Adjusting To New Culture And Simple Living Situation.

"When I seriously thought about what I was going to do in this unrewarding spot for eighteen more months, it sent me spinning into a real depression. I locked myself in my room for three days and read Ian Fleming novels and drank about five gallons of coffee. In the afternoons when the little kids knocked at the door, I held my breath until they went away. I had thought that I could move into a completely different culture and, if not love it, at least accept it enough that I could do the job I had been trained for. It came as an ego-shriveling shock to discover after the first month that I wasn't doing much of anything but reacting naively and emotionally to the poverty around me. Then little by little I began, however superficially, to become involved with the life of the town."(Living Poor. A Peace Corps Chronicle. Moritz Thomsen. Pg 35-36)