Most people expect to face culture shock when moving to a new country… but did you know that there is a reverse culture shock upon moving back to your “home” country? We were aware of this, so after 4 years of living in a third world country, it’s been interesting to note what strikes us in our "reverse culture shock moments".... things that strike us as odd… or weird… or overwhelming… or just different. Here’s a window into our reverse culture-shocking minds over the past 5 months since our return to the USA:
Car engines are SO quiet when they are running – perhaps because we have grown accustomed to driving a diesel vehicle overseas, and perhaps because our vehicle overseas sounds loud on the bumpy roads. The night of our arrival in the US from Kenya, I even asked my mother-in- law if she had started the vehicle, and we were rolling backwards!.... Yes, she had started it, and it was in gear!I couldn't believe the car was running, it was so quiet!!
Roads here are SO quiet! Smooth! No pot holes! No mud pits! Such clean asphalt! No pedestrians to drive around, no donkey carts sharing the road, no vendors wheeling their carts through traffic!
Traffic? After bumper to bumper driving in Nairobi, we are amazed at how much SPACE people keep between their vehicle and the one in front of them when driving down the road…. We find it hard to give the car in front of us that much space…. We keep feeling that if we don’t pull forward so that we are really close to the car in front of us, we’ll get passed and cut off by a matatu -- a public service vehicle in Kenya that functions like a taxi, but is the size of a mini-van and holds 14 people (in Kenya they are notorious for very aggressive driving). And there is no one reaching out to slap our vehicle to let us know that they are squeezing by us to pass…. There are no cars that are even remotely close enough for anyone to reach out and slap the side of our car!
When there is a little bit of traffic here, we are surprised at how quiet it is, and how ORDERLY it is… no one uses their horn, and no one passes on the sidewalk or the shoulder. I find myself holding my hand over the horn, ready to honk and then I remember that doing that can cause road rage here, so then I refrain. But honking is just so great when you are driving! Not a mad, angry honk, but the kind of honking that says, "Yoohoo! I am here, don't cut in front of me!" Or "Watch out! Don't pull into my lane yet!!" Sometimes on the interstate Kevin honks the horn when no other cars are around us….. just because we miss it.
Cities here seem so clean – (even cities that we used to think were dirty, prior to our move to Kenya) -- they have crisp curbs, very little trash, large, spacious parking lots, and immaculate lawns.
Lawns! Green and so clean! No one lives behind a 10 foot wall here, so we are amazed to be able to SEE people’s lawns, and their houses!! Most of the city of Nairobi is made up of houses built inside walled compounds, due to the high crime, so when driving around the neighborhoods, you see walls, not yards.
Christina commented (week 2 after our arrival in the US) that America isn’t as safe as Africa! We thought, "WHAT?" Our guard was definitely down already, regarding personal security! She went on to say that in America, there are no walls around the houses, no bars on the windows, and no security guards! We had to have a discussion about safety needs in the US vs. Nairobi, but we had not thought of our kids feeling particularly insecure and unsafe until that came up!
We are still very alert when we drive - not in the "safe driving" manner that any good driver might be alert, but more in the "on guard" manner regarding personal security because of the carjacking and armed robbery risk of where we live overseas. It is hard to "re-train our brains" -- if a car is pulled over on the side of the road at night, we glance around for any other possibly hidden cars, and we speed up in case they are going to try to block us. We have to remind ourselves we don't have to worry as much about being followed here. (We realize that crime does happen here, and it's good to be vigilant, but our heightened security awareness overseas is nothing compared to what is needed here in the US.... in Nairobi there are an average of 10 carjackings/ armed robberies PER DAY - according to our US embassy).
Re-learning to drive on the right side of the road was interesting…. Interstate driving is easy because there’s such a large median to keep one from driving on the wrong side, but passing on the left still seems strange. City driving is harder – especially when turning left or right, it just seems so WRONG and I am so sure I am going to hit someone because it feels like I’m in the wrong lane! By now I’m doing ok with this…. But it took me awhile!
Traffic lights are everywhere! We are not used to them anymore! And there are so many signs and directions to read along the road (this lane turn only, etc.). Everything is labeled - street names, route names, etc. Even speed limit signs -- it seems as though there is so much to READ while I'm trying to be sure that I'm staying on the right side of the road!
Fresh strawberries on cheerios with milk is just absolutely amazing. And the strawberries are huge!!
Drinking water out of the tap goes against everything my brain is telling me…so we are trying to reprogram our brains, telling ourselves: it’s filtered, it’s safe, you can rinse that cup and then drink right out of it again…. You can brush your teeth and swallow water! You can measure water for a recipe straight from the tap! Every new stop me make, we have to re-assure our kids the tap water is totally fine.
There is SO much STUFF available buy – so much stuff in the stores, so much stuff in the malls, so much stuff even in the gas stations…. It just feels overwhelming!! And many brands are no longer familiar to us.
Convenience foods – amazing!! Frozen corn dogs (we haven’t had them in 4 years!), refrigerated cookie dough that you just pop in the oven, refrigerated biscuit dough, string cheese, big bags of frozen chicken pieces that are ready to cook, sloppy joes in a can… I could go on. I don't remember not having to cook from scratch for this long!
Fresh produce that we don’t have to wash, then bleach for 20 minutes! I bought a bag of salad (the kind you don’t even have to RINSE in that filtered tap water we have here!) and just dumped it in a bowl and couldn’t get my brain to stop hollering at me that we couldn’t eat it yet! Ha!
What is THAT style of outfit that that person is wearing? Is that IN right now? I feel like I have a sign on my shirt that says “out of Africa after 4 years so please pardon how I’m dressed.”
We feel like we stick out like a sore thumb because we have to actually read every menu at every fast food restaurant we go to – we don’t walk in and know what’s on the menu like everyone else seems to. Restaurants that we used to know have changed the names of things… and of course they have come up with new things…
Americans seem to shop all the time! We are accustomed to shopping for groceries regularly, but hardly any shopping beyond that…. Sales are advertised all the time here.... this on sale, that on sale.... We are joining the shopping culture -- trying to stock up on clothes to take back to Africa for the kids to grow into during our next term. (You can't beat $2 and $3 brand new clothes at the end of the season!)
Wal-Mart? Overwhelming city. Our kids received money from relatives to buy a toy right after we arrived, so we cheerfully headed to Wal-Mart…. We walked up and down the toy aisles with the kids, and none of them could decide on anything. After 30 minutes in the toy section, a Wal-Mart employee asked if we needed help (no, thanks)… then 15 minutes later she asked again… Kevin's dad finally explained why this was so overwhelming for us!
I think we are beyond the "overwhelmed" feeling, but we still go through moments of reverse culture shock, and we've been back for about half of our furlough time already!!
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