Stage 2

Sorry for the lack of updates this week there’s a few reasons for that. First of all we have been getting settled into our host families, exploring St. Louis, making trips to the beach and most of all being in Stage 2.

There are two models of culture shock; the U and W curve.  The highs and lows of the experience correspond to the shape of the letter, each letter being a different   theory on how people react. Our group has accepted the U curve as our model, just because we think it more accurate. Stage 1 is the honeymoon phase where you are excited for everything and can’t stop singing the praise of your new country.  General excitement tends to over take everything. Unfortunately, one needs the lows to have the highs. Stage 2 is when you are fed up with your new country, sick of the way they do things, missing family and friends back home, craving for some good pizza or a pb&j sandwich, and reading and watching anything in English. While we are not all firm believers of the U and W curve, subscribing rather to the idea that you have good and bad days, the bad days show up a little more in stage 2. That’s why when someone walks in the classroom and says that they are having a “stage 2,” or “shell” or “grumpy” day you generally give them a hug and leave them the heck alone after that unless they specifically request your company, and most often another person to grumble with. However, there are great ways to pass the time during stage two, listening to your iPod, taking a nap, writing, drawing, drinking or what has become our favorite game, “I miss.”

I miss is a game that can be played for as long as one likes, very portable and can go from 1 to 100 players. What you do is sit around and list all of the things you miss at home. For example, “I miss clean clothes, air conditioning, autumn, my friends, my family, salad, orange juice, brooms with handles, watching TV in English, driving a car, real grocery stores, peanut butter, cereal, cold milk, real pillows, not worrying about the tap water, cooking, flush toilets, warm showers, coffee shops, having power and water all the time, clean roads, not being called ‘Toubab’ every 30 seconds…

As you can see this game can continue as long as one want for it to continue. We all know that these days come and go, but pretending they don’t exist is rarely the solution, rather it is better to just accept the grumpy day and remove your toxic self from others and take the time to do whatever it is you need to do.

Frustrations come from homesickness of course, but also a general sense of helplessness. While St. Louis certainly isn’t an intimidating city, daily life means relearning how to do things. This might mean boiling water on a gas canister rather than a stove, flushing a toilet without an actually flush, taking public transport, bargaining to buy things or cutting watermelon (seriously, my host mom asked me to cut watermelon and then my sister/maid, and her mom took the knife from me and cut it the weirdest way I have ever seen, just really long pieces traveling the length of the watermelon so that they are impossible to hold or eat from.)

But once you hit the bottom, you have nowhere to go but back up. Yeah, we might hang out around the bottom some days, but normally we float around the middle, doing simple everyday things like we would in the states; eat, sleep, go to class and hang out. You relearn how to do things, the Senegalese way, whether you like it or not, or you learn to put up with it. Do not worry though, stage 2 has not been the whole last week, but rather once out of the habit of writing I just kept forgetting to write. Please read the other entries that I just posted to realize that I have had good things happen since I came to St. Louis.