Normal

It's been a while since the last post, and for those wondering, no, I'm not dead. The thing is, the longer I'm here the harder it becomes to find material interesting enough that I consider it "blog worthy." I remember my first few months in country, taking everything in all at once. Everything I saw was either odd, fascinating, disturbing, or often, simply unbelievable. Everyday was sure to offer another experience entirely new to me. But somewhere within that first year, things started to change. Routines were formed, events became predictable, and life began to move (somewhat) smoothly. At first, the sight of spiders in my house put me on the warpath, exterminating the eight legged insects left and right. I remember once watching over 100 baby spiders crawling up my kitchen wall and futiley attempted to squash them all. But after some time the task seemed somewhat tedious. And after a conference of war, terms of peace were formed. They promised to do their best to catch any and all flying insects while remaining mostly out of the way in corners and nooks. This has been accepted, although there have been times these terms have been breached. I saw a large huntsman spider as big as my hand waiting conspicuously by my shoes so I grabbed my lacrosse stick and gave it a good slap and then watched it curl into a small ball as it died. Another day as if in retaliation, while walking out of my door another huge huntsman spider landed on my head. I quickly knocked him off and went to grab my lacrosse. When I came back I delivered the death blow with one swing, hoping this would be a lesson to all other spiders watching. However, my huntsman battles were far from over. One day while eating at a small restaurant I went to put on my jackets but couldn't get my left arm through the sleeve. When I pulled it out there was another huge huntsman perched on my hand. I quickly flung it off and the whole place went into an uproar. One of the workers came and quickly killed it with a stick. So now along with knocking spiders out of my shoes I'm sure to check through my jackets sleeves as well. It seems that the spiders have been somewhat angry about the deaths of their comrades and have been staging guerrilla attacks on me as I sleep, but after leaving me with a handful of bites they seemed to have been appeased, and peace has been restored, for the moment. So as I walk from room to room I nod to one spider or another and remind them to respect the established boundaries. At this point, not seeing them would be strange, as their presence has simply become normal. Like the spiders, almost everything now seems absolutely normal to me, (with the exception that is of a cobra that surprised me one morning by slithering up onto my porch while I was doing laundry). But most other things now, like someone transporting a couch on the end of a motorcycle seems like the most practical thing to do. Eating meals with my hands make the most sense at this point and cutlery just seems excessive. Watching kids run behind some sort of wheel, keeping it moving by pushing it with a stick looks like tons of fun. What I once considered strange and foreign now at times seems to be all I know. Even in my brief vacation to Europe I remember craving the local food I find in my village. The life I once knew and longed for is now only a distant memory. Integration was without a doubt quite a challenge, but as I look at what lies ahead, I can see that disintegration (word choice?) may prove to be even more challenging.