{"id":1705,"date":"2010-11-01T16:32:01","date_gmt":"2010-11-01T06:32:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/?p=1705"},"modified":"2010-11-12T20:26:20","modified_gmt":"2010-11-12T10:26:20","slug":"the-new-normal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/2010\/11\/01\/the-new-normal\/","title":{"rendered":"The New Normal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When we leave Papua New Guinea and head back to the States in the middle of November, we will have been here just a few weeks short of a year.\u00a0 In thinking back through our first year on the field and in anticipation of adjusting back to U.S. culture, we thought we&#8217;d share with you some funny things that have become normal for us!\u00a0 Enjoy!\u00a0\u00a0 And feel free to send us a <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/contact\/\">message<\/a> and tell us which one is your favorite.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>Things we&#8217;ve gotten used to here in PNG (in no particular order):<!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Driving on the other (left) side of the road<\/strong> &#8211; but, of course, depending on where the potholes are and how big they are, we still might drive on the right side of the road too &#8211; there are no center lines on most roads and definitely no rules about when you can and can&#8217;t pass someone\n<p><figure id=\"attachment_1711\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1711\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/files\/2010\/11\/DSCN0533.JPG\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1711\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/files\/2010\/11\/DSCN0533-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Hopping on the 206\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/files\/2010\/11\/DSCN0533-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/files\/2010\/11\/DSCN0533-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/files\/2010\/11\/DSCN0533.JPG 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1711\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hopping on the 206<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li>\n<li><strong>Watching everyone get frisked by the security guards when they leave a store<\/strong> &#8211; it hasn&#8217;t happened to us, yet!\u00a0 White people never steal things, right?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Having a small airplane be the mode of transportation to get to doctor&#8217;s appointments <\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Going to town to buy _______ <\/strong> (it&#8217;s possible to fill in the blank with many things &#8211; cheese, spaghetti sauce, skim milk, mayonnaise, crackers&#8230;) <strong>and not being able to find it at <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">any<\/span> of the stores<\/strong> &#8211; just yesterday we couldn&#8217;t find any mayo or spaghetti sauce but we did find Pringles potato chips &#8211; the choice of flavors didn&#8217;t sound too appealing though\u00a0 &#8211; seaweed, blueberry and hazelnut, soft-shelled crab!!!\u00a0 We passed on those!<\/li>\n<li><strong>Seeing more tennis shoes hanging from telephone lines than on people&#8217;s feet<\/strong> &#8211; okay, maybe this is a little exaggeration, but seeing someone wearing tennis shoes is not very common &#8211; some people wear flip-flops but the majority are barefoot &#8211; the stores here definitely don&#8217;t have the <em>&#8220;no shirt, no shoes, no service&#8221;<\/em> rule!\n<p><figure id=\"attachment_1709\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1709\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/files\/2010\/11\/DSCN2470.JPG\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1709\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/files\/2010\/11\/DSCN2470-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Can you find the tree frog?\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/files\/2010\/11\/DSCN2470-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/files\/2010\/11\/DSCN2470-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/files\/2010\/11\/DSCN2470.JPG 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1709\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Can you find the tree frog?<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li>\n<li><strong>New favorite snacks for the boys<\/strong> &#8211; bush crackers, Solo (a kind of lemonade-like pop), Twisties (similar to Cheetos) , Scotch fingers (shortbread type cookie)&#8230;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Not being able to return anything that you buy from the store<\/strong> &#8211; if you buy something then get home and find out it&#8217;s broken, too bad!<\/li>\n<li><strong>Being able to go out and cut down a banana tree to get a whole stalk of fresh bananas <\/strong>(and sometimes finding a little green tree frog hiding there) <strong>or having one of the boys shinny up a papaya tree to get a ripe papaya<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Hearing the birds chirp and sing at all hours of the night and day<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Being careful where you plug things in &#8211; <\/strong>the voltage is different here and it &#8220;wanders&#8221; too.\u00a0 Many computers have been killed as a result!<\/li>\n<li><strong>Driving home from town and having the road filled with people &#8211; <\/strong>and then having those same people look at you with surprise that they are in your way &#8211; &#8220;What&#8217;s a car doing driving on this road?\u00a0 Isn&#8217;t the road for walking on?&#8221;\n<p><figure id=\"attachment_1719\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1719\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/files\/2010\/11\/DSCN0765.JPG\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1719\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/files\/2010\/11\/DSCN0765-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"&quot;Here, this knife should occupy you while I work in the garden!&quot;\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/files\/2010\/11\/DSCN0765-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/files\/2010\/11\/DSCN0765-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/files\/2010\/11\/DSCN0765.JPG 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1719\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">&quot;Here, this knife should occupy you while I work in the garden!&quot;<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li>\n<li><strong>Seeing small children with very large knives and machetes<\/strong> &#8211; and seeing fires set along the road, in a field or pretty much anywhere is nothing to worry about<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ants everywhere<\/strong> &#8211; crawling across our computer screen and keyboard, on our toothbrushes, in trails on the walls and in our cupboards, in our soup sometimes, pretty much everywhere &#8211; we keep them around because they&#8217;re cheap pets for the boys!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And the list could go on&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>All this and much more encompasses what the <em>new normal<\/em> has become for our family.\u00a0 <strong>And that normal is about to change again as we return to the U.S.!!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When we leave Papua New Guinea and head back to the States in the middle of November, we will have been here just a few weeks short of a year.\u00a0 In thinking back through our first year on the field and in anticipation of adjusting back to U.S. culture, we thought we&#8217;d share with you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":392,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1923],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1705","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-family","7":"category-png-culture","8":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/392"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1705\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}