a very special evening together. We and they laughed when we explained and apologized for inviting ourselves over so soon after losing Otovio’s brother, but all was fine. Even though inviting ourselves over for dinner might not have been the most socially acceptable thing to do, we had a blessed evening. One I will remember for many years as an evening we were able to spend with our friends in the presence of our Lord for He was there and our evening was blessed.