I have been home for almost 2 months now, I have utterly
failed in my ambitions to write about my culture shock experience and post in
on my blog… So, finally after much procrastination and life getting in the way
I am writing a blog about being home and culture shock. Here we go.
Holy crap, coming home was maybe more terrifying than
leaving. I came back fully preparing myself to have to re-adjust to ‘normal’
life. In many ways it helped, but in many ways I could have never prepared myself
for coming back. Even two months later I have noticed I still have moments of
readjustment and minor panic attacks. The other day (It was actually a month
ago but whatever) was a college night downtown and I was working. It was late
May and the weather was nice so, many of
the young women were wearing shorter dresses and skirts. I nearly had a heart
attack, all I could think was “For the love of all things decent put some
clothes on!!!!”… I quickly humbled myself when I began realizing the girl I was
looking at had a dress that was just as short as allof my summer garb hanging
in my closet… Talk about perspective… Here is a small list of things I noticed upon
being back and or things that happened to me.
- I have completely lost what little sense of style I did possess. I have been told by my friends I resemble a very confused homeless person now and my style represents a combination of homeless/hippie/six year old. At least I can totally rock it.
- I cried when getting sick. I spent 6 weeks in Africa very ill, and yet I only had tears once for about 10 minutes… The first time I got sick at home I began to cry, I am fairly certain it is because I felt like sickness was suppose to stay in Africa. It is safe to say it didn’t and I am still readjusting and getting sick sometimes here at home.
- Bugs. Bugs also made me cry, and they never really had that much affect on me while abroad. I got very angry that there were sugar ants on the counter, so angry I couldn’t go into the kitchen for a while and started crying. That was weird. I think I really wanted bugs to just stay in Africa, but there are bugs here too. On the plus side I am not freaked out by bugs almost at all anymore, except for the first few weeks of being back.
- Nothing changed. The world went on here normal, I came back very different and yet somehow everything was so much the same. It was weird. The world is normal to you wherever you live, I came back to a normal that was so shockingly familiar I didn’t really like it.
- People are secluded here. The streets are empty; everyone uses cars and ignores one another. It is extremely lonely to be back.
- I have no qualms about walking anywhere at almost any time for any distance. I use to be scared to walk at night, now, while I still won’t go out after 11 by myself I feel rather invincible. It is kind of awesome.
- I have learned that people, don’t and won’t understand what I am talking about when I try to explain my trip.
- I couldn’t watch any violent films for quite some time upon being back. For some reason I just couldn’t stand them. I think I was just utterly overwhelmed and it was too much to take in but it made family movies kind of difficult because all I wanted to watch was things like ‘Whinnie the Pooh’ for about a month.
- I cannot touch fried food; I tried some French fries because they smelled amazing, I could not stomach them. At all. Anything with lots of oil makes me instantly feel gross and like I want to gag. Also rice, rice is a total turn off.
- When my ears here foreign language my brain thinks “SWAHILI”… I have nearly forgotten all of the Spanish I knew, and it has been replaced with Swahili, which is extremely awkward when at a Mexican restaurant I try to have a conversation with the waitress in English or Spanish… So soooo difficult, she looked at me like I was crazy.
I think ten is a good number to stop at right now, I will
try to write more soon. But that may be a while. We shall see, until next time.
Tutaonua tena. Kwaheri.
Shameless Oregon girl clothing selfie.
This was the day after I got back.
I was a happy camper.
