Emerging From The Other Side Of Culture Shock

I woke up this morning when the fan was still on. I had to turn it down during the night since it was actually a bit too cool. It went off at 6:20. I slept in. Nice. I didn't even get up until noon. It was nice to just lie there and rest.

I pulled out a €50 note and put it in my pocket. Today, I would try to find the minibus station where the money changers hang out. If they were there, I'd see if I could change the €50 into about GF250,000. Then I'd find the last restaurant in Gabú. I found the area where the minibuses take off from, but no money changers seemed to be there. I headed to the restaurant/bar/disco, but it was closed. About a block away I found another bar that looked sort of inviting, so I went in.

It was an interesting place. I sat down at one of about 6 tables. Two men were at one table, a woman talking to herself (I later saw was pregnant) was at another. A waiter guy was at the bar and there was a guy behind the bar. The waiter came over. He had a red shirt with the Dairy Queen DQ logo. It made me want a Peanut Buster Parfait. But I had to settle for a Cristal. I read La Route and pondered Africa.

After I returned from Japan for the first time, I was talking with Barbara Ito, a professor of Japanese cultural anthropology. She told me that studies have shown that culture shock sort of bottoms out at 6 weeks. I thought back and the 6 week mark in Japan is about where I was reduced to tears over what was happening to me. After that, it got better. I suppose you are broken, to put a negative spin on it, or break through, to put a positive spin on it. Anyway, something happens with culture shock. You go from a horrible feeling of uncertainty, to an acceptance. I never really had a breakdown in Africa. I certainly didn't have any tears generated by anything not related to the ending of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. But I felt that I have gone through that barrier. I no longer calculate the value of the humiliation of personal failure I would feel if I were to just go to the airport and hop on the next plane to O'Hare. I no longer feel any sort of need or desire to do that. I don't know what it was. Maybe it was the fact that my most frustrating experience lately was loading 22 episodes of This American Life onto my state of the Western art iPod Touch. Or maybe the fact that the meat I ate at the German restaurant got puked up while Binta's goat chiep stayed down. Maybe it was the realization that Guinea-Bissau, the only non-Francophone non-Anglophone country is about as bad as it's going to get and it's not even that bad.

Whatever it was, I'm through. I no longer have any doubts about my ability to complete this quest. I can do it. I will do it.

Anyway, that's what I was pondering while at this place and observing the goings on. A girl in a very short denim skirt came. She had blonde braids. Another girl in a short skirt came. This seemed to be a happening place. The blonde braid girl played dice with one of the guys there while she drank beer and he had Coca-Cola. The pregnant woman talking to herself got up and took frequent short walks. A man on a motorcycle came--I think he must be Brazilian. A woman on the street chatted with him giddily like she was totally in love with him. The DQ shirt guy mounted the Brazilian's motorcycle and rode back and forth on the street. A kid with a blindfold was running around and falling down in some sort of game. A little girl came over once and bit him on the back. I ordered 3 more beers.

This place reminded my of the Lego-Lego in Bluefields, Nicaragua. In fact, Gabú could almost be a sister city of Bluefields. It has about the same level of activity, the same number of places to eat, the same size market.

Finally it was time to leave. I went up to settle my tab. Each beer was only 500 CFA (US$1). Wow. They could have ripped me off, but they didn't. Guinea-Bissau is nice like that. Without enough tourists to know how easy to rip us off, they just treat us like normal citizens and give us honest transactions.

I came home and ate my can of ravioli. Then I waited for the power to return so I could type this up.

August 21, 2008 20:36 Guinea-Bissau local time