Transitions

Two questions that I think I could have done a better job answering when I spoke to churches and other groups were:

What culture shock are you experiencing or noticing?

And What can we do?

My hope is to make a whole tab on this blog on what you can do. My work with Justice for Our Neighbors is much more focused on that, but my time in Africa leads to some good examples to.

But for a little more lighthearted let me mention what I have noticed with all these transitions:

- Driving on the right hand side of the road again was not really an issue, but I miss driving stick and putting the car in neutral and when I come to a roundabout/traffic circle I have to look at it and think for a minute.

- didn’t take too long, but unlimited internet

- conference calls… (the number and length and learning how to *6 are its own kind of culture shock)

- Diet coke at the office instead of tea or coffee (Florida thing) In South Africa my coworkers would make me wait to work or speak with a client until I had fixed my morning tea.

- air conditioning (not the cooling factor itself, but the isolating factor of moving through space and time in air conditioned vessels)

- living alone for the first time and not working with a staff of 15

- knowing what a prima facia is and moral perptitude

- gathering at coffee shops or restaurants instead of family homes to share a meal or visit

- when I am meeting someone for the first time I shake hands with me left hand on my right forearm. (no one has said anything about it yet, but in greeting in Africa it was necessary to show respect and now it feels disrespectful not to do it, and its habit)

- using a dryer. Pants I have had for over a year fit differently ad I couldn’t figure it out, until I realized I had used my mom’s dryer to dry my clothes, and these pants had only ever been line dried.

- and I think its just as much as a shock when things you haven’t done in almost two years come naturally and you don’t really adjust at all

- Though the amount of construction and new building in Arlington took me back a bit. Traveling the US before I left for South Africa and living in Africa and knowing the world impact of recessions – it was very surprising to me to see and realize my home towns isolation from much of that.

- NYC was one of the easiest places for me to visit, with the least shocks, oddly enough

-and as a few of these have mentioned, transitioning to Florida has its own culture shocks

Thanks for helping me think about the transitions,
Hannah