We have been experiencing culture shock already. After being
in Africa and then coming to Europe and Eastern Europe (Ireland, Ukraine, Romania), We have been in
awe over little and big things.
We can’t get pictures out of our mind of kids running around,
no shoes or maybe shoes with their toes sticking out. Kids with holes in their
clothes, not sure why they even wear them sometimes. Kids sharing and rejoicing
over little amounts of food they have. Their extremely happy, smiling faces.
Their tiny shops of outdated packaged food and their tiny shops of homegrown vegetables,
on the streets. People walking for hours, maybe just to come say hi to you.
Kids in hospital beds lying motionless, with their parents (well not all the
kids were lucky enough to have their parents stay) next to them just waiting
and hoping. Kids running, screaming, rubbing your skin, and pulling your hair; We can only imagine what it is like for them, we are like crazy aliens to them.
We really do love Africa.
Now we are in Eastern Europe. People look busy walking to their next
destination ten minutes away. It seems it is a given you could ride the bus,
but why when everyone has a car. The grocery stores are so huge that they could feed
numerous villages and sleep thousands of people. The streets are clean. The
kids clothed, dry, warm and clean. They look at us weird. We are told they
can tell we are not from here by the way we carry ourselves- we are relaxed,
smile at each other and strangers, and laugh. We also wear slippers (sandals) sometimes,
with and without socks; apparently that is weird. The houses are huge. We
are laughed at when we are amazed that there is heat (not from a fire but from
a machine on the wall), showers (they even have steady flowing water, with
pressure, and hot water), we each have our own bedroom with doors (not to
mention the extra beds we each have in our rooms), and kitchens with
stoves/ovens and just about every utensil you could need.
We were at the outdoor
market the other day and a guy was 
cooking corn over a coal fire, but this time
he was “blowing� on the fire using a hair dryer.
We can’t say this is wrong or that we don’t like some of it.
It is just so different. We actually cry thinking about it sometimes. There are
starving kids with barely a roof or a bed or food or… and then the rest of the
world has all this. WOW. It blows us away.
We are not advocating for us to go over there and just start
giving all these things to them. That has already started by some and, as of
now, we don’t see a really good long-term effect. It can lead to them being
lazy, greedy, and just expecting others to come and give them everything or fix what they
need. They are ok with waiting; they have been doing this a long time already.
We love Africa’s resourcefulness- they throw almost nothing
away. They can use everything for something- a kids toy, to repair something
else, to hold food, to cook food etc., but it’s not like America where they
have basements or carports full of stuff just in case they need it, they use it
as they need and disperse what’s left.
We can only imagine America, even bigger homes, bigger cars, and
bigger stores, more malls…hope we can handle it. We were already shocked before this year when we
came from Kauai to the mainland. We just hope we are able to hold it together.
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For a great video check out this link to The Story of Stuff: http://www.storyofstuff.com/
