The Foreign Service Journal, December 2005

D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 91 S CHOOLS S UPPLEMENT events. That was overwhelming. I think many of us experienced more culture shock returning to the U.S. than we did when we left. When I returned to the States I entered a nationalist phase — culminating in joining the Nation of Islam. From where I sit now I can see that I did this to find a community with which to identify in the U.S. I just didn’t fit in anywhere.” For others it is the double return — going back to a place that one has special memories of — that causes the most stress. Going back for a reunion 14 years later was “a pro- found but shattering experience” for one woman. “No longer was I cocooned in the international com- munity, but had to live in a hotel (hor- rors). I felt vulnerable and ill-pre- pared to take on India,” she says. “I wasn’t the seasoned veteran of living in developing countries that I had been as a kid. My starry-eyed mem- ories of my time in India were rudely shaken by the realities of poverty and pollution and traffic-choked roads, even on the wide boulevards of my beloved New Delhi and the swanky neighborhood which housed the school and the various embassies and embassy-workers. My coping mecha- nisms for dealing with this were no longer in place.” Returning to New Delhi for a reunion allowed her to reflect on the life she had led as a teenager. In high school she had managed a balance between the popular and academic kids. She was involved in sports, drama, music and partying. She adds that as teenagers, they had incredible freedom to try and do many “grown- up” activities — “we were not reck- less, but we had a great measure of abandon!” “So it was with some trepidation and much excitement that I returned to a place where I had spent wonder- ful, even magical years. Where else could you go get yards of pure white silk for a pittance and draw the prom dress of your dreams and have the tai- Continued on page 92 For one woman, “going back for a reunion 14 years later was a profound but shattering experience. I felt vulnerable and ill-prepared to take on India” ...