4 ms·
I've lived in the US for almost half my life. I went back to visit my home country in West Africa for less than a week just a few years back ... I was so stress
by trustfundbaby 10y ago
I've lived in the US for almost half my life. I went back to visit my home country in West Africa for less than a week just a few years back ... I was so stressed out by everything there that I fell sick for almost two days. Then I moved my departure date up by a day just to get out early.
No credit card machines, nothing resembling customer service (I'm talking actively rude or disinterested store attendants), Nightmarish traffic since traffic signals and lanes are just a suggestion and not enforced by police, Hyper religiosity, rampant and casual homophobia (they're all convinced America is going directly to hell because of gay sex), truly shit roads, with cars that shouldn't be on the road EVERYWHERE, right beside Lamborghinis and Mercedes, barely-there running water, internet and most importantly, unpredictable electricity supply and the ever present drone of diesel generators that supply power to individual houses because the electricity supply is so useless.
It was too much. I've never been so happy to see a starbucks in my life.
- peteretep 10y agoThis sounds more like what we used to call "This Be Africa" when I lived there, rather than reverse culture shock per-se.
- trustfundbaby 10y agodunno about that. I grew up there, so at one point, all this was completely normal to me. It wasn't till I went back that I realized how INSANE it all was. My family ask me every week, when I'm moving back. lol
- ido 10y agoThis may have also been exasperated by such a short visit? When I visited India for a couple months in 2004, it took me a couple of tries to even be able to go out to the street (in Delhi). But after a couple days I started getting used to it and a week or 2 later it was "fine" and not really that shocking (albeit still annoying at times).