Reverse Culture Shock
When I returned from my too brief stint as a Peace Corps Volunteer in early June of 2000, I didn’t put too much effort into reassimilating into my American existence. The plan was to return to my village as soon as things cooled off after the parliamentary elections in July. I’d walk out of grocery stores empty handed because the abundance was overwhelming, but beyond that, I didn’t recognize any “reverse culture shock” that Peace Corps had warned us about during our close of service conference. Confident I’d be returning to my little village and my brood of nesting hens shortly, I blew through my “readjustment allowance” taking trips to see my family throughout the midwest, and visiting my boyfriend’s family in northern Mississippi.
While I did plan to go back to Zim, I thought a plan B was in order. So in early July, I applied for graduate school for the fall. I took my GREs as the first of many malarial fevers took hold, assembled the necessary paperwork, secured recommendations. It amazed me how quickly I could get those things done. What would have taken me months in Zimbabwe could be done in a few hours. Astonishing!
Things have only gotten worse in Zimbabwe since I left, and I try not to dwell on how terrible life might be for the people I care about there. Hunger, shortages, beatings, murders, whatever I imagine, I know the reality could be so much worse. Peace Corps never allowed me to return, and I started grad school that fall in a post-malarial haze.
I loved grad school, and I soon secured a job that I loved even more. I took a full course-load and worked 30 hour weeks, so that left little time for socializing, and no time for television. I remember being irritated every time I had to write my half of the cable bill. I didn’t want cable, why should I have to pay for it?
Spring of 2002, I was getting ready to finish my program. I’d done well enough in my classes, I had gotten great work experience, and I’d secured a very competitive post graduate fellowship. I hadn’t gotten to return to Zim, but things were working out well for me. The afternoon after I presented my capstone project for my degree, I made the decision to spend the rest of the day vegging on the couch.
I watched whatever mindless show caught my interest and absorbed the feeling of being almost finished. For the first time in my life, I had not only done the work, but I’d paid my way in both the literal and figurative sense. I felt great. My channel surfing stopped at a biography of Walter Payton on ESPN. I’m not a Bears fan, but I grew up with an appreciation for great runningbacks since my Packers were notorious for having no talent in that arena. It was probably 15 minutes into the program, and I remember dozing on and off.
Mid-snooze, it registered in the back of my mind that the narrator had referred to Payton in the past tense. I dismissed that thought and returned to my nap. Then I heard it again. And again. I sat up. The narrator spoke of Payton’s illness, decline, and finally his death. It all happened while I was in Zimbabwe and I had no idea. I wept–wet, sobbing, choking, displaced sadness.
I thought I was crying because I was afraid of what else I might have missed while I was gone, and how often these little surprises might pop up in my life. In reality, I was weeping for the life I left behind in Zimbabwe: my friends, my students, the family I lived with. I was gone, and it stood to reason that bad things were happening to at least some of the people I let behind. Hell, I witnessed AIDS, goiters, malaria, tuberculosis, guinea worms, and on and on while I was in Zimbabwe, it was hardly reasonable to think that all stopped once I stepped on my cushy British Airways jet with my own movie screen secured to the seat in front of me. Perhaps I was crying for my other lives I’ve left behind, too–the good news I’ll never get from old friends who have fallen out of touch–the marathons run, the successful fertility treatments, the careers in the European Basketball league.
I’ve moved five times since I mourned Walter Payton on my roommate’s puffy, purple couch. I’ve left more people behind, and I hang on to the hope that the people who are supposed to be in my life will stay in my life. Otherwise, the sense of loss would crush me.
