It has come to my attention that my previous conception of culture shock was ridiculous. I used to think culture shock was just a fun, enlightening experience of discovering differences (“oh hey, look at that! They sing and dance a lot more here!”) or, more seriously, a realization that one’s own culture was flawed in some newly-visible way (“Woah, the US is even more wasteful than I realized!”). While both of these processes are definitely part of, or at least can complement, culture shock, they don’t really get at the heart of it – the frustrations, the unmet expectations, the nagging sense that you’re trapped in a giant game of “one of these things is not like the others” and you are that different thing.
And it’s that kind of culture shock that’s hit me here in Dar es Salaam these past few days.
The city, or what I’ve seen of it, is really different from what I expected. Since cities that are on a body of water are always more beautiful than those that aren’t, I figured Dar, a coastal city, would be nicer than Kampala or Kigali, both of which I liked. Plus, there are beaches! I’d read that the city has zones of different architectural styles, based on the colonial division of the city into the European, Indian and African regions. So I thought the diversity would, as it did in Nakivale, add texture and complexity (or maybe it’s just that New York is so heterogeneous that it feels more familiar?). I had heard that Tanzanians don’t really like mzungu’s rushing in to “save” them, and recalled my relief at the pride of the Rwandans compared to people in Northern Uganda.
These things (or at least the first two) may be true of the city as a whole, but I’ve only seen the city center, so far. The ocean isn’t incorporated into the city in the way it is in Boston, for instance, and the official beaches (the only safe places to go to the beach – elsewhere it’s isolated and dangerous) are a ways away. I went to what I’d been told was the main road of the Indian neighborhood, only to find that it looked just like the rest of the city center: full of boring, monotonous architecture, chosen for its price rather than its aesthetics. Farooq, the very nice(1), middle-aged guy who runs the internet café at which I’ve already become a regular with a discounted rate (one of the highlights of the first few days) said that all of the big buildings in this area have been built in the last five years, and that until recently, the five-storey “tower” we were in had been the tallest building around and people came from miles away to see it.
I’ve since been directed to a street lined with temples, which is beautiful and much more what I expected to find here, but for the first couple of days, I was really disappointed. I’m realizing (in one of those “duh” moments) that it doesn’t really count as diversity if the different parts are kept separate, instead of, say, bumping into each other on the street.
As far as the Tanzanian resistance to foreign assistance, I have definitely seen this, but it hasn’t been the welcome relief it was in Rwanda. I often wonder if I would have felt the same way about Rwanda if I had gone there first. I still think that the relationship between Tanzania and the West is very different. It was rare in Rwanda to encounter the sort of grumpiness and, at times, outright hostility I’ve seen directed against foreigners here. This has been by far the most jarring culture shock – the not-so-friendly reminder that “you’re not one of us.”
But I hope these things will pass. I can’t expect to love something the moment I encounter it. In the meantime, “Africa time” is frustrating (how could I forget??) and my delusions that I could just waltz in and get started on my research right away have been swept away. Some recent progress gives me hope, though.
On a similarly positive note: I’m still in the hostel for now, but I’m meeting a woman I may move in with later today! While I’m looking forward to interacting with more Tanzanians, it’s been really nice to meet other travelers from all over (a few Canadians, an Israeli, a Kiwi and her Zambian boyfriend, an English couple, a German…).
Also, today we found a fantastic bookstore! I want to buy the whole thing! There are all these African books you could never find in the US. Wonderful.
(1) Part of me suspects that I like him in large part because he lived in Germany for a long while, and knows how to make mzungus feel welcome.
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On culture shock, you might find the following article helpful/illuminating/reassuring: http://tinyurl.com/27wkeaf
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"Meaning comes from the use of shared symbols and depression is a loss of meaning (Atwood Gaines, personal communication). This depression is the essence of culture shock. Culture shock is the anxiety and emotional disturbance experienced by people when two sets of realities and conceptualisations meet. The term was first named by Kalervo Oberg in 1960 who described it as 'precipitated by the anxiety that results from losing all our familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse' (1960:177). That is, if one defines and negotiates reality through the symbolic representations of life, then one must question this reality when faced with alternative representations. When the symbols used to describe and conceptualise the world are alien, this can lead to feelings of isolation or even a loss of identity. The security resulting from one’s taken-for-grantedness disappears and one feels ill at ease. In a sense, culture shock is an illness resulting from the loss of meaning brought about when people from one
symbolic reality find themselves immersed in another, typically through long-term travel.
[...]
"Culture shock is about being out of place in a certain place and time. Oberg distinguishes four stages of culture shock—honeymoon, crisis, recovery, adjustment—which, although useful, are somewhat artificial. Firstly, the progression of culture shock is not necessarily linear. One may experience multiple stages at one time or may ‘revert’ to an earlier stage during a time of crisis or other activity. Also, each individual reacts differently and some may not progress to the final stage before returning home. Nonetheless, I assert that Oberg’s model — barring a number of things — is on the whole convincing."
She goes on to narrate and analyze a personal experience of culture shock, from a research trip to Kenya undertaken in the summer of 2005. A number of parallels with your experience make this analysis particularly salient, I think (hope).
Thanks for the link - definitely relevant and interesting. At the very least, it's nice to have some terms and categories to organize my jumbled thoughts about all these questions.
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