It amazes me how difficult even the most simple tasks are when removed from a familiar/habitual context. For instance, the very basic act of getting home by taxi and getting into my home (which I’ve done HUNDREDS of times over the last 7 years) took me WELL over an hour… and this is from when I was on the street where I am staying. I assumed (incorrectly) that the numbers went up and that all even number addresses would be on one side of the street, and odds on the other. Thus, when looking for 83 Loresho Crescent, I thought I was almost home when I saw 81 and 92. However, the numbers then jumped up to 97 then down to 74 then up to 115. I realized then that I had totally found the address by dumb luck the prior night when I was coming in from the airport, and I wasn’t sure exactly how to find it. What ensued was at least 45 minutes of driving up and down my poorly lit (but gated and therefore safe) street, inquiring about the location of number 83 to every security guard in the neighborhood, none of whom were able to give exact directions (although I did get a good review of the Swahili locatives and words for across from/next to etc.). Eventually, we found a guard who knew the friends I am staying with (“Oh, you stay with Mr. Carlos!”), and he was able to send us practically back to where we had started (of course, why wouldn’t 83 be RIGHT BESIDE 72). Upon getting inside, it took me another 15 minutes to unlock both of the locks (one a kind of tricky padlock and the other an old-school key with key-hole.

I’m up in the air as to how much this difficulty is due to the fact that the new context is a bit “alien” or foreign and how it much it is due to just being somewhere new. What leads me to believe that it is at least somewhat due to the degree of differentness is that I can’t imagine myself having this much trouble if I just picked up and moved to Atlanta, Topeka, or Sheboygan-in any of those cities, I have a good expectation of what kind of lighting, signage and locks I’d encounter and would be able to navigate that very easily, without a lot of effort. However, even subtle and small differences in how houses and neighborhoods are set up here were enough to require IMMENSE amounts of effort and concentration. I imagine that through time, this will become internalized, but until then it seems like even the most mundane details of daily life will be epic quests.