A note about culture shock − 27 March, 2008
Everyone talks about experiencing culture shock when living in a different culture. I think there ought to be a better term - shock always sounded to me like something more immediate, something more short term. What I'm feeling is more like an extended out-of-body experience.
For example, I tend to wake up at 6:00 every morning - more than an hour before my alarm clock goes off - to a relatively quiet world that gradually fills up with the sounds of motoconchos, barking dogs, gallos, and rapid Spanish yelled from house to house. I look around the unfamiliar room from where I lie under my green mosquito net cocoon and find myself mildly surprised to discover that I'm still in the Dominican Republic. It's hard to explain - not a rational thing, like I'm expecting to magically wake up in Nebraska for some reason - but it´s just sort of like, in the fuzzy brain-state of waking, I realize all over again that the continuity of my waking up in the states everyday has been broken.
It's not to say that I'm unhappy here - I'm certainly not - but there's just a very definite separation from the familiar that can get really uncomfortable sometimes. There's not really any place I can get away from it - no matter where I go, I'm still here.
I suppose I'm just feeling a little homesick. It's the little things I miss that make me realize it. I miss being able to get into my car and just drive, to feel like I have control over my surroundings and over where I'm going and what happens. I miss being able to disappear into my room with a book or with my computer and not having to worry that I'm coming off as being antisocial. I miss being able to say exactly what I want to say exactly the way I want to say it. I miss fast food restaurants. I miss not being stared at all the time. I miss my apartment, I miss my own bed. And then I start thinking about Nebraska and about all of the people back home and it's like yesterday, tearing up a little bit in the internet cafe, looking at photos from Easter - I just start to get a little sad.
It's not that I don´'t like it here and I want to come home. I really do like it here an awful lot - I mean, there's certainly lots to like. It's just that it's such a surreal sort of day-to-day existence that sometimes I feel like I'm waiting either for the axe to fall or for someone to come out laughing from behind a curtain and tell me it's all been some big game, like I'm on Candid Camera, and for everyone to suddenly start talking in perfect English and acting like Americans.
I think it's mostly just a longing for what I can easily, intrinsically comprehend. When we first came here, we were all braced and ready for some huge culture shock, so we were willing to take everything in stride - the language, the food, new customs, new religion, new ways of dressing, everything. But now, though the novelty is starting to wear off a bit, the differentness continues - and somedays it's hard not to daydream about waking up tomorrow in my apartment, taking a long, hot shower, getting in my car, driving to Subway, and ordering a huge sandwich loaded with vegetables - or just driving, rolling down the window, doing sixty down some long stretch of Nebraska highway with my elbow wing cutting the breeze and the wind in my hair.
Simply put, whenever someone asks me about how I like being in the Peace Corps, how it's going, I usually just respond that every day is an adventure. It is - because everyday, I wake up in the Dominican Republic and it's different. Somedays, the adventure is really exciting and I'm really gung ho about doing it. Otherdays, I wish my life could just be (my North American brand of) normal.
Comments:
lute_of_jubal (March 31, 2008. 04:55pm)
MONSTER blog coming soon. I apologize for any typos in this one, as I had to re-transcribe it, balancing my laptop in my lap. I don't want to do the same with the big one, so it may be a little while.
Chao!
mogdor (March 31, 2008. 08:30pm)
.........elbow wing......(insert huge, obnoxious, very long laugh here)
and also, since I relate everything to movies....50 First Dates....minus the actual head trauma and all, you get the point....
lalala_lisa (April 1, 2008. 04:21am)
You know what's ironic... there's an Indonesian international student from UNL interested in taking up your old room. :) Glad things are going well, even if they are so different, all the time. I always forget you're not even in the country anymore. How are the dresses and skirts working out, btw?
ghefner (April 2, 2008. 11:57pm)
Okay, here's what I did.. I drove your car to church on Sunday (it misses you terribly BTW) AND I drove it to Subway in Hartington for a sandwich that night. If there was anyway I could mail you a spicy italian (SANDWICH) I would! LOVE YOU!!
Val_E (April 3, 2008. 03:46pm)
Hola Amanda! Your comment "I miss being able to get into my car and just drive" is the same one I heard from Cody when he was living in Seattle & Beijing. His city friends couldn't imagine the joy of driving - but then they've never been to rural Nebraska. There's comfort in the familiar & you're just bouncing between your "old familiar" and your "new familiar"; like leaving for college the first time. Just as your college years went by fast, this experience will too! How lucky for us that you're willing to share it with friends old and new thru this blog.
lalala_lisa (April 3, 2008. 08:05pm)
So I got a couple pieces of mail for you today, forwarded from your SMB. One is an invitation to the Black and White Graduate Gala (I got one too). You can pick your ticket up the week of April 14. Not sure what the other one is, but I think it's from school. What would you like me to do with them? :)
hefnemergency (April 9, 2008. 03:37am)
I got an account on here, so I could post on your entries, so you know that I'm reading. I don't remember if I was going to say something more important or not. Probably not. Anyways.... have fun..?
Rebeca (April 9, 2008. 10:22am)
What Val_E said isn't true... It's different to take any other change and compare it to moving to a completely different country in which your language isn't the main one. It's likely you will continue to feel the same way for a while in any place you go to, and the only thing that changes is you and how you react to this place that will never be like "home." And, it's not just about the place, but the people. If the people get to know you, they will let you be yourself more often, and you'll feel better. And, as ironic as it may seem, I'm sure that if you move elsewhere, there will be times you'll miss the Dominican Republic too.