Culture Shock?

“So, how was it being home?” That’s the question that we are dealing with now. Both from our Salvadorian neighbors, and from the Peace Corps volunteers that we run into. Furthermore, it’s a natural question to ask ourselves at this point. So how was it?

It was great is the natural answer, and true too… but with some reservations. It was really, really good to see everyone. We had the fortune of my sister’s wedding to gather a bunch of people in one spot for us to visit with them. It was nice to have a family event like that to kick off the visit. There was nothing strange about being back, no strange instant culture shock things. Maybe all of the long overseas travel adventures helped us to get used to coming home after an absence.

Still, there were things that stood out as noticeable. Like the fact our sofa just felt amazing! I spent a lot of time playing Halo on that sofa, and kept thinking what a great invention comfy sofas were! It’s true. Down here we don’t have (pretty much nobody does) comfortable furniture! Even our bed is less than comfy, and our chairs are just molded plastic things, functional, but not something you enjoy passing time in.

So, if my newfound love of the sofa was an indication of culture shock… then the more obvious was taking long hot showers! Showers down here are neither… not hot, and therefore not long. I think that the first few days I was home, I took probably three or more showers a day!

So it wasn’t the big or drastic changes that I noticed. It was easy to put things like playing Halo on an Xbox360 into a whole other realm… the realm of “solo en los estados”. Therefore those things are outside the realm of comparison between the places/cultures/living conditions. Rather it was the subtle everyday things like getting up in the morning and taking a shower right off the bat, without checking the weather or waiting till the sun is out so that the cold water won’t feel so bad once you are out. Another thoughtful moment occurred the first time I hopped in a car and headed down to the store to pick up something.

At my dad’s house the store is probably a quarter mile away, including his driveway. This would be easy walking distance down here, but up there you’d never think that way. As I was driving the convenience of the whole thing hit me. No timing the trip to match some elusive bus schedule. No walking to where the bus would pick me up, and getting off close, but not at the store. Most important, not having to wait at the store until the returning bus passed by to take you home… or at least near home.

We folks from “alla” are so accustomed to things being convenient and around our schedule. We have created our world that way. It’s part of that whole being independent thing. It is why things like good mass transit systems are mostly doomed to failure. They make you dependent on something outside your control, and that always bothers us at some visceral level. I am mostly just postulating here, I haven’t yet taken the hours to turn it into a good argument, so bear with me.

Down here so many things just fly in the face of your independence. It goes beyond the transportation thing, which is obvious. For instance, every family needs to make masa to make tortillas, an imperative. To make masa, you need a grinder, but not everyone has them. Back home if this were the case houses would probably be built with grinders (mills) pre-installed, because the mill would be considered a necessity, like running water and a car (garage anyone?). Here only about one house in twenty or thirty has one, and instead of an inconvenience, it is an opportunity to socialize, plus at least one family is making money from it. For the rest though it means up to an hour out of your day just to get the corn ground into masa.

I’m going to leave the whole independence thread now and return to cultural stuff. To close this subject out I will point out that the most surprising shock I received during the trip was not wandering through the “cube-land” of consulting firms, or walking into a Nugget Market, though both of those elicited a sense of disorientation. Rather the biggest occurred in the Los Angeles airport on the way back. Sure, just LAX is enough to freak anyone out, but what got to me was standing in an airport bookstore watching a thirteen year old girl (or thereabout) buy an amazing amount of completely unnecessary crap at inflated airport prices and not even flinch as she pulled out three twenty dollar bills to pay for it! (Just so we’re on the same page regarding “crap” she had three magazines, Us, People and Cosmo, four candy bars of different varieties, a bag of chips, some cutesy lip gloss things, and a tin of Altoids.)

I’m still not sure if it was the blatant consumerism, disregard for the value of things… or maybe the arrogance. That’s what it felt like to me, an act of arrogance. Not sure why, just stating how it felt to me. It just made me feel a little disgusted. Like she didn’t even realize or value what she had, and instead was perfectly willing to throw it away… The funny thing is, it’s not like I’m living in some frugal culture right now. They waste money with the best of them. Spending on worthless things is rampant here, and there is very little concept of budgeting or saving money.

No it’s not a cultural thing, it’s a personal thing. I myself have been living on a fairly tight budget down here. When we go to the capitol, we have to really think about whether that six-dollar fast food meal is worth it! Then, returning to the states and finding the price of gas almost doubled from when I left, and thus affecting the prices of almost everything else… well, I guess it made me feel a little bit vulnerable thinking about what I should do to prepare to live with this new economy when we return. So seeing that girl flaunt her disregard like that just made me think… are we prepared to be back?