nôrməl

I think I’ve forgotten what is supposed to be normal. Normal? You ask. Yeah, you know… normal. That adjective that means “usual, typical, or expected.” nôrməl. Those things you do and see that seem so natural you don’t think twice about them. After 7 ½ months of living in Africa I think my standards of normal have shifted. Maybe. But who am I to say what is "usual, typical, or expected."

When I say normal I mean this:

• Living at a mission station with a high fence around it and a guard at the gate.
• Sleeping under a mosquito net.
• Morning runs past the president’s palace, along the river where the sun is rising and over a crowded mountain trail full of goats and Africans headed to work.
• Greeting everyone with a handshake and the subsequent questions of how they slept and how they and their family are doing.
• Skirts. Everyday.
• Sweatshirts and winter coats when the temperature drops below 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Ants. Everywhere.
• Sifting flour before cooking to get the bugs out.
• Having fresh fruit and vegetables brought to the door every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
• Hairdos that stick out all over.
• Blaming upset stomachs on worms and parasites.
• Squishing seven people (sometimes more) into a taxicab to get home from work.
• Bartering.
• Mangoes that cost 5 cents each.
• Powdered milk in a can.
• House help that does all the cleaning, laundry, and dishes three times a week.
• No electricity between 5am and 9am, 3pm and 6pm, and sometimes between Wednesday and Friday… give or take a few hours.
• Generator noise.
• Soldiers standing around with machine guns slung over their shoulders.
• Getting stared at for being white and staring at other people for the same reason.
• Using filtered water from a bottle for teeth brushing.
• No air-conditioning or TV.
• Eating peanuts out of a whiskey bottle.
• Palm trees, a mango tree, and a flowering plumeria tree outside my bedroom window.
• Daily trips to the swimming pool at the US Ambassador’s house.
• Potholes. Little boys standing beside potholes holding shovels and tin cups begging for money. And more potholes.
• Words that begin with mb, ng, and nz.
• Missionary parties that you have to bring your own food to and leave before 9pm.
• Kids with ripped clothes and 17-year-old mothers with naked babies.
• Ditches full of green slime.
• Grapefruit soda in glass bottles.
• Belgian Google.
• Stories about pets accidentally getting killed for food and stories about annoying flights with extra long layovers at sketch hotels in Cameroon all because an African tried to catch a free ride in the wheel well of the plane and got crushed to death by retracting landing tires wrecking the chance of the plane's smooth landing.

This is Africa. This is my normal… at least for a dozen more days. I’m forgetting what United States normal is. Sometimes I go into my empty kitchen pantry and flip on the light to remind myself what used to be my normal. The light is the only light in my house that comes on the second you flip the switch. Sometimes I turn it on and off several times really fast for the pure novelty of it. It’s hard to believe that in a couple weeks I’ll be back in the land of instant light, clean kids, dogs with leashes, and boneless-skinless chickens with price tags on them. Normal? The more I think about it, the less I know what normal is.