Reverse culture shock

I haven't blogged in over a year and recently decided to make a concerted effort to redress the lack of posts.

I've been back in South Africa for 18 months, now; it's been a bumpy ride. I was warned about the reverse culture shock that many people experience when returning to their home country after living away for a long while, but actually experiencing it first hand was (and is) another matter.

For the first few months I was continually frustrated with South Africa. Nothing worked quite as smoothly as in Canada, people seemed rude and had no respect for their fellow man, I struggled to find familiar foods in shops, and perhaps most strikingly, we drive everywhere, and badly at that.

Resuming old friendships was difficult. I changed hugely in Canada, was exposed to new ideas, places and people. My local friends grew too, but in different, more subtle ways. They seemed almost a little parochial, now. It didn't help that every second sentence I uttered began with "In Canada...". When everything you've done for the last three years was in a different country, how do you relate stories without starting them like that? The only other option is to keep quiet and come across as aloof and bored.

"Forward" culture shock takes about six months to overcome. My favourite memory of it is catching the bus to UBC for an early morning class and arriving to realise I had made the whole trip while still half asleep. I hadn't thought about what I was doing since getting up, I had internalised it completely. For a friend in London, it was the agent at the corner cafe getting her favourite brand of cigarettes without her having to ask.

Asking around, I've found that reverse culture shock typically takes twice as long to overcome. It's taken me 1.5 years of living in my home country to feel at home again. I've gradually settled back into the South African way of doing things and remembered that being just a little fucked up is all part of SA's charm. It keeps the politics interesting and the populace on its toes. Moving to Cape Town helped: the driving is just as bad, but at least everyone's chilled out about it. And I can bike to work without too many people looking at my like I'm crazy.

I'm hoping that in 2008 I'll feel even more settled, and maybe even find that sense of contentment that I found in the mountains of BC, but somehow seemed to have lost on the trip home.