Reverse Culture Shock

During college, I did a decent amount of traveling abroad. I studied in Mexico for two months, spent spring break in India, did missions in Ecuador and Peru. Whenever I traveled with groups, we were always warned of culture shock. I own two copies of From Foreign to Familiar, which makes broad generalizations about "warm climate" and "cold climate" cultures with surprising accuracy (I recommend it for anyone traveling abroad -- you can even have one of mine). As disorienting as being dropped into a new land can be, returning to my own country is always more agitating. Learning a new culture is intriguing. The mantra of cultural acceptance "not better, not worse, just different" is a no-brainer to me. While I'm widely open to different foods, languages, and customs of other people, adjusting back to my own culture peeves me to no end. Living in Iron River again is much like reverse culture shock.

In 2010, I spent 10 weeks serving with Inca Link International in Peru. As an intern, I lead and hosted teams from the U.S. and Canada in different ministry sites. Every day, we would "debrief" and talk about our experiences that day, lessons we were learning from the people. With every team, we interns would teach about the "5 Stages" of transition back to life at home after seeing poverty and other hardship in a different part of the world. The Five Stages can happen in any order and can consist of brief moments or months of struggle:

Fun -- enjoying the things you missed while you were away.
Flee -- yearning to go back to the place you were visiting.
Fight -- anger and aggression towards home culture
Fit In -- assimilating to home culture
Bear Fruit! -- working within home culture and daily life to promote change

Every time we taught, we dreaded the day we, too, would say good-bye to Peru and go back home.

When I first returned to the US after being in Peru, the five stages hit hard. It was fun to see my friends and family, but in my mind, I was constantly fleeing back to Peru. All I could talk about was Peru. "Well, in Peru they..." "When I was in Peru..." "My friend from Inca Link says..." "I just talked to my friend from Peru and..." Word vomit: Peru. It just kept coming up and spilling out. Yet no amount of talk could comprehensively describe my experience.

Meanwhile, I moved in and out of fight, especially concerning issues of waste. Seeing wasted food in the trash turned me livid, and whoever threw it out must have been rich and ignorant. There are people in Peru who would eat that, you know. Once, I almost cried at the sight of a perfectly good pancake resting in the garbage can, on top of coffee grounds and discarded napkins. While my reaction may have been exaggerated by the fact that I absolutely love pancakes and would have eaten it myself, I couldn't tolerate the mentality of tossing something just because you don't want it anymore when there are people in the world who don't even get what they need.

Despite my resistance, eventually, I had to fit in. Surprisingly, people don't really respond well when you tell them the money they just spent on dinner could support a needy child in Peru for a month, maybe two. People don't really like being jabbed with spears of guilt for living life the way they know how. Curious. Though I hope lessons of resourcefulness and frugality will continue to pervade my life, slipping back into old habits in the same, comfy environment is as easy as breathing. A person can only fight so long. It's tiring. It requires effort. After awhile my life's purpose becomes fighting instead of living fully.

Now, I continue to fight the small town life in Iron River. At first, I baulked at the price of avocados. "A dollar-99 each! I paid 99 cents for two at Andy's Fruit Ranch!" Then, bitter tears brimmed in my eyes when I bought them anyway. The cost of my monthly avocado consumption could almost sponsor a child at the Inca Link Daycare.

But, like I adjusted back to the consumer culture of the US, I'll have to fit in here, too. I'll have to embrace the good things about country living. Perhaps my first task will be to find them...

The challenge is to bear fruit -- to find purpose. If I only bring back pictures and a scar from a tragus piercing gone wrong, my experience in Peru is belittled. If I only carry with me honor chords and old text books, my education at North Park will get me nowhere. Using these lessons is key to living a "life of significance." But, how do I achieve that? How do I incorporate what I've learned around the world to serve the people in my life here, now?