TGMS #007: Renee Burgos, Living across cultures with intention and love

Today I am talking with an old friend of mine, Renee Burgos, who I actually met at graduate school many years ago. Her husband Francisco and I were classmates, and they are both wonderful people. Now they have two girls and they live in Costa Rica, where Renee is the dual-language coordinator for the Cloud Forest School in Monte Verde. Renee has taught English as a Second Language at the community college level, and she currently teaches intercultural communication. In this chat we talk about how she and Francisco have to be intentional about raising their bilingual daughters. We talk about how they navigate the cultural differences in their marriage, and how Renee’s parents set her up to live a global life.

Here’s some links mentioned in the show:
What is a Cloud Forest, how much rain do they get?
–The Friends School
–The Cloud Forest School
–Monteverde Institute (Renee mentioned that it was founded 15 years ago, but it is actually celebrating 30 years!)

Quotes from Renee:

About being in a cross-cultural marriage:

“He opens me up to a new perspective, and there is richness in my life gained because of that.”

“The more that we can recognize those differences and appreciate them, the better it is for us.” (25:35)

About intercultural communication:

“We really need to understand our own culture before we can even attempt to understand others.” (29:16)

“It’s said that culture is like the air you breathe. You have no concept that its there, until its not.” (29:31)

“When you are experiencing a behavior, and you are interpreting that behavior as a negative…the root of that behavior is a cultural value, and that cultural value is postive.”

I love how Renee emphasized that cultivating relationships between cultures takes intention and love. And, how she’s teaching teachers to be aware of their own cultural beliefs so that they don’t judge their students. We can all learn from that–to withhold judgement when we see behaviors that don’t seem appropriate to us, because behaviors have different values depending on where you are from.

I’d love to hear some examples from you all about your own experiences understanding the values behind certain behaviors.  Leave a comment if you have something you’d like to share. 

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