Simply getting through a day can be a monumental task when
everything is completely foreign. Is my
coworker making a joke or does she really expect me to give her my skirt? Is
there an etiquette to who serves themselves lunch first? Where on earth does
everyone go to the bathroom? You are also constantly trying to pick
anything you can out of the local language conversations swirling all around
you. I heard “itaano.” That means “five!”
What could they be talking about? Five what? Five thousand shillings? Five delinquent
students? Five golden rings? You can’t keep your mind from wandering an
hour into a meeting entirely conducted in Runyankore. When someone turns to you
to ask you a question you give a blank stare and a nod, only later realizing
that you are now heading the Debate Club at school. By the time you reach home,
your brain is not operating above a level that instructs your body to put one
foot in front of the other.
You also come to realize that you are just as foreign in
their eyes – you know a student really isn’t “picking” you, as they say in
Uganglish, when you ask them if they use a mosquito net and they answer, “Sponge.”
You must politely explain that the marks on your face are actually moles, not
mosquito scars, and guesses of your age range from 21 all the way down to 13.
Thanks?
There are the exceptionally hard days too, days where you
learn that someone you know has just lost multiple loved ones – and that’s not
really out of the ordinary. Days when you are sick, from the food or who knows
what else, and it saps your strength to deal with everything else that is going
on. Or even days when you think that you are fine, and then, unexpectedly, one
small thing sends you spiraling downwards again.
However, these lowest of lows also bring the highest of
highs. Higher than anything that could be experienced back in that States. On
the way to work, you are stopped and thanked by multiple strangers for the work
that you are doing. Students with no shoes bring you avocados to thank you for
teaching them. You watch your husband get pulled into a local dance, surrounded
by people and drummers and singing. You ring in the New Year surrounded by your
new Ugandan family, good music, and good food. When it comes time to leave for
your site, your host mother struggles to hold back tears. And best of all are
the open and honest late-night conversations with Ugandans that create incredible
connections you never dreamed possible.
The roller coaster that is culture shock teaches you a valuable
lesson – that it is the small things that really matter. You are finally able
to enter a duka (a local shop) and conduct an entire conversation in Runyankore.
Someone in the community, instead of yelling, “Hey muzungu (foreigner)!” at
you, yells “Hey teacher!” instead. You successfully use a pit latrine without
thinking twice about it. Three cheers for clean shoes! You learn to take care
of banana trees and negotiate a ride into town without getting ripped off. And,
at your school, you begin assessing the students one by one, knowing that you
are slowly but surely starting your work here.
“You know in my language (Luganda) we say “W’obeera
w’olabira enjuba n’omwez/n’emmunyeenyei.” Translated “You can see the moon and
the sun/the stars wherever you are.” Meaning: It is in your power to be happy
or to be unhappy. What I want to say is that no one will decide for us when and
how to make yourself happy. It is in our power to do those things for yourself
that make you happy; however small they are.”
- Ven, a
wonderful Ugandan woman and one of my Peace Corps supervisors
