It's Just a Phase

I have learned that there are phases we go through when we move to a truly foreign place. I thought I would share this new and exciting information with you! (Do you think I could get grant money to travel from place to place and study the hypothesis? I've always wanted to find some stupid and obvious thing to study)
Phase 1: When you first move to this totally foreign place, everything is so new and different that your brain can't adjust. So It only accepts a small amount of the info your eyes, ears and nose try to send it. You look around and see only a part of the reality.
Phase 2: Your brain has had the time it needed to adjust to the fact that you have thrown it into an alternate reality. Now you start to see things you hadn't noticed before. Your brain begins to let in all the info your senses send it. This should be good, right? It's always good to get the whole truth. Well, it may be good but the shock can be a little disconcerting. Questions like: what have I done? and how could I have missed this? start to creep in and you get a dose of culture shock. Don't worry, this phase doesn't last too long it just feels like forever.
Phase 3: You have adjusted! You can see the places and people for what and who they are and love it anyway. It seems perfectly normal to see: men cutting grass with a machete; twenty people in the back of a pickup careening down the highway at 100+ km/hr; a dad riding his bike with a newborn on his shoulder and a 2 year old riding on the crossbar. You know where to go to get most of the things you want and need and where to find out where the rest might be hiding. It no longer seems strange to have people yell at you as you drive through town (they are just saying hello) or to have them honk as you go by (also just saying hello - isn't it nice that you no longer hit the ditch trying to figure out what you have done wrong?) or to shop at three different stores or trucks for two days worth of food. You begin to realize that the way you used to live may not be the only, or even the best, way to live.
Phase 4: You can speak kriol! This phase doesn't occur for most people until after at least 5 years.
You will be excited to know that I am now firmly embedded in phase 3. This poses a slight problem for the old blog. Nothing seems too weird or wild anymore and I have trouble figuring out what you will enjoy. I have a few ideas yet but am afraid I'll start to run dry. This is the part where you get to help out! YAY! If any of you have questions or subjects you would like to explore, please e-mail me or leave a comment. I'm not going to promise anything but I'll see what I can do. If nothing else, I'll get to laugh at your naivety for a while instead of the other way around. This is your chance to be a contributing editor. Maybe, if you fudge just a little, you could add it to your resume. I'll write you a reference.
Can't wait to hear from you all!!!