'Home'?

Jason and I arrived back in the States 6 days ago. In our Peace Corps training we had been warned of the reversed culture shock one would experience upon returning to the US. Like most things I learned in PC training I simply brushed it aside. I'd lived overseas before, had the whole "holy crud" experience upon returning home etc etc. How could this be different?

In many ways it isn't much different than my first time returning to the States, but it differs in as many ways as it is similar.

It seems as though time here has stopped altogether. Nothing seems entirely different (yes there are more houses in certain neighborhoods, or different stores etc) but yet, nothing is entirely familiar. I pass by places I've known since I was 15 and it feels as though I'm in a dream. The world I've been living in this past year is so far removed from the world I call 'home' that, upon returning 'home,' I find myself thinking "was this last year simply an illusion?"

I see no signs in this universe I call 'home' that indicate that the universe I inhabited in Africa even exists.

It's a frightening feeling. The cliche "it's a small world after all" is true in the sense that you can navigate the earth in less than 3 days via air, but it holds no truth in terms of the various cultures and peoples that inhabit this planet. As mentioned, the things I've seen and experienced are so different than this the 'western world' they might as well inhabit a different world.

That's not to say that anything here is inherently 'wrong' or 'bad.' Instead I say it to emphasize how important it is for us, as westerners, not to assume we understand the struggles of those in the far reaching areas of the "third world." It can be no more easily comprehended without experiencing it as 'Martian' being a mutually intelligible language to English.

My point? I probably don't have one.

It just seems the more I see of the world the less I feel at 'home' in the US. Instead I'm juxtaposed against my upbringing and what I'm experiencing and in doing so I'm finding I don't completely fit in either 'universe.'