The reading "Excerpts from My Life" describes several ways that cultures differ from one to another, Iserhoff's cultural background as a Native Indian living in Canada clashed with other cultures throughout the story. One way was the obvious religious differences, and how her mother warned her not to experience the other religion when she was sent away to the hospital. Even when she was with her family, and first experienced the Mistissini their cultures differed in the way that they lived their day to day lives. Iserhoff lived in a tent with other families, upon arriving in Mistissini, she realized that these "different looking" people lived in wooden cabins and had glass windows. After living her life away from the bush for so long, coming back she felt as if she was an "outcast" in her own home, and I feel part of the reason for this is because of the culture she had been around, and lived in for such a long period of time. When living with the other family, she experienced such new things, that I'd consider that family as teachers of a new culture also.
When I think of the term "clashes" I feel like it's referring to something bad, when really throughout the story, all the cultural differences made her who grew up to be. I think by experiencing all of these different cultural "clashes" she would be a better teacher in the end, being capable of explaining to her students that their is more to life than your small community. Even though getting shipped to a hospital for worms wasn't a fun experience and her culture wasn't the same as all the nurses, she learned a lot at such a young age, that many of her peers from the bush didn't get to experience.
After reading this excerpt, it made me realize that experiencing such an array of cultures, especially at such a young age really made Iserhoff learn the differences from culture to culture, and now being a teacher for students so young, she can relate to them, and tell them stories about her life, and how other people live differently than they do.
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