Reflection on coming home

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post anticipating what reverse culture-shock I may experience upon returning to the US. Now that I have been back nearly a month, I can do a little review of what the experience has been like and what adventures lie ahead.

My experience of transitioning back to the US was not exactly what I expected. Getting out of the country was a little more rushed and stressful than I would have hoped (since I suddenly had to leave a week early), but that date change actually gave me plenty of time to relax and adjust back to the US before conducting three major back-to-back interviews. The majority of my reverse culture shock came from the interviews themselves: each interview covered about 36 hours including multiple meetings, tours, presentations, Q&A, and overnight stays (which is the typical process for higher ed positions). I don’t know if I was exhausted from the travel, cultural transition, the interview process, or just the speed of American life, but it was a very intense week.

Reaction to other things that I anticipated:
• Seeing friends and family = fantastic.
• Cooking = not relevant yet, since I have been staying with other people who cook.
• Driving = like riding a bike.
• Grocery shopping = anticlimactic.
• Healthy, fresh food = not as healthy and fresh as I remember.
• Starbucks/Peets = pretty awesome.
• TV = haven’t really watched anything other than streaming Netflix.
• Restaurants = great when I have an appetite.
• Haircut = unnecessary!! Turns out my hair just needed a good wash and blowdry.
• Laundry machines = mankind’s crowning achievement.
• No bugs = how on earth did I ever manage those bugs in Kenya?!
• Hot showers and hairdryers = don’t know if I can live without them again.
• Libraries and bookstores = inaccessible since I don’t yet have a permanent address or money.
• No mold = THANK GOD. I am also quite thankful for the absence of gecko poop.

Some things that surprised me:
• I had no problem getting back into the swing of things with driving, shopping, etc. True, it takes me a little longer to get through a Target run, but it’s been a bit of a guilty pleasure to find all those little things I did without for the year.
• Although technology may have advanced, I was probably dreadfully behind the times before I even left for Kenya, so I’m still pretty much in the same camp.
• I haven’t yet missed the hospitality/friendliness of Kenyans, probably for two reasons: 1) I am spending most of my time with family and very close friends, so they are already very loving and hospitable; 2) when you drive everywhere and always stick to your normal social circles, you never meet strangers on the street or have the opportunity to show extraordinary hospitality. Hmm.
• My stomach had significant difficulty in returning to American cuisine and getting over jet lag. Ironically I had no trouble whatsoever when I went to Kenya!
• The weather is gorgeous all over California, but it is SO DRY!! I’m constantly applying lotion and chapstick … I guess I should appreciate the lack of humidity though.

What probably remain the hardest things for me are the pace of life and trying to incorporate my “Kenyan self” back into my “American self.” As I mentioned with the interviews, Americans live at breakneck speed, and you either need to keep up or get out of the way. I’m a little nervous to start work in a few weeks, as I will really need to rev myself up. Additionally, it is challenging to bring back what I learned and who I became in Kenya as I develop a new life in the US.

It can be fairly easy to block out thoughts of Kenya; by focusing only on the present and future, the year fades like a dream, a distant memory, or a story about somebody else. During my interviews it was essential that I block it out so that I could focus on the task at hand, but every once in a while someone would ask about Kenya. Most of the time I would give a generic answer – “it was a great experience,” “I learned a lot,” etc. etc. But one time an interviewer dug deeper, and I began to explain what I really felt about cross-cultural respect, international aid and more, and I became very animated. I think she and I were both surprised by the passion and energy in my answer, and I realized it was because it was basically the first time that I had an opportunity to speak about these deep issues with someone face to face in the US.

A couple nights ago something similar happened. My mom and I were cooking dinner for the family: she was making a curry chicken and I offered to make my I’ve-been-told-they’re-pretty-darn-authentic Kenyan chapatti. She put on some African music but it really wasn’t anything like the music we listened to there, so I found my favorite Kenyan pop song online. As I listened, mixed, kneaded, rolled, twisted, flattened, and fried my soul was transported to the big hill in Ribe. I danced around the kitchen but was thrown out of my reverie when I began talking to my dad and brother – what were they suddenly doing in Kenya? It was a surreal experience to have pieces of who I was in Kenya mixed with pieces of who I am in the US. It made me so happy to bring some of that home, to eat chapatti with my parents, that I nearly cried.

So am I experiencing reverse culture shock? Do I miss Kenya? Let me answer those questions with questions of my own: How can I throw myself into the major life transition of moving cross country and starting a new job if my head is in Africa? Then again, how can I honor what I learned and who I became if I suppress those thoughts to move forward in my life?