Top 4 Movies

You know what we loved our first year in Africa?  Movies!  It was the only English-speaking oasis to which we could retreat.  Some of these movies were so fun and others helped us see the big picture of why we were putting ourselves through this transition:

Tom Hanks in The Terminal, for example, let us laugh about international travel and about being a foreigner in a strange place.

However, in Cast Away Tom Hanks's character was so identifiable in painful ways that I still cannot watch that movie again.  First year in Africa was the. wrong. time.  Later we would learn where to find food we recognized and how to enjoy food we didn't, but that first year felt way too much like being on a deserted island.  Random items would wash up on shore for his use in the movie, which was so very much like our receiving care packages or buying items from those who were leaving.  The whole time he is struggling for survival and rescue, the world is moving on without him.  It's just too real.  If you want to know what the first year in Africa felt like, I present to you Cast Away.

Fiddler on the Roof was surprisingly relatable as the father learns the way he has always done life is only one valid option and he must learn to adapt to a new world around him.

Finally, we watched the entire Christy series about a city girl who moved to Appalachia to teach in a rural school.  Though set in 1912, her struggles looked a lot like ours.  Therefore, her overwhelming victories and growing love for her neighbors gave us hope.

If you or someone you know ever make a cultural transition, keep these movies in mind.