What is 'normal' anyway??

When I first moved in with my host family, everything was new. I had a lot of ‘firsts’ and fun stories to relate. Now it is much more interesting for me to think about what has become ‘normal’: what I expect to see during my week.

Waiting for the chickens (ducks/sheep/goats/cows/horses) to cross the road. Depending on your vehicle and the size of the animal this can actually be an very important part of defensive driving.

Ivorians employ a remarkably loud kissing noise to grab peoples attention. You hear it when you are walking along any public area, especially in the market. When I first arrived to this country, my first few times into market I was unaware that this was used as a harmless attention seeking noise, and so I was determined to ignore all of the Ivorians (I thought were) flirting with me…now, I know more likely they want to sell me something.

In the states I would to respond to either Caitlin or CJ (for some special people I would even respond to Cait/Caitie); then I came here and received two new names: Julia and Nibonténé. At my home here (and in most Senoufo homes) when someone calls you, you respond immediatly with the Senoufo equivalent of 'Yes!' (which is really difficult to spell out, its a kind of groan: Ehhnnn is probably the closest way to write it). So when someone calls out Julia or Nibonténé at home it is rude if I don't immediatly reply, which means I was quickly trained to respond when I heard them. My Ivoirian names feel more 'normal' now than Caitiln does.

Ivorian modesty. For women this includes knees always covered, usually by a skirt or pagne (a rectangular cloth wrapped around the waist like a skirt.), although sometimes pants are worn too, depending on how traditional the person is. For breastfeeding mothers or older ladies, the shirt doesn’t really need to cover everything up top. It’s gotten to the point where I feel scandalized when I see a woman’s knees, but barely blink when she forgets to readjust her shirt after her baby’s done breastfeeding.

Working with Ezekiel at the dispensary means that I have become very used to seeing sick HIV patients. The other day a woman brought in a skinny little (HIV positive) 3 year old girl, not her actual daughter, but she's taking care of her since her mom died (most likely from AIDS as well). It took more than 15 minutes to take a blood sample, but for the most part the little girl was silent despite the needle sticking in her arm. I tried to smile and play with the little one, but she was determined to ignore me (white=scary for most kids here). After she and her 'mom' left, I realized the sadness of this little girls story used to surprise me, and while it's still incredibly sad, it's becoming a little too common to be shocked anymore.

At least once a week I receive a marriage proposal or at least an articulation of being interested. “Are you married?” is a question I hear often. There is one guy who works in the family store who greatly desires for me to marry an Ivorian. He says he has 4 lined up, that way if I don’t like his first option there’s 3 more choices. My usual response is I have 3 papa’s for them to ask: my host dad, Rod (the JourneyCorps director) and my father in the states. If they can get all three of them to agree, then we’ll talk.

If you want to know about Ivorian cuisine I need only 3 words: rice and sauce. There are alternatives made from pounded corn or ignames (a potato-like large root), but there is almost never a day where I don’t eat rice. In fact rice can easily be the main part of all three meals of the day; rice porridge, called bruit, for breakfast and rice with sauce for lunch and dinner. Thankfully there are many different types of sauce.

Going to the bathroom in a hole in the ground. Don’t really need to elaborate here, although this does include carrying toilet paper and hand sanitizer everywhere.

Outside of every house there is a pile of flipflops. To keep the floors from getting too dirty everyone takes off their shoes when entering a house. Before I had to remind myself to take off my shoes before walking inside, now it's second nature. If I don't take them off for some reason I start to feel funny.


And yet, of course there are always going to be surprises. Things I just wasn’t expecting to see. For instance, yesterday when I came home this is what greeted me:

A ton of fish from Abidjan that Sara is going to sell at the market. They were still a little moist so she laid them out to dry. It is more dried fish than I really ever needed to see (and smell) at one time. Life sure isn't boring even if some things become commonplace.