Sometimes people will take you there......

This morning I began to have a conversation with two other women what constituted common sense and maturity.  They both were commenting on the lack of it seen in the group dynamic and exhibited by people.  At what age is someone considered mature enough to , lets say, travel overseas? That's a toss up as varied as what is a good age to  get married. I have encounter kids 19 that make me feel like I have some growing to do. And I have encountered 25 year olds who seem to never have really made it out of kinde. So, I am basically counting the days down until I leave the volunteer program I have been involved in.  I have lost all patience with being able to deal with the shit that has been thrown my way, along with just the program over all. The group that I am working with come in all different ages and places. But the mentality has been outrageous. What would define maturity? I have been dealing with a very asenine person lately. My roommate.  I don't think I have met anyone so annoying and persistent in being annoying. Yet, I don't even remember ever have meeting someone who can't get the ideal of respecting personal space in their head.  In the beginning, I wrote off a lot of her behavior as 1st week jitters. But as time wore on, I began to see that she has been raised by some of the most ignorant people alive.  She has asked me "Why all blacks like to eat fried Chicken" " why do we have such lazy work habits". I am not the only person that she has posed such questions to. I have heard her say Mexicans are dirty (funny-cause she's fuckin one right now)  and lazy.   That Arabs should not be trusted and be prayed for becaue they are creating havoc in the world right now(sic).  Calling me a bitch and writing it off as a joke.  Arrrghhh. Ah and her personal living habits are absolutely discussing. I swear that I have smelled a dead body under her bed. SO, having put up with enough shit, I have to told her to not to talk to me. Ahhh, but she has seen that as a way to continue to harass me.  I guess she figures that she can lord over me because of some of the ideas that have been placed in her head.   This is what the new age people call "a lesson".  The bible followers call it a "test"  What the police call a potential 187 in L.A. 
Is it judgment to assume that when you are traveling/living in another culture that you would leave behind some of your old ways and behaviors to adapt to the new climate? Or just allow yourself to expand because you are meeting people from different slices of the persective called life?  Some people are able to do it some aren't . But where do you cede? One of my biggest rackets is the fact that American society and mentality has lowered itself in the recently years. To be clear, I am not anti-American, and could find a shit load of stuff that's great about it but to tell the truth, what are we doing, saying, producing,creating, rearing, etc that makes us #1?  Are we being responsible for these things that really support what we believe or we so caught up in the hype of our own bs that we have become the emperor's new clothes in mental form?