Sh*t Happens: Reflections Post Traveler's Sickness

I don't think this is as polished as I would like, but its so hard to find time to write/post that sometimes you just gotta click publish. Hope you enjoy!

This week has been a rough one both physically and mentally.

I write this as the thunderous collisions fade into the distance. While it has been raining monumental amounts all week, its not the rain clouds I'm talking about, but my stomach. Saturday night I woke up at midnight to horrible stomach pains and proceeded to wake up every hour on the hour to run to the bathroom. I was on one couch or another for the entirety on Sunday.

I knew it would take some adjustment to the local foods, but I had not realized that traveler's diarrhea would consist of 3-5 days of debilitating stomach cramps (lie on the floor whimpering type cramps) and liquid only elimination. I don't think my Mae considered the implications of this particular situation either when she agreed to take in an American student. To both her and Paw's credit they have been taking wonderful care of me through the illness, letting me rest, doing my chores, and feeding me rice and water.

In discussing cultural adjustments and the culture shock curve there is usually a specific incident that causes the happy visitor to take a sharp downtown in emotional well-being, often feeling homesick, isolated, and /or inescapably "other." For me, it's been illness from my cold last week to the stomach problems this week. When you are physically ill, it is impossible to keep a good attitude and you yearn for family and all of the comforts of *your* home. 

When I feel good, I love it here and wonder if four months could possibly be enough. When I felt ill, I wanted to come and wondered what exactly I had enrolled myself in here. Some students become ill multiple times, and the culture shock curve oscillates so this is not a battle yet won; however, I am in a critical period for responding to culture shock.

Culture Shock describes the process from initial shock to the visitor striking back in some way. They write:

Seeking to defend his senses against the shock-waves of an alien world, , s/he searches for... a culture shock absorber. In order to retain some sanity, the visitor responds to culture shock in one or all of the following four ways: escape, confrontation, encapsulation, or integration" (184). 

The goal to strive for is to remove social barriers in order to integrate and feel at ease in Thai society, but the path to integration is not straight and narrow. 

Two interesting events occurred on Monday night: (1)I ate an apple, (2) I watched American television.

(1) I had heard that fruit was good if you needed food, but couldn't handle much so I was asking Mae Nuan what fruit we had in the house. When she mentioned apples, I lit up and asked her to please give it to me. 

The apple was the greatest apple I had ever tasted because it was food from home. I never liked apples that much in the states, but here this apple was a much needed American oasis. 

(2) After dinner, I settled down on the couch to watch some TV and found some American programs on FX including Mad Men (which I had never seen before, and now really need to watch).

On reflection, the apple was a health way to cope and feel a bit more at home. The jury is out on English television though, it has some serious disadvantages. Watching TV is one of the greatest escapes we have especially when you can tunnel vision into the show with familiar troupes, settings, and language. For a while it is great to watch and zone out, but when the TV turned off, I felt very disoriented. It was similar to the feeling of waking from a dream and not knowing where you are. While I'm certain TV provides an escape for visitors, I think watching too often would actually hinder one's integration because when the TV turns off the fantasy ends. You are not surrounded by a familiar world or language and you have to make a whiplash fast adjustment back to the foreign world. 

Ultimately, there is nothing you can do for traveler's diarrhea, but to stay hydrated. You need to let everything flow so your body can get rid of whatever toxin it ingested. There is no over under below or around it, just deep breaths, whispered encouraging mantras (I prefer, "just keep swimming!), acceptance and slow progress forward. It is the same with the challenges of travel. I have no option to quit or escape, I must persevere and I will be made better for it.

I'd like to end with a quote from Becoming World Wise:

"Cultural quakes happen. Our foundations suddenly shift and nothing--not family, not friends, not language, not customs--seems fixed any more.... although the path of transformation rarely follows a predictable and linear course, it requires that we keep walking" (156).