Settling In

Good Morning!

As with last morning, and probably for a few more mornings to come, my team and I have overslept.

No, it is not out of sheer laziness, although after a hectic year at Rice, getting a chance to actually get a full nights sleep is readily accepted. The main culprit is jet-lag, one of the cohort of difficulties encountered when adjusting to a new place. Thankfully it hasn’t been too bad so far, (sleeping 14 hours a couple of nights ago must have helped), but being 7 hours ahead of “normal” makes it really hard to go to sleep at night and really hard to wake up at a reasonable time.

Having grown up in China, and having traveled a decent amount, I know a little bit about adjusting to a new place, and this is helpful.

Most of the literature on Cultural Adjustment talks about roughly four stages:

The Honeymoon Stage
Culture Shock/Hostile Stage
Gradual Integration
Feeling at home

So far, I think our team is in stage 1.5. Our reception here has been wonderful: Shannon, one of the Program Associates here in Blantyre, has been very gracious in showing us around, helping us get food, and being a friendly face. However, we have yet to have our feet grounded and that drains a fair amount of emotional energy. I know it will take time, and since we have good pillars of support here, I know it will end well, but for now, we are subsisting on PB&J for the most part. Although this transition takes energy and is difficult at times, I know it will be worth it.

There is a flowering tree outside of our guest house whose yellow flowers only bloom at the very tips of its branches. If I were the bulk of the tree branch, I would be kind of bummed that I didn’t get to have any flowers. Without the branch, however, the flowers would not be possible. In the same way, this transition period, although not glamorous, is preparing us to be settled in to something beautiful.

For example, I am looking forward to this coming week. Monday morning, we will go in to Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH) to go to the morning meeting and start shadowing doctors. Hopefully having a job to do will help us make the transition from a confused Stage 2, to a more settled Stage 3.

But for today, we are enjoying the moment