I just came back from a week+ in the States, which was just as wonderful as I’d anticipated it would be. After a slight hiccup at the airport where the Department of Migration yelled at me for possessing an unclear visa (when it was the same Department of Migration who made the stupid unclear visa), I made it to Houston, sailed through customs and made my connecting flight to Dulles with time to spare, and even got to DC ten minutes early which is just the best start to any trip. I met Mom at the airport, immediately bought a skim mocha at Starbucks and resisted the temptation to kiss the ground.
The rest of the trip was filled with visits of family and friends, going out to eat literally every night (and subsequently gaining about 10 pounds in a week), a Nationals game with Dad which was awesome even though the Nats STINK, and weird moments of reverse-culture shock.
The reverse-culture shock is what most surprised me about the visit, since I assumed that I’d already been back for the holidays and didn’t feel any different and therefore on this trip my surroundings should feel equally unchanged. Yet I found myself more often than not feeling like a fish out of water. Here are some examples:
1. I flagged down the GU bus to get to Wisconsin Avenue and got yelled at by the Central American bus driver because I wasn’t waiting in the designated spot. Designated spot? Can’t I just get picked up and dropped off wherever? What’s the big deal? And he’s from Central America, shouldn’t he understand? Shouldn’t he look at me and instinctively know that I’ve lived in Honduras for 18 months and the buses in Honduras have no designated spots??
2. My stepmom Colleen and I went to TJ Maxx and it was so much overstimulation of the senses that I was actually bumping into things. Like, it was TJ Maxx not Christian Dior, but everything looked so NICE! Such good quality! And so much useless STUFF for sale!! I mean there were entire aisles full of decorative food in fun containers, just to stick on a bare kitchen shelf for a little flair. You won’t even EAT the food, it’ll just be there to admire. What?!
3. I ordered lunch for my friend Elizabeth and me at Panera and nearly had a panic attack. First off there were SO MANY OPTIONS, I ended up ordering a Caesar salad because it was literally the first thing I saw on the menu. Secondly there was a very clear-cut system for ordering and I was NOT going fast enough. Thirdly I was supposed to wait in some area for my food, but I didn’t know if they called numbers or if I had to get a pager or what, and plus I wanted a glass of water and everyone else seemed to know where exactly to go and I didn’t and ahhhh!! Elizabeth ended up getting the food for me while I sat down and took deep breaths for a few minutes. I was surprised at how stressed out I was getting. This did not happen to me on my first trip home. Weird.
4. Mom got really upset because the landscapers didn’t put the flowerboxes back in the right place. She also pointed out a bare spot on the new ceramic steps that she had assumed would be filled in. She actually asked MY opinion on if I thought it looked ugly. I was so impressed the yard wasn’t covered in dead tree limbs and trash, let alone LANDSCAPED, that I didn’t even notice the bare spot.
5. As soon as I landed in Houston I noticed a sea of really really overweight people. For a split second I thought I’d slipped into some parallel universe where up was down and people were all incredibly overweight. Then I realized, Wait, I forgot, this is how the average American looks.
6. In every bathroom I entered, from my house to the mall to restaurants, I was just blown away with how clean it was, even if it wasn’t clean by U.S. standards. I mean, there were NO roaches, NO spiders, NO weird smells emanating from the toilet, a SINK right there to wash your hands, and plus you threw the toilet paper RIGHT INTO THE TOILET. No wastebasket full of accumulated used paper. I was blown away!
It’s weird, it’s not like I forgot about these aspects of the U.S.; they just happened to be what stood out for me when I got there. Plus, I didn’t feel this strange when I went home in December. It was this time, after having been in Honduras for a year and a half, that I realized that I am not the same person I was when I left. I know now that I can’t just return to the U.S. in May and expect to get right back into the swing of things without any cultural readjustment. I’ll be a little freaked out for awhile, and I find that so odd because why should I be freaked out in a place I’ve lived for my entire life (2 years interrupted)? Shouldn’t home always feel like home?
Anyway, in all it was a wonderful trip, albeit a bit… weird.
The group listening intently to our presentation on business concepts 
Balloon race!!!! This poor girl was literally being dragged across the basketball court by her little high heel shoes.. her partner was intent on WINNING 
Me in one of my only "professional Peace Corps" shots of me actually doing work. I have so few of these. 
Another dinámica, passing a stressball from neck to neck. Hilarious! 
Putting up their marketing materials... well, their marketing material really, there was only one sign. But it was a FINE sign!
