The honeymoon phase

When learning about cross-cultural adjustments before going overseas, I remember reading about four main stages. There is the initial honeymoon stage when everything is new, interesting, and you're just in love with it all. And then one day you wake up and realize that you have abruptly moved into the acute misery stage, which eventually gives way to the "I think I will make it...maybe..." stage (which has a more official name, but I've forgotten most everything I've ever learned, that name included). Finally, you end up at a functional stage where you appreciate the culture, can even see some ways in which it's better than your home culture, and can live and work in your new home, even if there are some aspects of it that you might never really like.

They say the same stages are often true for re-entry - coming back to your home country after extended time away. If so, I'm definitely still in the honeymoon stage of things. America seems really fabulous to me! (Side note, to make sure y'all don't misunderstand me here: I can honestly say I liked, really honestly liked, living in Tanzania and felt it was our home, and saying America is fabulous in the following ways doesn't mean Tanzania isn't fabulous in other ways. But this post is about the US of A, so I'm focusing on that here.)

Let me tell you about some things that I think are pretty amazing about my new home:

• Shopping carts! I can go to the grocery store with Zarya, put her in the seat of the cart and zip through the store collecting stuff. I don't have to carry my stuff OR her, much less both! And, get this - nobody ever grabs her out of the cart. No wonder Zarya and I find shopping in the States to be a very low-stress experience.
• Church childcare! At the lovely church we've found here in Indiana, PA, they have rooms full of toys and responsible adults who play with your kids while you sit in the service during the sermon. She loves it, and runs straight to her classroom door when I take her back there.
• Boneless, skinless chicken breasts! So the other night for dinner I got out some chicken, which I had purchased quite cheaply, cut it into pieces while it was still raw, put it in a frying pan and stirred it around until it was cooked, and then we ate it without needing a knife. The whole thing took mere minutes. I still can't get over how very, very quick it is to make meals here.
• Dishwashers! The cutting board on which I'd cut that chicken - it went into a machine that sanitized it. I'm not joking here, folks, there really are machines that wash your dishes for you.
• Carpet! We spent our first weeks here lolling around on the floor like cats, having carpet was that exciting.
• Clean water! It's such a time-saver to have clean water coming straight out of the tap. No more having to boil and cool Zarya's bath water every day, no more needing to remember to fill our drinking water filter all the time, no more having to thoroughly dry your hands after washing them. I still feel gleeful when I'm cooking something and want to use the same utensil for one thing as I did for another earlier,  like sharing a knife between onions and carrots or something, all I have to do is just rinse it off and keep on going. Can you imagine - tap water and food get mixed and I don't wonder if we're going to get sick because of it! I can now wipe my counters with a wet dishcloth, wash Zarya's hands after she eats something messy, and rinse my toothbrush under the tap. Oh, and do you want to know a secret about how luxuriously over the top life here really is? Don't tell, but I've heard it said that Americans even flush their toilets and water their lawns with drinking water! 
• Parks! We can go outside and play. I hope that I always appreciate what a precious gift it is to live somewhere with public parks and playgrounds. This morning we went on a walk over a hill and through some woods, went past a little lake, ran around in big, grassy fields, saw daffodils, and played on a safe, clean playground. It was the most wonderful way to spend a Saturday morning as a family! God bless you, America. Life here can be pretty good.