Out of Kenya

Awkwardly sitting on transcontinental flight AC 855, I edged for both leg and arm room about the overflowing heaps of a passenger beside me, who is both an offense to geometry and to ergonomic seating designs. One supposes that an airline passenger seat would permit basic interaction within one's environment, in a healthy, comfortable, or efficient manner or so an ergonomic definition would suggest. So, to pacify these aggravated joints of mine, I extended my rigid limbs into the isle; yet, I am not discomfited here by an offending man of epic proportions, but am defeated by a surly flight attendant, who promptly demands I return my legs and baggage to the incommodious confines of my seat.

My resolve for a comfortable flight broken, I occupied myself with some necessary reading, the issue of re-entry shock, or reverse culture shock. Studies in this area deal with the strained adjustment to one's home country and the incongruous events of re-immersion. Having familiarized myself with the symptoms of re-entry shock prior to landing and having presumed to understand the effects of this forthcoming unfelicitous experience, I assumed I would escape it. Initially, I found myself excited, my senses aroused by new, yet distantly familiar sounds and odors. This established and comforting environment offered a release of tension and an end to the uncertainty that often defined my living in Kenya for the past quarter year.

Not two days following my return home, and two days prior to my writing this, I began to feel a great unease, a social discomfort: much of it the result of my experience in Africa. Upon my return, I was annoyed with grand, unspecific and personal questions that were subtly offending, stirring a suppressed embitterment which I found difficult to comprehend. East Africa was a private and complex experience, one I didn't feel comfortable sharing given the lack of appreciation or disconnection from the passing questioner. An answer to an obviously tame question: how was Africa? brought no genuine answer forth, merely, a pathetic one: I had a great or a good experience. In many ways, I am frustrated, I feel unable to speak about Kenya, except with those I shared Mombasa with. Compounding this frustration is a return to tedium or the familiar. Whereas during my previous three months I enjoyed exotic locations and flavorful foods, I am now encumbered by TV dinners, trivialities, and the relative inconsequentiality of my life in Kamloops. Both purpose and interest have been lost to me and I feel an overwhelming lack of significance. Where do I fit in now, and how do I go about doing this?