Week 05: Culture Shock and Christmas in July

 A week of emotional lows, communal highs, and the slow climb forward

This week was a rollercoaster unto itself. All week we experienced mixed feelings of excitement and apprehension about the incoming group of Americans from UF on the study abroad. We found out late on Sunday that Monday was a public holiday (Saba Saba) and we may not be expected to go to work. With that knowledge, we stayed up late with our friends watching a movie. The next day, we planned to have lunch and go to the market with a friend and in the middle of lunch, she received a call that her best friend and brother had been in an accident. Our dear friend Timo was relaxing in a hammock strung between two brick pillars at his house he is currently building when he heard a cracking noise. He began to move out of the way when the top of the unfinished pillar fell exactly where he was laying. As he twisted, he broke his femur and the bricks broke his hand, back, and a nasty cut on his head. He was very lucky to have been awake and heard the cracking noises before it caused more damage. In this moment of tragedy, all of the friends that we had slowly been introduced to over the past 4 weeks came together to support Timo at the hospital. This was beautiful to me, as I couldn’t imagine a scenario in which a group of friends in the States would drop everything to support one of them in need. Even though we only met him a few weeks ago, we had just had a movie night with him the day before and considered him one of the best people we’ve met. 

This tragic event would really set the tone for the week as Timo was moved to Dar es Salaam for medical care, causing our new found friends to travel with him for support and care. In anticipation of the chaos created by a new group of students entering the hospital, we did our best to complete research and in our free time, we enjoyed the peace of our quiet life. Due to the absence of extra characters in the Hidden Valley story, our week was relatively light until the student arrived on Wednesday. 

On Wednesday evening, we joined Meredith for dinner, finally getting a good Mama Mere hug. We had requested a few items from the States to be brought over with Mama Mere so Wednesday was our own little Christmas!  We got chocolate and a few goodies from home to get us through our time, encouraging us to keep going. 

Lucy and I had a really important conversation this week regarding culture shock. As someone who has had a similar experience to us in Tanzania time and time again, Dr Strong told us that culture shock is not always a singular hurdle to clear, but an oscillating wave that alternates between highs and lows. As we had come into this trip with clear heads and open hearts, we excelled during the first few weeks. But now, we are pretty down. Missing our families and freedoms that reside in the States, it was pretty clear that we were in one of those valleys of the curve. Knowing this, we set our expectations accordingly and looked forward to the upswing that was bound to come. The idea that culture shock is a curve resonated with me deeply and helped me to better understand my own feelings and experiences that past few weeks. 

Besides the other chaos that was happening from Saba Saba, our research was going less than swimmingly. Now in the heart of our interviews, people were reluctant to speak to us for a multitude of reasons. We felt discouraged by our progress which added to the overall low mood of the week. Nonetheless, we still persevered and knew that the only way out was through.