Culture Shock in a different World.

Well I have had many experiences of the nature that would consider themselves to be culture shocks but one definately stood out to me back in February 2006. I was a greeny and a gringo. It was a term that was given to all the new american missionaries that came to the mission in Rancagua ,Chile. My first day walking around in Chile I felt completly lost. But it wasn't just the fact that I was away from home and out of the country but also I didnt know spanish. People would laugh and smile and pause and make certain facial expressions that I was familiar with but I didnt know what they were saying. I had a companion in Chile who had been there for a little over a year so he could speak fluently with the chileans and every time I had the chance I would ask him what he had said. He was from Utah ,but spoke spanish very well. I asked him what the conversation was about and he would just laugh and tell me that they would give me a hard time for not knowing psanish very well at the time. Well it was a couple months later when I had an unforgettable experience and a cultural shock. What happened to me in this particular moment could happen to anyone anytime anywhere, but the location made the likeliness of the situation very high. I was with a different companion for a day to get to know another part of the area I was in and it was towards the end of the day. Time to meet back with my gringo companion. Well we were a little behind on time and so our pace walking down the street was alittle quick. I was so worried about being on time to meet with my original companion that I almost was running. Well no sooner had I finally caught sight of my companion and another missionary waiting for me and the missionary I was with that I heard a scream from behind me that said watch out( in spanish). I looked behind me as I kept on forward... The companion I was with was caught in a head lock with two guys who had a gun and were asking for our money. We shouted several times that we didnt have any money all we had were our scriptures and that was it. Our bibles were in big black bags that were bulky enough to appear to contain money so they robbers eventually decided to take off with our bags and I was scared stiff. The tone of skin on my face had changed to pale white. I was shaking and started to shout to the chileans in english ," hey get back here with my bag". What my bag also contained at the time were all my english books including my english bible so I didn't have anything english to read after that. I was so amazed at how this had all happened. I didn't have any english books to read from that day forward so of course I learned spanish as I could only read the spanish books I had after that. It was a culture shock because I wasn't aware of how desperate the people in poverty were. After that experience I was given alittle more of a backbone because I figured anyone who would do something like that to me agaqin would just be talking and not really intend to harm me and sure enough, I learned to live with such a strange culture according to my view of chileans. Obviously I am thankful to have made it out alive. I know how to defend myself now and I am fluent in spanish. So I grew from it.