Normalcy exhaustion

I just realized how out of place I am going to feel during my retreat in the states as I was chasing a large tarantula away from my door with a machete on my way to the latrine, lighting this expedition with my headlamp.  And this is a normal event and did not even cause my pulse to raise or anything.  

Other events from this week, a normal week.

• A 10 year old boy nearly chopped his foot off with a machete, and no one took him to the hospital because both his parents were gone from the village and he was being watched by his fathers first wife.  No, not first as in before a divorce, as in polygamy.  The boy is now fine thanks to someone finally coming to me and getting some antiseptic and bandages, but I was floored when I found out that multiple wives is not only accepted in my village, but it was our newly elected chairman who has the two wives.  He is such a smart, hard working guy.  Even weirder, I understand.  The second wife is the sister of the first, and her husband died and she was left with 6 kids to feed and send to school.  Without a husband, children starve, and few single men here would marry a woman with children.  It made me wonder what I would do.
  

• I went to another wedding on Sunday.  Same family that I lived with, another daughter.  Flora is the third born and the third to get married.  It was a beautiful wedding, at least it was lovely until I almost ran smack into two severed pigs heads hanging from the ceiling as I walked through the kitchen area on my way to greet the bride.  Don’t worry, I have pictures, which can in no way capture the smell of animal carcass after 6 hours in a tropical climate with refrigeration.  Did I mention that Flora just turned sixteen?  Another surprise.  I guess she has been engaged for a year and a half now, so its about time.
  

• My lovely neighbors across the road got a new stereo system from one of their sons who work up in the city.  I cannot even describe how unbelievably loud it is, especially at 4am when their house is up getting ready to catch the bus.  Earplugs and a pillow over my head couldn’t even touch the thumping bass of punta rock that shook me awake at that ungodly hour.  
  

• The water pump was fixed, so I don’t have to haul buckets of water around anymore, woo hoo!
  

All this normalcy is wearing me out; I need a vacation.  One that doesn’t involved hauling my sheets down to the river and sweating over a rock in the sun for an hour just to have clean linens, a break from the 5am wake-up calls from people who want to borrow onions/envelopes/band-aids/pens/etc., and a respite from hot, crowded school buses that stop every 5 miles to let the drunks stumble off, piss on the side of the bus, and run into the shop to get more beer.  If I sound bitter and jaded, don’t be fooled.  I still love my life, I am just going to love it a lot more after a 3 week break.