The Culture Shock Blog

First things first: I am required to let y'all know that, "the content of this website is mine alone and does not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Government, the Peace Corps, or the Ukrainian Government.”

It seems that virtually every Peace Corps Volunteer with a blog eventually writes a blog about culture shock, and now is time when these blogs are popping up among the members of PC Ukraine Group 51. I've seen a handful of them lately, and it got me thinking - am I experiencing culture shock?

You'd think it would be an obvious question with an obvious answer, especially since I am supposedly some kind of expert on the topic. My Bachelor's degree is in Intercultural Communication. One of my Master's degrees is in a field that not only addresses culture shock, but trains one in how to counsel other people going through culture shock, how to manage cultural differences in international work and educational settings, and how to train and prepare people for intercultural experiences. I've been in 17 countries, studied abroad 3 times, and worked for two different international education companies. I'm, like, a culture shock expert - right?

meme found on QuickMeme.com

Ok, it was obvious where that was going.

What I'm realizing now, 4 months into my Peace Corps service, is that culture shock can manifest while seeming to have nothing to do with "culture". "Culture" - I'm prepared to deal with.

• Different approaches to time and planning? Alright, I want to become more laid-back anyway 
• The sign of the cross goes from right to left instead of from left to right, and you have to make it three times before entering a church? Cool! Religion is fascinating. 
• Different language with a different alphabet and seven noun cases and some phenomenon called perfective versus imperfective verbs? Bring it on! 
• Hyper-masculine and hyper-feminine gender norms? Yeah, they can make it frustrating to be female here, but I knew what I was getting into. 
• ... and so on.

These things (and many others) are examples of what I have long understood to be culture; they are things I am prepared to encounter and more than happy to work through. What I was not expecting, though, was the aggregation of little daily annoyances and the creeping exhaustion that comes from them.

Until just a day or two ago, I didn't think I was experiencing any culture shock, because none of the things I typically associate with culture have been bothering me. But slowly, surely, the daily little annoyances have been piling up. I've recently found myself irritable, tired, and in a constant state of ever-so-subtle dis-ease. Ha! There it is! Culture shock! I just didn't recognize it at first because it feels different than I thought it would. It feels like a bunch of little things:

• The hot, stagnant air in the marshrutka (minibus) when some grouchy old lady closes all the windows on a 90 degree day in July, and all the other passengers and even the ticket lady who works on the marshrutka are pissed off about it but nobody dares to open the windows back up  
• Living and working in buildings with oddly lightweight doors that have none of the nice little "anti-slamming" mechanisms that most doors back home have. One always has to be cringingly careful when closing doors, or else the sound will rattle the whole building
• Baking with packets of a mysterious powder called "vanilla sugar" instead of using liquid vanilla extract. Liquid vanilla extract is nowhere to be found
• Being hounded with questions like, "What on earth have you bought? Why did you buy black beans? There are plenty of other beans in Ukraine. And why did you buy dry ones? You can get canned beans. Why are you even cooking beans?" 
• and so on... 

WTF even is this?
Image nabbed from kiev.all.biz. Product, logo, all those
intellectual property things belong to Dr. Oetker company.

When you study culture shock, you most likely don't talk about vanilla extract, or disconcertingly-lightweight doors that slam really easily. And yet, these are the things that have been most exhausting for me. I find myself wanting to shout, "Come on, Ukraine - give me a break! I'm dealing with your Slavic language and your lack of recycling and the fact that people are late for everything and the whole not-doing-laundry-on-religious-holidays thing -- CAN'T I JUST WALK INTO MY ROOM WITHOUT HAVING TO THINK REALLY HARD ABOUT HOW I CLOSE THE DOOR BEHIND ME?!?!?!?!?!?!?! CAN'T I JUST MAKE A BATCH OF F***** CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?"

Sigh. Culture shock.

It doesn't always come from the big things. Sometimes it just comes from all the teeny, tiny daily reminders that you are in a place that is not yours; a place where all the usually effortless little tasks you have learned in the course of your life now take extra energy because your old habits don't work here.

Did I even mention my struggles with weighing produce at the grocery store?
No?
I won't even go there.

Time to get back to studying perfective and imperfective verbs.