loin-girding and all things un-wet.

loin-girding and all things un-wet.

Originally posted on September 20, 2011 by JaEDV

Anyone who’s ever lived in another culture for any length of time has an idea of what culture shock is. It’s a sneaky little beast, let me tell you. It finds its roots in something unpleasant but maybe not entirely bad, and then grows and festers and swells and cultivates and wha-BAM! Attacks like a creature in the night.

All of the sudden, you’re blindsided by emotion: overwhelmed and annoyed and distressed by how radically different everything about the culture surrounding you is. You get sucked into a vicious cycle of comparison between cultures. It’s not an easy thing to fix, and grows quickly unrecognized into something that, while not unconquerable, feels insurmountable. Guys, you may not understand this, but it feels like PMS. All the time. It rears its ugly little head most violently when you’re trapped in buzzing little hives of culture, like on the metro, or as passenger 987 in a bus that was built to hold 14.

I know what you’re thinking: You’ve been living in that culture for TWO years! Aren’t you used to it? Well, here’s the thing: It’s not about being “used to it.” I lived in American culture for 23 years before this—I grew to know (and love, even) orderly lines at restaurants and garbage in garbage cans and traffic laws and electricity and personal space. But anyway, that’s probably just me.

But, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that it all starts somewhere. So here’s me, tracing it back to it’s roots.

Alright.

Could it be… WATER? And the fact that I have none?

In a few hours, I’ll take a warm shower. A WARM SHOWER! It will be my first one in a week. Why, you ask? Because I’m not at home. I have no water at home. When I turn on the faucet, nothing happens. I never even realized how many things need water. But WHOA. Lots.

At first, it feels like camping:

You pee in the toilet. You push the flusher, but nothing happens. So you pull on your shoes and run down to the market with dirty pee hands and buy a 5 liter bottle of water. You get back upstairs, figure out how to remove the back of the toilet (plumbing is not my main area of giftedness), dump the five liters of bottled water into the tank, and then flush. Adios to your pee. You step over to the sink to wash your hands, like you do every time you pee. You turn on the faucet, and…nothing. How could you not have set aside a tiny bit of those five liters to wash your hands with?! Desperate, you actually peek into the back of the toilet to see if the toilet sucked down ALL of that fresh water you just fed it. It did—no salvageable hand-washing water in that tank. Back down you go for another five liters. Then, back to the sink—dump a little, scrub-a-dub-dub for 20 seconds, dump a little more, and dry. You decide to use the rest to clean your dishes, which due to days of no water, have piled up a little. You didn’t realize exactly HOW much water it actually takes to rinse dishes! Back down for another 5 liters. This time, thinking ahead, you grab some baby wipes. You finish your dishes and clean the rest of your kitchen with Pampers Sensative Skin baby wipes. You dump the remaining 2 liters into your mop bucket, add some wood cleaner, and give the floors a once-over since you have guests coming to your waterless flat tonight. 15 liters of water and several hours later, you’ve got a freshly flushed toilet, a clean and lovely smelling house, and one little American, culture shocked and frustrated beyond belief. So, you do what any culture-shock-suffering American would do—you reach into your cabinet for a box of Kraft Mac and Cheese. You grab your milk and butter and make sure you have enough. Then you stick that pot under the faucet and turn it on.

CRAP.

I ate yogurt and cucumbers pouted and played Scrabble by myself.

Moral of the story:

Keep 67 liters of water in your flat at all times.

And, if it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down.

And, BUCK UP and stop being so stinkin’ American already.

And thus, the source of my current bout with culture shock.

So, I’m girding my loins, bucking up, and asking for a little extra grace. I’m taking my eyes off myself and realizing that I’m not fighting for physical comfort over here. Oh no, friends, I’m fighting for so much more. I’m fighting for

SO

MANY

LIVES.

After all, I have been blessed beyond measure. I have the water of life—I will never thirst again.