I went back to Sudan recently for a visit after fifteen years away from the country where I was born bred and got my education. Since leaving the country I resided, studied and worked in the UK. fifteen years have lapsed since I saw Sudan last. The experience of going back to the country and meeting the people who I knew and grew up with was mind blowing to say the least. Since my arrival in the UK fifteen years before I have not only being integrated into the British way of life, but started to increasingly see the world through British spectacles. The process of integration would by nature whip you into that line of thinking and behaviour. Academics, professional training, readings, being part of the political fray, having to have your personal views and having to possess the logic and the argument to defend those views and implement them rationally. All that by design or otherwise is part and parcel of the integration process, which would ultimately lead ones to alter the conduct and perceptions the person arrives with into the newly adopted society. That what I think has happened to me during all these long years. I have noticed a great deal of those changes and I have always found what I thought is the rational explanation to them. My experience shows that when ones arrives into a new community, life becomes one of continuous adaptation and comparison between the new life and the one left behind. However, there is one element I did not count for and pay enough attention to. That is the emotional me.
Among many things I have over the years, sometimes unnoticeably, trained myself or probably coerced it to do, is to adopt new behavioural responses to emotional situations. These are the ways which are expected of me in the work place, on the street and in my social interactions. I am not expected to react to the news of the death a colleague, for instance, in the same way I would do as a Sudanese living among my people in Sudan., I wouldn’t also expect my workplace mates to show their emotions to me the way my Sudanese mates would do in Sudan. Again, if I were to be dismissed from work, I would react differently and expect others to react or sympathise with me in a different way also. It is not only on those dramatic situations differences exist, they exist in every moment of our daily life. After all, life itself is indeed a continuum of those little emotional stands. The difference between the two societies in those aspects is enormous. All that struck me true and the harsh realisation of it couldn’t me more overwhelming upon my recent return to my old society after those fifteen years of absence.
I was engulfed in a sea of emotions upon my return. Every moment of my return became an emotional experience of one kind or another. As I was getting on with life while I was there, I have been observing the differences in all that and have also been observing my responses to those moments and draw comparisons between the way I would react to them if I were back in UK and the way I would have behave if I haven’t been away for all those years. To me, over there all forms of emotional expressions are in much more intensive use over there. I have had men crying as much as women do. Neighbours did cry upon meeting me as much as close relatives. The same goes to old friends, old classmates and the list goes on. People over there cry more, laugh more and have no problem showing frustration and anger publicly. Emotional expression is not only used more often, there is a communal dimension to it too. People take part in communal crying and laughter as much as they do on a less public situation. The emotional support provided to individuals under stressful situation and difficulties is great. That led me to contemplate on the emotional and psychological implications for individuals who grow up under such a social and emotional environment if they were to be detached from it. I am just wondering if the implications of such an attachment have really been fully explored.
Among many things I have over the years, sometimes unnoticeably, trained myself or probably coerced it to do, is to adopt new behavioural responses to emotional situations. These are the ways which are expected of me in the work place, on the street and in my social interactions. I am not expected to react to the news of the death a colleague, for instance, in the same way I would do as a Sudanese living among my people in Sudan., I wouldn’t also expect my workplace mates to show their emotions to me the way my Sudanese mates would do in Sudan. Again, if I were to be dismissed from work, I would react differently and expect others to react or sympathise with me in a different way also. It is not only on those dramatic situations differences exist, they exist in every moment of our daily life. After all, life itself is indeed a continuum of those little emotional stands. The difference between the two societies in those aspects is enormous. All that struck me true and the harsh realisation of it couldn’t me more overwhelming upon my recent return to my old society after those fifteen years of absence.
I was engulfed in a sea of emotions upon my return. Every moment of my return became an emotional experience of one kind or another. As I was getting on with life while I was there, I have been observing the differences in all that and have also been observing my responses to those moments and draw comparisons between the way I would react to them if I were back in UK and the way I would have behave if I haven’t been away for all those years. To me, over there all forms of emotional expressions are in much more intensive use over there. I have had men crying as much as women do. Neighbours did cry upon meeting me as much as close relatives. The same goes to old friends, old classmates and the list goes on. People over there cry more, laugh more and have no problem showing frustration and anger publicly. Emotional expression is not only used more often, there is a communal dimension to it too. People take part in communal crying and laughter as much as they do on a less public situation. The emotional support provided to individuals under stressful situation and difficulties is great. That led me to contemplate on the emotional and psychological implications for individuals who grow up under such a social and emotional environment if they were to be detached from it. I am just wondering if the implications of such an attachment have really been fully explored.
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