Overwhelming Culture Shock

Since my return from Ghana, I have had a hard time describing to others about my experience.  Most of the people I have talked to have not been to a developing country and therefore do not have the same frame of reference.  This adds a challenge to my story telling.  I end up giving up and just giving the blow by blow fact list of what we did while in country.  The hardest thing about that is that this trip has been so much more than a detailed itinerary of events.

For instance, the first three days of the trip was incredibly overwhelming and complete culture shock for me.  How do you describe that to people though?  Therefore, I have just mentioned it within the stories and moved on...  Then I talked with my friend Dan and he said something that blew my mind, gave me peace, and helped me put words to what I was going through...

Dan has spent some time in Africa so when I was telling him the stories and mentioned "It was hard at first" his response was,

"I bet you spent the first three days completely stressed out and anxious and wondering what you were even doing there.  You couldn't understand the sites you were seeing or the culture you were experiencing.  You hadn't yet figured out what you could eat that wouldn't potentially make you violently ill so you were too scared to eat anything.  The water was dangerous, not only in the shower, brushing your teeth, washing your face, but in drinking in general.  And if the fear of getting sick wasn't enough, you weren't sure if you were going to be safe, well received, or needing to be constantly on guard.  You stood out more than you ever have before and all you could see was the two weeks ahead of you wondering how you would ever make it."

Well Dan, you nailed it!  Somehow hearing that made me feel better.  It made it feel like everything I was experiencing was put to words and done so in a way that said, "I understand, I've been there!" 

I internalize stress unfortunately.  On the outside I look calm, cool, and collected.  On the inside the above mentioned thoughts are running through my head.  This anxiety resulted in a minor hives breakout in those first few days... Having a history of hives getting out of control and feeling like Africa was the last place I wanted to end up with a serious problem... I spent the remaining two weeks on Benadryl just to make sure.

Thankfully I adjusted to the culture, found foods that I not only could eat but really enjoyed, figured out that it wasn’t a big deal with the water as I had plenty of water the entire trip, never got sick, and over all very much enjoyed my time in Ghana.