Shifting norms

My blog posts haven't been as frequent as of late. This is partly due to a good amount of travel taking me out of site, and partly due to the fact that January and February are pretty quiet months where work basically consists of hanging out with the kids in my summer camp classes. But I think there's also a third factor at work here: life in Peru seems more and more normal with every passing day.

When I first arrived here back in June, every day was full of new experiences and strange customs, so I had more blog material than I knew what to do with. Now, those things that initially seemed so strange have become commonplace. While I am still conscious that the Peruvian version of normal is very different than normal in U.S. life, I've grown used to the differences, and things that used to raise an eyebrow are no longer anything to look twice at.

What now most reminds me of the relative "strangeness" of my current lifestyle (compared to American norms) are my conversations with friends and family back home. I will off-handedly mention that you can't drink the tap water in Peru, and I'll be met with puzzled silence and a "wait, so what do you drink?" Boiling water and letting it cool in my clean water bucket every day has become such a habit that I forget that this standard Peruvian practice is so unheard of in the States. As my dad prepares for his big Peru trip in July, he's starting to really think about these things: "so, to clarify, if I'm taking a shower, I should not drink the shower water? Hmmm (frowning), I'll have to work on that."

It is nice to have the perspective of those at home to remind me that my new "normal" is nothing like the "normal" I knew nine months ago. With almost 3/4 of a year in Peru, and six months in Cajabamba, I've settled in here, and time just keeps flying by.