You know we've been in Haiti too long when...

1)...our daughter's butt is more tan than my arm.

2)...I've finally started referring to MYSELF as gwo vant like everyone else, the Creole term for "pregnant"...literally translatted: BIG BELLY.

Yep, I am 25 weeks Big Belly with a baby whose gender, when joyfully announced in front of a congregation Sunday, was literally and loudly "BOOOOO-d."

3)...you start to think it's NORMAL to hold presidential elections in mid-November and still not have a president by mid-February.

4)...a visiting professor has to point out to you that having students named "Brave", "Excellent", "Divided Heart", "Good Man", and "Napoleon" in your class is unique.

5)...a visiting team brings us a small tub of sour cream, which we just stare at and dream about for 48 hours until we can think of a recipe worthy of being dolloped by such bliss.  This entire meal was created for this tiny bowl of sour cream.  Then I licked the bowl.  And the spoon.  And the foil lid.

They say when you're iron deficient, you actually crave eating dirt.  Well, living in a country that by and large has NO consistent electricity...so no refrigeration...so no demand for refrigerated products...so NO true dairy available...we crave dairy year round.  

We drink powdered milk and order in a 5 lb bag of shredded cheddar cheese each year.  That. Is. It.

And this glorious tub of sour cream.

6)...I manage all the finances for a Biblical seminary, and don't find it weird that every month I'm entering line items such as : Cow.  Bleach for Cholera.  Extra rice for lockdown due to political rioting.  Belo to clinic for soccer injury.  Machete.  

7)...Lily has to use the restroom during a church service, and neither she nor I even blink to join several other congregants of both genders in the "pee corner" of the yard.  Lily has actually started waving to those around her while she goes, overjoyed to be taking part in a community activity.

8)...A group of visitors from Pennsylvania come to tour the Seminary last week, and my first reaction upon meeting these strangers was to routinely kiss them...which they didn't appreciate.

9)...thanks to number 6 ("cow"), a group of friends, at 6:30 am, bring us a steaming bowl of garlic cow liver and boiled plantain.  (Matt and I just can't do it.  Gertha and Lily lick it clean.)

10)...my second and third year students ask why our English book has an exercise on "How to Resolve Issues with Your Neighbors, even if You Don't Know Their Names", and I realize how CRAZY that is.

I lived in the same house my entire life, and I embarrassingly had to tell the guys, who not only know their neighbor's names, but also their eating habits, hear every conversation, see everything, know what they believe, etc...that I don't even know WHO lives in the house to the left of mine in the States.  Or across the street.

I blamed it on all kinds of things...garages making it possible not to ever actually be OUTSIDE of your house, a culture based on not trusting strangers and on privacy, isolation, houses being more spread out, having closed windows on houses due to the weather, meaning that neighbors can't hear every word...but after all these years of living with a night-watchman who talks to us through our bedroom window when he's bored, hanging our laundry out in the center of the compound and unintentionally overhearing everyone else's Skype conversations..."our" culture is starting to seem weird.

11)...someone yells "BLANC!", and I stop everything to look around and see who the "foreigner" is.

12)...my 3rd level students beg, "Teacher, PLEASE, speak in ENGLISH!"...and I thought I WAS

13)...we go on a long-awaited date to town, anxious for some alone time, and end up with a car full of people all the way there and back.  It used to be wild to recognize anyone along the road waiting for a tap-tap (public transportation.) Now, we seem to know someone at every stop :)

14)...your daughter thinks it's normal to speak one language with some people and an entirely different language with other people.  

We really think Lily believes that life comes in two languages, and that learning to speak means learning to speak 2 ways.  She just follows our lead, speaking Creole with those we speak Creole with and speaking English with those we speak English with.  

15)...NOT being completely comfortable, able and welcomed to talk about Jesus at the grocery store, in school, on the corner, in people's yards, to strangers in your car, to other people's children, to people of other religions, to leaders of other religions... just seems crazy!