(the title comes from two students' tests--it was how I knew they cheated, because it had nothing to do with the question so they couldn't have randomly come up with that on their own)
When I visited the States in November, it was a bit too overwhelming to even comment on the differences—I didn’t even know where to begin because it was all rather surreal. But the shock from November has worn off a bit, so I thought I’d give you a list.
Things that have genuinely surprised me here in America. By that I mean things that surprised me so much that I did a double take—things that took a half an hour minimum to think through because it made so little sense to me.
1. How cold the water out of the facet is. I realize that sounds stupid, but I’m very serious. In Madagascar, refrigerated drinks meant not hot drinks—slightly cool, but certainly not cold. But here—when you choose cold water on the facet, it really means cold. I mean ICY. I mean I’ve had iced drinks that are not as cold as that water. How does it do it? Are the pipes refrigerated? I don’t understand.
2. You can’t hear the rain when it rains. No joke, it rained the first day I was back (since then it’s become snow), and I spent a good hour looking outside at the rain, not understanding why I couldn’t HEAR it. If I didn’t SEE the rain pounding on the pavement, I wouldn’t even know it was raining. Now, in Madagascar, school is often canceled because of rain, simply because you cannot hear the teacher—the rain on the tin roof makes too much noise. And at home, I tried listening to Frank Sinatra while it rained for a cozy afternoon—only I couldn’t hear Frank over all that noise. Even with doors and windows shut, it’s loud and clear. (Note: While you want this to be soothing—so you can fall asleep to it—there are often so many roof leaking problems that the sound of rain doesn’t put you to sleep—it makes you stay awake worrying that the rain will start falling on you in bed or fill up your baskets of clothes, leaving you nothing to wear tomorrow.) I was so sad. To be protected from the sound and smell of rain? If temperatures weren’t 20 degrees colder than what I considered cold in Madagascar (isn’t it April?), I’d have opened the window.
3. Mosquito bites. No seriously, where do they come from? It’s been over two weeks since I’ve been in a place where mosquitoes exist at this time of year. I don’t understand. Did they hide in my backpack? And the one on my knee itches so badly it actually HURTS.
4. Shoes. I guess two years of wearing only flip flops has made me forget what shoes feel like. After wearing three different pairs of shoes, I started to wonder if my feet had grown while I was gone, because they all felt so TIGHT. And then I realized that they all fit perfectly. I’m just not used to having something enclose my feet.
5. American Idol. Three hours. Count them. A TV show is capable of having a captive audience for THREE HOURS EVERY SINGLE WEEK. That’s a semi-serious relationship. It’s incredible. I mean, I can’t even judge that—-it’s straight up impressive. They must be so proud. . . .
6. How clean the water is. There’s this filter attached to the kitchen sink—for drinking water, as opposed to other water. And I stood there and compared the water from the regular faucet with the filter water. They look the same to me. Clean and clean. The water you shower with here looks cleaner than the water I filtered and treated before drinking. It’s incredible. No one should die of thirst in America. (I'll be honest, I sometimes drink the water from the bathroom faucet instead--it feels as if it has more substance in it.)
7. How clean your clothes and body can get. It’s like I’m a new me with an entirely new wardrobe. Okay, I DO have an entirely new wardrobe—one that includes sweaters and warm socks. But my old clothes? When I took them out of the drier? OH—-and can I just say, there’s a machine to dry your clothes. First, the machine that WASHES them spins so fast at the end that they’re practically dry when they come out (okay I admit it—-I suck at wringing my clothes before throwing them on the line). Talk about eliminating that whole sun-fading-the-colors problem. Amazing. But to get back to the point. Even my hair. I’m a whole new me. Water pressure is amazing.
8. A reversal of polite things. So in Mahabo, if you had a runny nose (like I did when I got the flu because the temperature got down—DOWN—to 80 in the evenings before I got evacuated), you would close one nostril with a finger, aim into bushes, and shoot that snot out as far as you can (and, let’s admit it, get whatever clung to your nose with your fingers and flick it away as well). Sometimes I would have a handkerchief, and I was totally embarrassed whenever I used it. Like they thought I was some nut for keeping the snot with me. Even worse with kleenex or toilet paper, because now you’re wasting valuable materials as well. Here in Minnesota? Very much the opposite. I get slightly embarrassed just thinking about what would happen if I followed the same social code here. Man. And it's pretty upsetting when you do something because you think you're doing the nice good polite thing only to find people being cranky because their standards and definitions are different. AH.
9. Wounds heal so quickly! No seriously. I think it must have to do with the general cleanliness thing, but I tell you what—-injuries I’ve been nursing for MONTHS have disappeared here so quickly that I forget where they used to be located. It’s incredible. Scar acquisition must be WAY down in America.
10. If you leave a plate or can or anything that’s touched food out—not only for half an hour, but even for multiple days—ants will not appear. I keep waiting for them to make attacks, but it doesn’t happen. In fact, the general lack of bugs thing is kind of bizarre. It’s like if there were suddenly no children in the world. Not that I’m comparing children to bugs, but I’m just saying—an integral part of my life is suddenly gone, and it’s slightly creepy.
Aaaand a bonus number 11. EVERYONE write blogs. And I mean EVERYONE. And their purpose feels very different from mine when I created this one. I mean, I just did this because I figured it’d be easier than e-mailing people updates. I’d just post the updates online, and then you could check at your leisure. But other real live bloggers? That world kind of frightens me and is not at all what I meant to be a part of. Soooo I do not think I will ever do that again. For future adventures, either we’ll have to go back to the e-mail thing, or . . . I don’t know. Whatever. It just . . . doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t even really like saying I have a blog. They’re my updates that’s all. Okay. That’s all I have to say on that.
Also let’s add a number 12. Food is pre-made here. No joke. Like, instead of buying tomatoes, rice, and onions, and doing what you can with it, you buy dishes of things already put together. Instead of saying oh this is a fruit or a vegetable or I don’t know what, you say oh this is . . . greenish and it contains these five things. I find this confusing. Doesn’t this seem complicated to any of you?
So there is my answer to the question of how my return to the States has been. Shocking and . . . shocking. And sad. (I mean, come on—I got evacuated from my HOME.)
All I hope is that you will now think of my every time your hands become frozen because of the ultra cold water in your facets.
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