Patience, Perspective, and Pungent Smells

We’ve all been learning a lot about patience and perspective as we travel across the world. Seeing how people in other countries live has opened our eyes to privileges we didn’t even realize we had. We’ve been pushed beyond our comfort zone in numerous situations, and right now is the most uncomfortable yet. Contributing to that discomfort here are some very pungent smells, among other things.

When You Have No Choice But To Be Patient

The travel days are always exhausting, with an abundance of waiting around. Once we arrive, we have to patiently figure out how the appliances work and where to get food. When you’re doing most things together, there’s a lot of accommodating everyone’s needs. What your teenage daughter needs is very different from your 11 year old son. When you don’t speak the language in a country communicating can be hard and frustrating.

Our patience is being pushed to its limits right now. The limited space in our condo requires a lot of waiting. If someone opens the fridge you can’t get to the trash can. The fancy washer/dryer combo has a very low capacity and estimated 8 hours to complete our first load of laundry. You read that right – 8 hours! There is only one bathroom and riding the elevator 17 floors with multiple stops takes awhile. In general, we just seem to bump into each other a lot moving around our tiny condo, and that requires patience too!

Somewhere Between Grateful and Guilty

Before even starting this adventure we knew that we as Americans were privileged. We often talk about what we are grateful for and try not to take things for granted. I am learning here that our privilege reaches beyond things we’ve never even had to think about. One of those is safe drinking water. The tap water here is not drinkable. We buy huge bottles of water to refill our water bottles, and have a bottle in the bathroom for brushing our teeth. We remind the kids often not to open their mouths when taking a shower.

Braxton made a friend (Aljon) the first day we were here and has played with him every day since. He is the sweetest little boy, and he and Braxton share a love of bugs. Braxton said he often talks about trying to help his family get money, and he told us he walks to school to save money.

I’ve already mentioned the poverty we witnessed when we first arrived. Dave and I saw kids begging for money on the street while we walked to the mall. I thought to myself, should I feel grateful that I can walk to the mall to buy a basketball we will only use for the 4 week we are here, or guilty? Alexis told me she wanted some new shirts, but feels guilty wanting that when she sees Braxton’s friend with so little. I often wonder how we can take what we are learning home with us, and not just fall back into our old privileged lives.

Olfactory Overload

Back in Costa Rica I coined the term new place/new smell blues. There I was referring to our actual condo, here the smell is outside the condo. Each time we walk out of our condo there is a different smell in the hallway. We’ve made it a game trying to guess what we are smelling. Sometimes we think it’s fried chicken, sometimes garlic, maybe soy sauce? Regardless of what it is, it’s a bit of a sensory overload that I’m not sure I will ever get used to.

There are an abundance of smells outside too. There’s sometimes a sulfur smell by the basketball court that almost makes me gag. The air quality here is pretty awful. This picture of us flying over Manila really shows the density of the smog. Our eyes itch and we all have a slight headache. We are extremely spoiled with our crisp, clean Colorado air back home!

We started our school routine back up today. We’re trying a slightly different schedule with school starting later so we can spend time outside before it’s super hot. None of us are feeling 100%. I think it’s a combination of weird food, bad air quality, and just overall stress. We’re trying to focus on the things we know make us feel good – clean eating (as much as we can with foreign food), getting exercise and enough sleep. Each of us has already said “I quit” multiple times. It’s become an ongoing joke of ours, and sometimes all you can do is laugh. Or cry. Or both!