It is hard to describe what culture shock feels like, for me it was/is just a feeling of "heaviness". Some days I feel stared at and just want to stay inside and hide. I find those days are the most important to get outside and interact with people. Somedays I feel a little angry at silly things like the ants crawling on EVERYTHING, or the hot water heater breaking once (or twice) a week, or the lock on the front door breaking and locking our family outside of our house, or the neighbors burning their garbage in their yard (again) filling our house with smoke.
It helps to know that these feelings are completely normal and when I can identify that I am having a culture shock "moment" to just take a deep breath and remember the completely awesome perks there are to living in Indonesia.
Perk #1 The people of course! Indonesians are so nice, everyday that I live here I fall more in love with them and their culture.
Perk #2 My fruit bowl. I love the fruit here! It is like Jamba Juice in our own kitchen the mornings we make smoothies.
Perk #3 My scooter. Once you get over the fact that driving a scooter around on the roads here is somewhat terrifying, it is a lot of fun!
Perk #4 The pool. We don't make it swimming very often (about twice a month), but it is the perfect way to decompress and get some in some exercise.
Perk #5 Rendang. I would live here just for the Rendang.
I could go on, but I'll stop for now. In all serious though we cannot live here on our own strength (or positive thinking) alone. We are learning to rely on God's strength for everything, we are quickly learning that we are not enough. It is a hard and exhausting lesson, but a very valuable lesson. We also can't do this without our wonderful friends back home sending us notes of encouragement and prayers.
How am I doing right now? Good. I feel "lighter" this week and more like myself. I do love it here, but there are defiantly hard days along with the good days.
