Culture shock Archives - Nancy Wesson Consulting

Re-entry Part Two: Gratitude & Contrast

Nancy — Sat, 28 Dec 2013 19:26:00 +0000

As much as adapting to Uganda and specifically Gulu, was an adventure and a challenge, re-entry is offering equal opportunities for surprise, fury, self-analysis, befuddlement and feeling out-of-sync. It doesn’t provide the sucking-in-of-breath kind of surprises that Africa offers but there’s been plenty of gasping and shock at what I’ve forgotten or all that’s changed in a mere two years.

Being out after dark and seeing the night sky after being in a locked-up-night-time-prison for two years produces the same wonder that a two year old must feel at discovering an iridescent, speckled beetle.

It’s been a little over a month since I stepped back onto US soil and I am just beginning to feel like a citizen – although a forever changed one. I wonder if I will ever lose my excitement over being able to wash hands in warm water coming from a tap or flipping a switch and having light on demand. Interestingly, internet access and phones continue to provide frustration, mystery (will it “be there”) and opportunities for a few foul words.

I’m on the mountain hanging out during the day in Brett’s domain or at least near. Even famous Timberline Lodge – of The Shining lore – has its technology challenges, their internet having been down for four days. Coupled with the unreliability of my third inherited i-phone with a geriatric battery, phone service is also sporadic. It seems like a bit of Uganda has followed me home to be sure I don’t get too accustomed to a world where technology works.

Three weeks were spent in Austin with friends who welcomed me with warm, open arms and with saintly patience, good will and generosity. I can hear my late mother saying: “Fish and company stink in three days.” Fortunately, my hosts have ignored the stench!

A good friend threw me a party, but I needed to send out the invitations. Still in my stupor at the time, I realized again how technologically challenged I was and that I’d lost my contact list in the fray of my Uganda computer melt-down and had deleted a lot of old e-mails to keep my ice-age computer from abandoning me in a land where getting another would take an act of congress – and we all know how effective Congress is.

Then I was so concerned about intruding on friends or over-stressing their good will, I wouldn’t – didn’t think of either – asking them to d a search for me. In the same way that I felt like an intruder in Uganda those first months, I felt equally like an interloper when I came back. This is a strange feeling that defies description, as words have always seemed a little lacking in revealing the subtleties of emotion.

At the moment, I’m in Oregon loving every minute of being in Brett’s world. He and Molly have gone to great lengths to set up a space for me and make me feel welcome, cosy and warm. Although this is considered a “warm winter” on the mountain, Timberline – is encased in ice. Two other resorts are barely open, one making its own snow. From the crackling, fragrant comfort of a fire in the three story hand-built fireplace in the lodge I’m looking out at a mountain side sporting trees bent under the weight of foot-long icicles. As most of you know by now, Brett is Director of Ski Patrol and as such is tasked with keeping errant skiers and snowboarders from killing themselves on the slopes. This means – among other things – going out every morning, re-setting boundaries and breaking rime-ice off boundary markers. Yesterday the ice accumulation on ropes and poles was one foot in diameter and will be worse today.

Interesting to be here on the mountain to see what goes on. The second day I was here Brett and another patroller happened to be on a ridge when they discovered a gaggle of young (and stoned) snowboarders out-of-bounds. Going over to give them the out-of-bounds lecture, it was discovered that one of their motley crew had lept over a berm to rescue his gloves and proceeded to body surf to within six feet of a crevasse that would have taken his life had he not stopped. They were able to rescue him with ropes, ice axes and cramp-ons, but it was treacherous as the lowering of temps has caused deep fissures in the ice between them and him. The snow-bridge on which he rested was fragile at best and heightened the risk, but thre was no time to spare. Had they not been there at the time they were and been able to execute a rope rescue, this no-doubt would have ended a different way.

The contrast between the grime, dust and primitive nature of Uganda and ice and snow at a luxury resort is mind bending. I could not have consciously chosen more opposite environments and cultures, unless it would be Travis’ world of cave-diving in Florida. Across from me sits a woman wearing a full-length mink coat over her leopard-print pajamas.

Meanwhile, in Uganda Peter continues to struggle with shelter and food, although I have sent some funds, even those who mentor him live on the very edge of survival. There is a deep well of need there that can never be filled. The saving grace is that climate there is temperate. In January, the results of his exams should be available and we will see what the next chapter holds for him. One of Peter’s mentor’s (Patrick) has remained faithfully in Peter’s corner, sharing meagre resources, while others in the absence of “Peter’s Muzungu” have either abandoned him or tried to use him for their own purposes. Patrick has been accepted to study medicine at Gulu University, but was unable to secure a sponsor until Austin friends decided to fund him for at least the first year (less than $2000 per year for a college degree Miracles abound and if manages to continue to his goal of becoming a doctor he will no doubt forever change life for those in his community.

So connections with my community in Uganda continue even as I wonder what will the next chapter bring or what I will create. Part of it this known – I put down my deposit for a Teaching English as a Foreign Language certification course in Guadalajara yesterday. The five-week intensive starts on February 4^thand the goal is to be able to get work in Mexico to fund my fixation on becoming conversant in Spanish. Right now, the only phrase other than greetings that instantly comes to mind is “Caramba! Se me olvido me quaderno (OMG I’ve forgotten my notebook)! The mind is a perverse thing… hopefully more phrases will emerge from hiding though I may have opportunity to actually use that one. I’ve wanted to do this for decades and now’s the time, before I get to comfy or entrenched in both the accoutrements and overhead of living in the good ole USA.

I’m a little nervous – even if Uganda was a world away I had a safety net of sorts of people who had my back. Not so much in Mexico, but I figure if I can learn to navigate and have eyes in the back of my head in Africa, I should be able to do it in Mexico. At least that’s my rationalization for the moment.

On January 3^rd I’ll reappear in Austin, catch up with friends I didn’t get much time with earlier, go through storage once again and try to find different clothes and set off.

And so the quest continues. But for now I am basking in the glow of family and friends. In my last few months in Uganda, one of my fantasies had me sitting by this fireplace, looking out this window at the snow falling on this mountain, sharing Christmas with Travis and Brett and their significant others. The only part of that fantasy not manifested is Travis’s presence, but he’s enjoying his own fantasy Christmas of diving in the crystalline waters of Florida’s cave system. And so life is unfolding in curious ways.

In closing, may you be enveloped with an abundance of health, good friends, security and joy of the season. Take stock of life’s blessings and enjoy. In deep gratitude for your friendship and presence in my life –

Nancy

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Time Travel to a Parallel Universe: RE-ENTRY

Nancy — Fri, 29 Nov 2013 18:59:00 +0000

After twenty hours of travel and 48 hours without sleep, I have landed in what feels like a parallel universe. It looks like a place I remember: there are people, cars, paved roads – places I recall. I’m supposed to know this place, but it feels alien. Describing this sense of disconnected-ness, a friend related it to time-travel and that fits except I’ve crossed cultures in the process. Having sold my house, I am “homeless,” in a way that is both exhilarating and unsettling. I’m incredibly blessed to have friends who have taken me into their beautiful and extremely luxurious home. I feel like Alice in Wonderland must have felt when she fell down the rabbit hole.

Gulu
Down comfortor and pillows

From mosquito nets to fine linens

It’s a strange new world: soft bed, no mosquito net, down pillows and comforter, a bath TUB, a toilet! More importantly a toilet that doesn’t require a two-foot long mingling stick to flush … and fridge that works full time and is stocked with things like cheese and pickles and… and… and. I went to wash clothes and discovered twin stainless steel monoliths facing me. Adorned with control panel to rival that of a space shuttle, blinking blue lights with 20 possible selections of how to wash I wondered it they might also orbit. Does it speak? Well – not yet anyway.

Gulu laundry room vs Austin Laundry room

Next, there is the car and I am allowed to drive it. Ah! no key but a button that begs pushing. I like keys. They make me feel safe and grounded. Well – get over it. This car is push button and when I do (push the button) my seat glides silently and ever-so-smoothly into exactly the right position and the car hums to into action. Windshield wipers think for themselves and come on when it begins to sprinkle, mysteriously speeding-up and slowing-down to match both rain intensity and car speed. Said car locks with a mere swipe of the finger… I have to check the back seat door to convince myself it’s locked, because if I touch the driver’s door, it unlocks and we have to start the verification process all over again. So-long to my long-standing compulsion to double check the door by pulling on it. Foiled again. Last night I discovered that the headlights also have a mind of their own – I had them on bright at one point and they dimmed when I was at a stoplight.

Jet lag and realty shock play strange games with the mind. I lose things or forget where I put them moment to moment. The storage locker I so carefully organized before I left was not quite as well ordered as I remembered. The boxes I thought were in front so I could access them were “not there.” Had to completely unload an 8×10 storage room to discover that a box of critical items as far from the front as they could be: back wall – half way up. Now I have found most of my clothes, but keep losing them in the room I’m in because—well just because. Yesterday, I was late getting somewhere because I’d lost my underwear by putting it in alogical place that was SO logical I couldn’t find it in my mental fog. So now I’ve relocated the essentials – for the moment. I’m sure they are moving themselves around in the night. At any rate, SOMETHING is waking me at 3:30 in the morning. It’s the biorhythm thing and it sucks.

have eaten my way into the new world: Mexican food, BBQ, toast made in a real-honest-to god toaster, eggs with yellow yolks, cheese, pickles, Torche’s tacos. There are stripes down the road, stop signs and red-lights and people know what to do with them! There is a startling absence of cows, chickens and goats on the road – where are they? Bicycles don’t have live chickens handing from the handlebars and waiting to be sold.

Today it’s winter. Last week it was summer and will be again soon, if it doesn’t snow. This must be Austin…

To exacerbate matters, I’ve suddenly become very aware of my age… In Uganda it is revered – since most people don’t even this long! I’ve now crossed the threshold where I can no longer pretend: I have signed up for Medicare and Social Security. Oh what a event. And you thought 30 was a threshold! Well – well is all I can say. I’ve navigated the health care minefield and am glad to say I found it to be curiously devoid of explosives.

Melt-downs are reducing in frequency. It’s a new world for a stubbornly independent woman of a certain age to suddenly become dependent on friends for shelter, transportation and good will. And fortunately for me I have an abundance of saints in my life who are sharing their lives, resources and especially their love and good will with me. This makes me even more exquisitely aware of the contrast of my life here and that of my friends back in Uganda. In Uganda, I was constantly infused with a deep sense of gratitude for “all that I have.” All it took was stepping off the plane in the States, to instantly be sucked into the mode of awareness of “what I don’t have.” All this in the face of the incredible generosity of friends: I am aware that I have no job, no house, no car. And yet, it is the very absence of those things that affords me the libert to create a new chapter. My goal is to once again opt for a simpler life-style – one consciously chosen, not just fallen into as a result of stepping into the mainstream. So, I’m taking some time this time – to reconnect with my friends and family and explore options. My kids are grown and happy and self-reliant on their own paths. So – the up side of “no job, no house, no husband” is incredible freedom to create and that is my next adventure.

It may not be Africa, but I hope it will stay fresh. I hope to continue to be wide-eyed with discoveries and it is my full-intention to age-backwards. One of my sons still tells his friends: “My parents are still trying to figure out what they want to be when they grow up!” And so on that note… I don’t know if people will be interested in the next chapter, but since even I don’t know what that will be – maybe there will be something worth reporting but I sure hope so.

Thanksgiving: Yesterday – what a day – and so many things, foods, people and circumstances for which to be thankful. And I am – I simply have not enough time, space or words to convey the true magnitude of this gratitude that overwhelms me to the point of tears some moments. My hosts are both professional chefs and the experience would have been stunning in any case, but coming from Uganda – it was a spiritual, orgasmic, full-body-mind-spirit indulgence extraordinaire.

What a season to enter upon re-entry: embarrassment of riches, of friends, opportunities and open doors.

The adventure continues but in a totally different way – rediscovering the “ordinary.” And so may you rediscovery the ordinary to live it in a non-ordinary way… because it’s only ordinary here. May your days be filled with tingling excitement and a sense of anticipation for moments as they unfold to remind you of the blessings in each breath.

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