Reverse Culture Shock

In terms of reverse culture shock, mine personally has been in the form of flashbacks and snapshots of things I saw and funny things that happened over there, triggered by things people say or things I see here at home. I haven't felt disgust at the developed world for being so materialistic or anything like that, but I've felt terribly humbled and blessed at how much we have. We take many things for granted here at home. We take hot water, showers, and clean toilets for granted. We take our high road rule standards for granted. We take our health for granted. We assume that if we get sick, we have the resources available to treat us, without having to be flown out to another country.

We've been back a few days now, gotten through Christmas and Boxing Day, now hanging out for the New Year, so I thought I'd share some of the bazillion photos with you from our trip as as I reminisce while I'm slowly sorting through my stash, and converting them into jpegs!!! The people living in this country may not have as many material things as we do, and lead much simpler lives, but what they don't have materially has been made up for with awesome scenery. We were all awestruck by the scenery. That scenery alone was a testimony to how great our awesome dad is.

Please click on the really small photos to see the bigger view.


This was an awesome sight during the last part of our van ride over the mountains back towards the capital. This photo really doesn't do it justice in showing how high this mountain was and how majestic it looked!
This shot was taken from the awning of the cafe we stopped at to have lunch, about 3 hours into our 8 hour trip on the way back to the capital.


Chicken anyone??! These guys were multitasking - plucking feathers next to the toilet block while also collecting money from the restaurant patrons who used the conveniences! I kid you not! Also, I'm not convinced that that's chicken, but that's what they said it was!


A lucky shot as I stuck my torso out the window of the van as we were zooming along at 80kph or so...


The lunch table at our meeting place. Our team felt right at home like at cp11. Their meeting time was at 11am too! They made plov for us for our last time there as a farewell lunch.


Cerise chucking a snowball at the van as we passed by. I had my torso stuck out the window, as usual, and she got me, and the camera! Right after this shot, I almost got swiped by a stationary truck as the van drove past, as I recoiled back inside. According to Wongo, I was 10cm away from potentially life ending injuries!


Team CAR as we said goodbye to our friends and our block of apartments.


Part of the team enjoying freshly steamed manty and samsas for lunch while checking out the local bazaar and putting our bargaining skills to the test during some retail therapy.

Our manty man at the bazaar who by the second time we returned (yes, a few of us made the bazaar a daily ritual) would give us all discounts!


Simona and I went on a homestay to Janar's house, in a village 2hours walk outside of town. We were waiting by the side of the road for a mashrootka (van/bus, their form of public transport) to take us back into town. This man was on his way with his sheep to take them out to pasture.

Cows stopping traffic as we headed back into town in the mashrootka.

That's all for now, there will definitely be more photos to come!

Wishing you and yours a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!!