the culture stress chronicles [part 1]

I knew it was going to happen, but it still took me a week to get used to putting toilet paper back in the inodoro.

I knew seeing massive quantities of food and other stuff at the grocery store was going to be difficult, but the knowing didn't make it any easier. I still felt paralyzed in the body wash aisle {!} for 20 minutes, overwhelmed with my choices.

I knew I was going to have to buy a car when I returned, but after looking at 300 listings a day pop up on Craig's List, I finally gave up and bought the first one in my price range that the mechanic gave a positive evaluation to. In 48 hours, I had dropped a cool $3,000--an amount of money that I might have spent in 4 months in Nicaragua.

I walked into a local cafe, innocently asked for a chai latte, and was surprised to be asked not only what kind of milk, but what kind of chai. "I didn't realize there was more than one," I replied, to which I got a full rundown on the 4-5 kinds available. Not even sure what most of them meant, I opted for the vanilla.

Sigh. It's not the immense wealth on its face that gets me, because I lived in the capital city in Nicaragua (pop. 1M). I visited the mall, ate at nice restaurants, and traveled through high-end neighborhoods on a regular basis. What really gets me are the unending options for EVERYTHING. Suddenly every decision (even the trivial ones) seem to require 5 times as much thought and analysis. Frankly, it's exhausting.

Maybe that's why I found myself with little motivation to do much of anything other than the absolutely necessary for my first three weeks. (Of course, I also missed my Nica friends tremendously, but that's another post.)