Re-re-readapting

It is my first day in the United States in 5 weeks. I keep thinking it’s 4:50 am Nicaragua time because right now it is 6:50 am here.

Last night – August 6 – I scooted through customs, security, and many gates in the airport with Beth before finding my own gate and settling in. I didn’t feel a whole ton of culture shock. After landing into Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., I saw my mom (which was awesome!) as she picked me up. We drove home. I rolled my suitcase across the patio into the house. Not a lot of culture shock. A form of culture shock didn’t occur for me really until this morning when she woke up early to go for a walk and I happily dragged out of bed to go with her (our morning walks are a daily ritual where she gets up early, it takes me forever to roll out of bed, and then typically I’m groggily running down the street after her and the dog to catch up). Once I caught up to her down the street and we began talking more about my trip. I was explaining to her some of the words exchanged in the goodbye ceremony with the host families and emphasizing how full of care all the host family’s words were when it hit me. It just seemed like there was something that kept feeling cheesy about the story I was recalling. It was not because she was casting any judgment, she was quietly listening. Though I kept pausing because I felt this sense of cheesiness hanging over the words I was saying to her. Finally I stopped and just told her how cheesy I felt retelling the story.

The feeling of my stories from Nicaragua seeming cheesy made me sad. It also made me confused. How could memories that filled me with emotions in Nicaragua feel different in the states just a day after the trip had ended? It makes Nicaragua feel like a dream or a cloud that drifted by overhead and has now dissipated.

My mom suggested that in a country like the US that is so “sophisticated”, the simplicity of life in other countries is not seen as something of value here. I nodded, feeling distant.

On the one hand, I believe she is right and appreciated her sensitivity to my weird feelings. And on the other, I am struck very blatantly by the reality that it is going to be difficult relaying the true beauty and specialness of my trip to Nicaragua and all the interactions I experienced to anyone here in the US.