You know that feeling when you’re falling asleep, and all of a sudden your body jerks forward as if to save you from the edge of a precipice? Culture shock feels like this. You are suddenly breathing for the first time, flat on your back in bed, grappling with the audacity of your nervous system to rip the threads that had pulled you so sweetly towards unconsciousness.
The vast majority of my cultural surprises have occurred within my host family. In many ways, the parent-child relationship manifests very differently in Cameroon than it does in the states: familial roles are more defined, and when broken, rules are vehemently enforced. The first time my mama punished my little brother, I was so shocked I had to leave the room to catch my breath. Every night when my papa comes home from work, he calls my other family members in to the living room, one by one: after my oldest brother takes off his shoes, my little sister cleans his feet and then my mama brings out his dinner.
I’ve often struggled to figure out my personal role in this new familial context. Where does la blanche fit in when my mama and sister are cooking, my older brother is washing my papa’s clothes, my papa is evaluating the water bill and my little brother is doing the dishes? The other day, I made my first international call to the United States so I could tell my mom about my second family. Her response was exactly as I expected it to be: “You’re really living in another world right now, aren’t you?” In other moments, my Cameroonian family reminds me of my American one, and I have to ask myself: am I really “living in another world” when my siblings and I play cards around a table, or when my mama chides me for not making my bed? So often since coming here I’ve felt my “worlds” merge together, the boundaries that had separated them becoming somehow less important, less defined. On the other hand, every hour in this house is an adventure. Cultural difference may ignite my confusion at any moment, even after it has only just melted away.
My dad (in the States) used to tell me stories about his brother, who had fought in the Vietnam War. Our favorite story described the very first night that my uncle came home. Shortly after his arrival, my dad found him in the bathroom, sitting on the floor. He wasn’t sick. He was just sitting in front of the toilet, flushing it again and again, mesmerized by the water and the promptness with which it would respond to his hand on the lever. After years away from home, the elements of his life that he didn’t use to have to think about were suddenly very strange.
In some way, we all go abroad to search for something like this. (We’re lucky that we don’t have to go to war for it.) Intimate knowledge of a previously foreign culture will affect the way we see and live for the rest of our years. We’ve been given the chance to appreciate anew everything that had once been mundane—to bring to life a world that had fallen asleep.
