Monday, January 21, 2008: The Aftermath	Return to Journal TOC >>
I go back to teaching the next day, and Ro’s back at work. I don’t get jetlagged, but she does and is knocked out for most of the next week and a half, whenever she’s not working. I feel great, but am coughing like a tuberculosis patient for the next few days, and have a bit of peeling sunburn. Altogether a small price to pay for a three-week visit to a tropical version of the 1970s, and a chance to interact with friends and relatives and favorite restaurants of the woman I’m going to marry. Even if way too many of those restaurants served pizza. I ate my way through the Philippines, but still lost about ten pounds on the trip, and more after coming back. I don’t know if it was the smaller portions, or the lack of additives and hydrogenated corn syrup in the food, but I’m not complaining. I got to try a lot of new things. I didn’t eat balut, but I did try durian. Ro had her Filipino food fix, although she was watching what she ate during the whole trip, mindful of the wedding dress she needs to fit into currently tucked away at the local dress shop. People keep asking me if I felt culture shock, but I really didn’t. In many ways it’s a different world than the one I live in, but it’s not that different. There were new fruits and vegetables, but I’ve seen poverty and shanties before. How people lived in them was different, but we all do what we need to do to survive. I’m glad for the life I have - and I’ll never take hot water for granted again - but in many ways the gap between my world and the world Ro grew up in is a lot narrower than what I was led to expect. Of course, my students think of the 1970s as ancient history, so maybe it is a big gap after all. Hopefully I can go back again soon to explore that question a little further. Leigh Ronald Grossman February 3, 2008
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