The Little Things

While living abroad definitely comes with its fair share of large changes, I honestly think that for me, it is the smallest things that I notice the most, rather than the fact that hey, people are gawking at me everywhere I go, and hey, I ate rice and beans for about the 15^th time this week.

It is searching your bed nightly for scorpions, cockroaches and spiders.

It is shaking out your clothing for the same reason.

It is not drinking out of the faucet.

It is being wary of what you put in your mouth, questioning whether or not you trust the source of your fruit and veggies.

It is pouring your water out of a massive 5-gallon jug.

It is the frequent power outages, and walking around with a headlight affixed to your body once the darkness sets it.

It is the constant stream of insects through your house.

It is the double packaging of all your foods so that those insects don’t get to it.

It is the inability to flush your toilet paper.

It is the lighting of your janky stove with equally janky matches, hoping every time you will not singe your arm hair or your eyebrows.

I’ll admit that these things, at times, wear on me. At the same time, they soon become routine. A week in, you are not so scared to light the oven. Suddenly, that nightly bed and clothing check becomes reality. Eventually, you stop going to the faucet for water. At a certain point, you decide you can’t eat nothing, and just start eating stuff and crossing your fingers. Somewhere along the line, you appreciate that perhaps the lifting of the 5-gallon jug every day will give you more defined arms, something that is certainly not going to happen from playing tennis in Belize. At some point, you catch an image of yourself with your headlamp resting on your head like a headband while in a house and not out in the wilds, and you laugh. The trail of ants through your bedroom and bathroom ultimately becomes just another neighbor, your once full-hearted attempts to eradicate them subsiding to the belief that really, it is not like the ants are going to do anything to you (not the same for the cockroaches). And, just like I wrote about here, this stuff becomes your new reality. Yes, daily life is harder and comes with more challenges, but it usually comes with pretty big rewards, too.

It is the smiles and cheers you garner from young Mayan boys as you follow their lead and jump 25 feet into roaring water.

It is the afternoons in your hammock, listening to the waves and reading.

It is the evening spent with expats from 5 different countries as you have discussions that are both serious and hilarious.

It is the strong friendships you make with people you’ve only known for a month or two, and all the adventures you share.

It is a 10-hour slog through a relatively undiscovered (and definitely unmapped) jungle swamp.

It is the cry of victory as you kill what you are certain is the last cockroach in your house (always a bit premature, it seems).

It is the satisfaction that you have somehow created a fairly edible meal with meager food and cooking preparation.

It is the calls from your new neighbors and acquaintances as you bike through town.

And with those rewards, the harder, little stuff seems more bearable. You’ll always be disgusted by the toilet paper thing, though.