I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that while I'm on the road I just come off like a big stupid american. I embrace being a new yorker and being big and brash and in people's faces - its a cultural thing, and I just can't try to surpress it. I do, however, try to minimize intentionally offending people and I'm not really fond of unintentionally offending people either, though I'm resigned to the fact that its just going to happen.

Two weeks ago I was in Antalya, Turkey doing a training for HIV/AIDS activists from Central Asia and Africa. Imagine my horror when in the middle of doing a presentation, I was corrected by a young Pakistani woman for using the term, "kyrgys" to refer to the delegates from Kyrgystan. She said this was on a par of calling people from her country "pakis". I was pretty horrified that I had offended this group of participants who also didn't speak english (we had translators), an additional barrier of getting friendlier with them.

One thing thats made me uncomfortable about the culture of working in an international NGO, is that everyone refers to everyone else by their nationalities. So its "the Poles", "the Bulgarians", "the South African's". Its never names and its also never their organizational affiliations, which seems so... well I don't know, cold warish? Are we all spies really just representing our own national interests?

Anyways, this made me double aghast at my "kyrgys" blunder and then I tried desperately throughout the training not to refer to them verbally at all. More motioning in their direction if I were referring to them (I know, pretty lame!).

My co-trainer, Amanda Hickman, also a big brash New Yorker, got to spend some time with both the participants from Pakistan and Kyrgystan. The woman from Pakistan continued to express her dismay with my culural blunders, so Amanda asked the group from Kyrgystan what they call themselves. They replied "We say 'kyrgys,' but most of the time people mispronounce it, and they say 'kirgees' so we laughed when Dirk said it right." Amanda is uncovinced that I actually pronounced it right but that they actually just liked me enough to say that.

Either way, once again, the brash New Yorker is loved by all.