culture shock

Generally, multiple infants share a single hospital bed.Nicole Shaw narrowed her eyes at the boy standing in front of her, ignoring his taunting friends. Nicole’s fellow interns grabbed at her shirt from behind, attempting to pull her away, afraid she might lose her cool. The boys had been harassing the interns, and Nicole had had enough.

Kirsten and Scott Morris, a US couple living and teaching in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, were riding to their apartment on the 16th floor one morning. Music abruptly started playing in the normally quiet elevator. After a startled pause, they spontaneously broke into dance. In the attitude of “go with it,” Kirsten and Scott rocked out to the elevator music until they reached their floor. When the doors opened, they calmly stepped out, giving no evidence of what had just transpired.

I never got used to the rooster that cock-a-doodle-dooed at four o’clock every morning for six weeks while I lived in the small community of El Bonete, Nicaragua. Yet three weeks into my adventure, none of the drastic changes from my city lifestyle had merited the infamous term culture shock. I had no idea the dose of humility I was about to get.