The 5 Stages of Culture Grief

As I sat sipping my afternoon coffee, I realized that something serious has taken place in my soul – many times - during this past year and a half. I know it's not over either. It will happen again.

I gazed down into my coffee and smiled, almost lovingly, at the tiny corpses. They are a symbol of what God has brought me through these past many months. The dead ants in my coffee are a silent witness to the many (many, many, many) things that God has helped me "get over" and learn to love here in tropical (read= very hot and muggy) Indonesia.

I call this process the 5 Stages of Culture Grief. Not so much now, but in the beginning, there were so many things that caused actual sadness, nearly mourning, in my soul as I struggled with the innumerable amounts of change – in every single aspect of daily life. I can't list them here. There are far too many, and I don't want to dig them all up. I've highlighted just one, very common battle early on; the battle of the ants.

Stage 1 - Denial: "I love this place and everything in it!" [Smiling broadly, she dips her coffee spoon into the sugar bowl to get a scoop, ignoring the fact that there is an army of ants crawling around in said sugar bowl]

Stage 2 - Anger: A month later: "WHY ARE THERE ALWAYS ANTS IN THIS !@#$%&? SUGAR BOWL!?!?!?!" [Fuming (and sweating profusely), she dumps out all the sugar, scours the sugar bowl, muttering about the possible reasons her negligent husband keeps allowing ants into the food receptacles. The next day she comes home from the market with 6 ways to annihilate all likely varieties of household (and non-household) ants.]

Stage 3 - Bargaining: A few weeks after that: "Ok, if I can find an airtight container for this sugar, the ants will be forced to find another home, thus another family to torment. Dear God, if you'll just lead me to a store where they might sell airtight containers… [She re-duplicates her extermination efforts, with the added regimen of scrubbing all surfaces and containers with bleach water to eliminate any excess food or sugar particles]

Stage 4 - Depression: After 3 months of fruitless searching, spraying, scouring and scrubbing: "There is no such thing as "airtight" in this backwards, filthy, God-forsaken land" [She gives up sugar in her coffee for the following 2 weeks, and listlessly allows the ants to crawl all over the counters, the floors, the baby and her own sweaty, exhausted body]

Stage 5 - Acceptance: "Honey, these ants actually are a little spicy if you bite them just the right way. By the way, how long have those lizards been in the bread bag?" [Back to drinking her coffee the way she prefers, she acknowledges and willfully ignores the 18 dead ants floating on the surface of her drink, then takes a refreshing gulp of her fresh brew, while absent-mindedly freeing a struggling drone from the baby's chubby fist]