Friday, July 29, 2016

Home 3 Weeks. Vietnam lives on.

[Tim]

We've been in America for just over 3 weeks, and home in Bend for two of those three.  We are loving being home, but we keep leaving Bend and are looking forward to finally just being home!  We were home for just a few days before going up to Spokane to visit my family for a week, for example.  This week was summer camp for three of us (two boys and volunteer-dad) and now we're off to a wedding in Portland, so it will be August 1st before we're home-for-good.

Reverse Culture Shock
Janet and I remember coming home from China in 1998 and experiencing a pretty good measure of reverse culture shock.  It's more than "you forgot what it was like to be home ... SURPRISE!!"  We experienced that, too, when we visited a WalMart supercenter and were astonished and overwhelmed at the abundance and color.  But as you know, shock has definition beyond "unexpected surprise," and it's that other shock-to-the-system that is referred to as culture shock.
Re-entry has been low-stress for us this time.  We are returning to life that is very much "normal" for us.  Same house, same belongings, same job, same friends ... slightly different furniture.  People who have stopped by to visit have been consistent with comments "It seems like you weren't even gone!"  They aren't being rude, like "we didn't miss you while you were away" or anything.  It's just that we stepped out of our lives for a year ... and then stepped back in.  The jumprope kept rhythm while we hopped out and got a drink, and now we're jumping in again, and it all seems so easy and rhythmic.

But there have been days when I have felt simply awful.  Not suicidal, but certainly depressed.  Of the first 10 days after arriving back in the USA, I was "up" on 6 of those days and melancholy/angry/uninspired/self-reproachful/slothful/icky on 4 of them.  The second 10 were much, much better; in fact I think that there wasn't a single sickish day among them.  Today is worse again, but only half as bad as the miserable ones when we had first returned.  Thought you'd want to know an honest answer to the ubiquitous "how is it to come home?"

Keeping in Touch
We want to maintain contact with our Vietnamese friends (and renewed connections among the Chinese students that we got to meet up with as we traveled home), because we love them and because we want to see them again when we return.  Maybe we'll live there again when the kids have all finished high school?  We think it would be neat to see them again at intervals, so the 19 year olds will be 25 and in a different phase of life, and then maybe we go again when they are all 30 and have children of their own.  Or something like that.

Going Our Way?
Recently we met with a couple that is planning to go to live in Vietnam (our city of Danang, in fact!) and it is our great pleasure to share tips/tricks/stories.  If you are preparing to go, why not make contact with us at <edtech2020@gmail.com> and we'll arrange for a Skype call or answer your questions over email.  We'd love to meet you.

And Goodbye.
It's always possible that we'll write in this journal again, but for now I'm signing off.  I feel a little bit like Truman: "In case I don't see ya... good afternoon, good evening, and good night."


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