About three years ago, I read the book "Foreign to Familiar: A Guide to Understanding Hot- and Cold-Climate Cultures" by Sarah A. Lanier. It helped me understand what I had experienced living in Costa Rica as an exchange student, and I thought it would be a good thing to teach my Spanish 3 students at the time, since most Spanish-speaking countries are hot-climate cultures.

As I taught this unit, the students really struggled to understand why people in hot-climate cultures operated so differently than our cold-climate selves. They definitely felt like the cold-culture mindset was superior to that of hot-climate cultures. I did my best to explain that each culture has positives and negatives and that neither one is better than the other.

That was a great theory, but I'm struggling with the application. Now that I'm living in a hot-climate culture, it's sometimes difficult not to have those same feelings of superiority that my students had.

In her book, Lanier proposes that the primary distinction between hot- and cold-climate cultures is that cold climates are concerned with performing and finishing tasks in an efficient way, while hot climates are more concerned with maintaining a good relationship with the people they interact with. As a result, cold climates use direct communication whereas hot climates will say things indirectly for fear of offending someone.

These two differences, task vs. relationship and direct vs. indirect communication, are the most difficult for me to adjust to. My cold-culture mind struggles to find the positives in the hot-climate culture viewpoint. Let me give you some examples.

1) Our Spanish/culture teacher here in Peru explained to us that telling people you won't be able to make it to a certain function is seen as rude, and it's better to say, "Yeah, I'll try to be there," even if you know for sure that you can't make it. (Just for the record, she thinks that's silly, but she lived in the U.S. for two years, so maybe the "coldness" rubbed off on her.)

2) When we invite others to Bible studies, 90% of the time they say they will be there, and they actually show up about 10% of the time. It makes planning events kind of tough. Maybe we just need to come up with an indirect way to invite them to Bible study, so they don't feel obligated to say "yes."

3) Everything starts a good 15 minutes to an hour late because people don't arrive on time. I think sometimes they're late because they don't want to be rude and leave their previous engagement, or they talk to people on the way to where they're going. Obviously, there are many other reasons as well (most people here don't have cars, they work long hours in the field, etc.).

4) Because relationships take priority over tasks, tasks take a long time to complete. For example, when we go with our friend Nilda to advertise English classes or get ready for a birthday party at the center, she wants to eat with us at least once on our little excursion. The first time we went with her, we ate breakfast, lunch, and a snack. Also, we had to stop and talk to every person we ran into on the street that she knew (it's a small city, and she's lived here a long time). And every time we go, we end up being late for our next activity that day (like the birthday party we went shopping for in the first place or Katie's classes).

Perhaps I struggle most with these because on a personal level I highly value efficiency and honesty (maybe even more than your average cold-climate person), and in my mind the hot-climate culture prevents either from happening as often as I'd like. To me it seems like lying when someone says they'll be somewhere when they have no intention of going, and I really dislike being late to anything.

However, I realize that they have good intentions when they tell us they'll show up because they don't want to hurt our feelings. And fortunately, I highly value building relationships (in fact, it's kind of my job right now), so as long as that's happening, I can justify the time I'm spending on tasks that would take me much less time in the U.S.; and if the relationship-building includes food, even better.

I guess I'll just have to learn to be a little less scheduled, a little more patient, and say things in a nicer and less direct way. I could be learning worse lessons I suppose.