Coming (Back) to America

Henna Tattoo

My fresh henna tattoo

Published September 10, 2015, last updated on October 12, 2017 under Voices of DGHI

By Brittany Zick, MSc-GH 2016 Candidate

When you spend your entire summer out of the country that you call home, you really look forward to coming back. I left North Carolina in the beginning of April, and over four months, I visited the Dominican Republic, Uganda, Tanzania, and South India. Of course I returned back home just four days before the semester started because … I like torturing myself. 

One of the things we talked about at DGHI before embarking on our fieldwork is how to handle culture shock when you’re traveling. There are four stages of culture shock, and no matter how well-traveled you are or how frequently you take trips, you will always experience it. Since returning home, however, I have also been going through the stages of reverse culture shock, but I am embracing each stage and doing my best to talk about it to ease the transition. 

  1. Stage 1: Euphoria – Every single bathroom here has toilet paper! I had forgotten how much smaller my purse is without the roll in it that I carried all summer long. I can drive my car again and not worry about running into bikes, motorcycles with a family of four on them, cows, goats or monkeys. Everyone speaks English! I can even use idioms and people know what I am saying! People don’t stare at me all the time because I have light skin and blonde hair. I never knew how much I enjoyed being a wall flower.
  2. Stage 2: Depression – I’m now a bit sad as my henna tattoo from India is almost completely faded. No one stops and says hello (or Habari or Namaste!) to me anymore. I don’t like paying $8 to park on campus when I am running late to class. Ugh ... class! I’m right back into the fast American pace instead of the relaxed African time that I had gotten used to. No one is going to wait for me … sink or swim, Brittany. For that same $8 to park, I could have eaten lunch for more than a week at my favorite restaurant in Mysore, India.
  3. Stage 3: Adaptation – So there are things that are less than friendly about where I live and life is expensive … but it is my home and I can get myself back into American mode, student mode, homeowner mode, dog-mom mode, safe driver mode, working three jobs and teaching yoga mode. My air conditioning doesn’t work in my car as of last week, and I have no money to fix it after four months of no income, but I mean … I didn’t have A/C all summer, right? So I’ll just ride with the windows down until I have money again (next year).
  4. Stage 4: Longing – Okay, but when can I go back? Where is the next place that I will be able to experience with fresh perspective? How many more times in my life will I get to live in a country for enough time to feel almost like a local? What are the next set of cultural differences that will just blow me awaylike walking down the street alongside cows and watching some of the most hectic traffic in the world stop to let them stroll? How can I plan my research projects so that I can go back to Mysore and practice more Ashtanga yoga with Chidananda at the Mysore Mandala?

Although I am still running through these stages, one thing this summer has taught me is how difficult it is to culturally adapt and be polite in a place completely foreign to you. It was difficult for me to balance being myself and yet respecting the people and customs where I was visiting. When I had one particularly desperate moment in Uganda, I had to Skype home and ask my Sudanese friend to walk me through how to really embrace a squat toilet.

That day I realized that people visiting the U.S. don’t stick out in the same way that I might have in Uganda or Tanzania, but they have just as many cultural hurdles to overcome. How would you know what not to do unless someone yells at you for being confused or taking too long (which would never happen in East Africa, but we are not as formal or kind here)? 

My hat is off (see that idiom I just used there?) to all the international students that are coming to the U.S. each semester or visiting for the first time. This summer was very hard for me and it was only a few months. When you stumble here and feel out of place, know that you are welcome and that you have at least a few friends out there (probably a lot of friends, actually) that understand what you are going through. If you want to talk about culture shock, come find me. Almost everyone at DGHI right now is feeling some stage of it right now and talking helps. I’m so happy to be homeand so happy to be walking inside the halls of Trent againand waiting to share with all of you.

Related News