Culture Acclimation

I was thinking about it the other day and realized that I've come a long way in acclimating to life in Kenya. There are things that are just part of normal life that I don't really even think about anymore. But when I took just a few minutes to think about them I realized they may not be quite so normal in America.

• It feels really weird if I'm not sleeping under a mosquito net
• I normally sleep through the roosters making a ruckus at 1AM, 3AM, 5AM and all other crazy hours that roosters decide to make ruckuses
• When hearing a friend mention doing dishes between about ten other things I wonder to myself "How the heck did she have time to wash the dishes?" Um, Michelle, it's this basic machine they have in the developed world called a dishwasher!
• I never drink water unless it has come out of the ELI deep-borehole, has been treated with bleach, was boiled or is in a sealed and approved water bottle.
• My husband and I routinely take de-worming medicine a few times a year.
  
• I asked my friend if she warms her water before using it for a sinus rinse. She was like "Uh yeah, I turn on the warm tap." I no longer think about the fact that I need to use bottled water which I then warm on my stove.
• I sleep with a flashlight under my pillow.
• I always carry toilet paper, hand-sanitizer and a flashlight in my purse.
• If my patient has a fever and a headache I assume it is malaria until proven otherwise. Although now that I think about it, there is a good chance that it could be typhoid.
  
• Straining and boiling the milk that came fresh from the cow is part of my daily routine.
• At night I check for big lizards before entering the outhouse.
• I've learned to measure the worth of a cat by how many rats and/or snakes he/she has killed.
• The other day when watching an American movie I noticed that they were driving on the right side of the rode which seemed odd at the moment.
• I say sawa (okay) and pole (sorry) all the time, even when speaking to visiting Americans who don't speak any Swahili.
• I forget that people use something other than their laptop computer to watch movies.
  

I'm sure that there are many many more but those are just a few off the top of my head.