When Aisha stepped off the plane, the air felt thinner, sharper, like it carried rules she hadn’t learned yet. Back home, the airport was a chorus—families arguing lovingly, vendors shouting prices, laughter spilling into every corner. Here, people moved in quiet lines, eyes fixed forward, apologies whispered like secrets.
On her first morning, Aisha greeted the bus driver with a bright “Good morning!” He blinked, startled, then nodded once. She sat down, heat rising to her face, wondering if friendliness was a language she had suddenly forgotten how to speak. In her old neighborhood, silence meant trouble. Here, silence seemed to mean respect.
The food confused her most. Meals arrived neatly separated, flavors polite and restrained. She missed the way spices back home argued loudly on her tongue, how food demanded attention. When she asked for chili sauce, the server warned her twice. It barely burned.
At work, she struggled with meetings where people spoke in careful turns. No one interrupted, no one overlapped. Ideas floated gently instead of colliding. Aisha held back, afraid her enthusiasm would sound like chaos. Each evening, she replayed conversations in her head, measuring every word she had said too loudly, every laugh that rang too long.
But culture shock, she learned, cuts both ways. One afternoon, a coworker invited her for coffee and, hesitantly, asked about her home. Aisha told stories—of music that spilled into streets, of neighbors who borrowed sugar and stayed for dinner. The coworker listened, eyes widening, smiling.
Weeks later, the bus driver smiled back. The coffee tasted less foreign. Aisha learned when to soften her voice and when to let it rise. She realized culture shock wasn’t about losing herself—it was about stretching. Like a muscle sore from new movement, she was growing, learning how to belong in more than one way at once.
and then 