Coming home from Argentina has been one of the hardest things I have ever done and I didn’t do it well, rather, I let it happen to me and I relinquished all control over my own life. I adapted so easily and so well to being in Argentina, in my head I made Argentina my home and I became Argentinian, I was not ready to come home. During our last week of outreach we met to talk about how we all felt about going home, I remember feeling genuinely confused and thinking ‘this is my home now, I am an Argentine’. My ability to adapt to other cultures is a gift, I am sure of it. But I have not yet mastered the art of adapting back to my own culture!
I was shocked by our overabundance in the UK. At every meal there is more than enough for second helpings and left over’s and the food is always really tasty. Whilst in Argentina I lost my appetite, I could only eat what was available and when it was available, I had no choice or control, food became a secondary thing in life that I wasn’t particularly fussed about. Then I come home to breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner, dessert, evening snack…. It was too overwhelming, I regained the stone I lost in Argentina rather rapidly! And it’s true for all other areas of life, not just food, we have an extravagant overabundance yet we are ungrateful, complacent and wasteful (I am generalising and am aware that this may not be the case for many of us making lifestyle changes due to the current recession).
In Argentina we walk, hitch and take public transport everywhere, this adds up to a lot of mileage for the old legs, it also means that being fit is a necessity and a natural part of the lifestyle. When I got home I found myself in a village in the middle of nowhere with my dad’s car available to me if I wanted to borrow it so that I didn’t have to walk anywhere, I had to remember to force myself to go out for exercise, which seemed bizzare and pointless – walking with no goal in mind!
In Argentina time does exists but it is approached in a very different way! They are more lax about specific time and dates, they seem carefree and relaxed. When we got back to the UK we had 2 weeks of endless meetings… meetings to de-brief, meetings to share and compare latest news within YWAM York, meetings to plan the year ahead… schedules, deadlines, STRESS!!!
I loved the language, I loved learning Argentinian Spanish, I loved pronouncing ‘ll’ as ‘sh’ and I still do that even when I read in English and Welsh. My brain shifted and now it has to shift back! It’s such a shame, I don’t want to loose or waste the language I learnt out there. But there’s no point holding on to it if I never return!
Transition is tough!
Coming ‘home’ was a huge shock to the system! Thank God that my citizenship is in heaven and not bound to an earthly location or to one group of people!






