culture shock

(written Sat Nov 17, 2007, 10:53 am, Yaounde)

The topic of culture shock has come up a lot lately. My folks asked
about it on our weekly Skype call this week, and Ann and I have been
discussing it. I won't presume to speak for her, but I find that I
finally hit the point last weekend when we've been here long enough that
it's not new anymore, but not nearly long enough to settle in. There is
a lot to get used to here. We can't go out at night unless we're with
someone who has a car and knows what they're doing, and night starts a
little after 6pm. We have to speak French, for the most part, and we
don't feel very confident about it yet. And it's dangerous here in ways
it's not at home, which is something that I get hung up on (there's a
reason every window in Yaounde is barred); I feel responsible for Ann in
ways that neither of us are entirely comfortable with, and I get
stressed out about the security situation sometimes. Foreigners get
targeted here because they stand out, and there were three incidents
involving foreigners walking alone at night in a neighborhood near ours
called Bastos, where lots of diplomats live, a couple of weeks before we
arrived. That kind of knowledge gets lodged in the back of your head
and stays there, at least in my case. Ann notes that Bastos is full of
extremely wealthy people and may be more of a target. For my part, I
remember lots of warnings not to walk around at night, and to keep the
doors locked as a precaution when we're at home, even during the day.

We'll just have to ride it out. We discuss all this, and whether to go
out late at night with friends we trust (we will), and how things are
going. The dangers here, so far, are abstractions; we have met a lot of
friendly, helpful people, and we haven't had any trouble. Ann worries
less than I do, which is good.

There's plenty of urban violence at home in the US, of course. The
difference is that we know how to deal with it, where to go and what to
avoid, so barring something entirely random, we feel unlikely to be
bothered by it. And here we don't know which way is up yet. We just
have to trust that the people we're with know what they're doing, as
well as our own instincts about them and about whatever situation we
find ourselves in. The alternative is for us to be stuck in our house
at night for a year. There are plenty of places in the world where that
would be the only reasonable response, but things aren't that bad here.
I checked up with a few people, and got mixed opinions about it, but the
people we know the best said we should be cautious, but that they know
lots of ex-pats who go out at night regularly and have never had any
trouble. Going out with a friend who has a car and knows the local
situation is key.

I wonder about writing this publicly, but it's a big part of living
here, so it seems worth writing down and sharing. And I really wonder
how different things will seem to us in six months, or in a year. You
can't spend your life being afraid; eventually the familiarity of
things, and the sight of other foreigners out having fun at night, will
probably make all this seem normal.

We hope to get better at French by then, too.