Overcoming Culture Shock

Unite for Sight does a wonderful job of preparing its volunteers for the trip. I was very impressed with how much information it had about culture shock, and I think it really helped me to overcome it while I was here.

If I could add anything to the wealth of information Unite for Sight provided, it would be this technique which my older sister taught me. One day, while I was tired and exhausted, and finding it hard to put up with the heat and the slow internet connection (I was trying hard to upload some pictures for my blog entry on a Sunday afternon, sweating like never before, radiating heat in the internet cafe room which had neither fan nor air conditioning. The temperature outside was a good 35 degrees celsius, and I was sitting there, staring at the loading bar at the bottom of my screen...), I had decided to write down all of the things that were making me mad. Everything.

I drew one line down the middle of the page, and on the left hand side, I listed all the things that were hitting my nerves. On it included the 20 mosquito bites I had gotten, the fact that I had misplaced some important documents (I had hidden them so well, even from myself!), and an impending sense of failure because I had not gotten the chance to complete the things I intended to while I was here, such as frequently updating my blog. On the right hand side of the page, next to each cause of my misery, I thought about and wrote down things that I could do to fix those problems. After doing this, that day, I chose three tasks out of that list of things that I could do to ameliorate my situation, which I thought would make the biggest impact on my happiness. Then, I made my mind up to accomplish those three things. True enough, I felt much better within a day or two.

When you first arrive in a country, you must take your time to observe others, and learn to do things the way locals do it. But despite the many things you can learn (like how to wash your clothing by hand in an efficient manner), there are many things you can't, like how quickly or slowly your body is able to adapt to 35 degree weather. So you put up with some things, which sometimes makes you put up with other things, and that eventually turns into tolerating a whole lot of things. Before you know it, you are feeling miserable and overwhelmed. The heat, the lack of internet access, and the mosquito bites were all very little things, but together, they were very annoying. To tackle the heat problem, everytime that I felt complaining that it was hot, I would look for the sun, so that I could tan, if there was no sun, I would find the coolest place I could be and think hard about something else. To tackle the internet access problem, I went scouting for different internet cafes until I found this one that I am at right now (that is thankfully air-conditioned and has a fast connection). To tackle the mosquito bite problem, I decided to actually use my mosquito repellent the moment the sun went down. I have had very few bites ever since.

So if you write things down, you see things more clearly, and are able to tackle each of the problems individually. The sooner you realize you're having culture shock the better, because after dealing with it, you are able to enjoy places and moments like this:

Kakum National Park (Canopy and Nature Walk)

The view from Elmina Castle. A fort built by the Portugese at Cape Coast when they arrived in Ghana in the late 15th century. The building was used to trade goods, and eventually slaves in the 18th century by the Dutch and English.

Guinea Fowl! The first time I had ever seen any in my life.

At the Crystal Eye Clinic, I was observing Dr. Clarke do some of his surgeries, when I looked at one of the elderly patients waiting her turn in the theatre, and noticed what she had been holding in her two hands. They are two stress balls that look like eye balls.

Pouding Fufu, which is made of boiled cassava and red plantain. It is normally swallowed whole and eaten with spicy soup and meats. Margaret is the lovely cook on the right. She skillfully folds the fufu and quickly removes her hand before the fufu is smashed with a surprising amount of force by the man holding the staff which he uses to pound the fufu.

Hawkers selling bread, shrimp, pure water, ice cream and plantain chips surround the van while it stops temporarily so that we can grab something to eat.

Labadi Beach (La Pleasure Beach) on Valentine's day.

A young goat in front of a beach at Anomabo, not far from Cape Coast. All the men, even the elderly ones, had very muscular arms because they were fishermen.

Dennis "C'est mon secret" Baah, an ophthalmic nurse pretending to push the 17-seat van at Amudurasi, in Adansi South.

A church, whose tiles look awfully like Toyota logos...

Will post more soon!

Christine