One year today



Leaving Johannesburg, 27 August 2010

It’s been a year today exactly since we arrived on the island.  

After a really late night last night (good 40^th birthday party) and a very early start (5.30am mountain biking on Peter Island) I’m not feeling very sparkly, in fact I’m downright shattered. So here’s a collection of some fairly random thoughts about the last year which touch on a few themes:    

Meteorology

We arrived on-island last year the day before Hurricane Earl (category 4) hit and we’ve just gone through another hurricane this  week (Irene – category 1). One already feels like a bit of an old-hand and my knowledge of meteorology has exponentially increased alongside tropical waves and depressions.

Weather in the Caribbean is generally very predictable:  Hot, Freaking Hot, 80 to 100% humidity, wind, rain, storms and flash floods  - apart from at Christmas when one’s  mother is visiting, and Cape Town, notorious for variable weather at Christmas time, was warmer….but that also has a certain predictability to it. 

Isolated enough to be more connected

Gone are the Robinson Crusoe days when living on an island meant being a castaway. The reality of high-speed broadband internet ( a phenomenon not yet fully experienced  in South Africa) means that our internet connection is on day and night, and our computers are our main source of everything: news, communication, shopping, entertainment and education.

So much so, I feel that a large part of this year has seen me gorging on the internet and catching up on what I used to think was only useful for online banking. We watch BBC live with our iPlayer, blast out BBC Radio 3 and 5FM on streaming audio and  read the New York Times online. We Google absolutely everything under the sun,  follow Facebook, scan the weather radars and watch the satellites and most late afternoons will find me on the sofa on the balcony, laptop on my knee and a glass of Pinot Grigio beside me. I feel enormously connected to the rest of the world and not in the least bit marooned.   

Finite living

I read a blog the other day of a fellow South African gal who moved to Austen, Texas about the same time that we moved here. She wrote that life was settling down and that she had  “ found a doctor, a dentist, a hairdresser, a chemist, a nail bar, a eyebrow bar, a paediatrician”  and that familiarity was bringing normality. Unfortunately I have not found many of these as most of them don’t even exist on the island – but I have found a flipping good cleaner – which I would happily trade all of the above  for (especially the eyebrow bar).

Living on an island means that pretty much everything is finite. Eventually you will meet and get to know just about everyone and them you. They will know everything about you, your children, your habits, your work and your plans. Likewise money is also finite here and this place is very expensive to live. So when the cash runs at out by the end of the month just about the only option open is to ask the children for their pocket money back.  Eventually we will also know every nook and cranny of this place. Space on an island is also finite.

I find all of this strangely reassuring. It’s simple and gives one an excellent platform for a good life. Of course it becomes claustrophobic and too intense sometimes and we all whinge and moan about the same old things but it’s not the ‘rat race’ , more like a playpen.

Are the children better off?

I ‘m no child psychologist and the children have adapted very quickly to constantly interrupting me and standing on my feet like I don’t really exist in human body form ( ie already taken for granted) but I do think children are probably only happy when you are. It’s not something to measure or even see, but I sense that as I start living a life that I enjoy – the children are secure that a saner mother is a good thing and that having a chef as a dad is super-cool.

Having endless sun-filled days sailing, playing tennis, catching lizards and chasing chickens dosn’t hurt either.

The Burning Question unanswered

“Was this the right move?”  people tentatively ask us. Will we survive all of this without bankrupting ourselves, getting divorced and eking out a marginal existence on the fringes of civilisation?

Occasionally it does feel like all of the above may apply, but the answer to whether this was the right thing to do for our family, is unequivocally, yes but I couldn’t really tell you why.

We’ve never worked so hard in our lives before, Tyler is rarely around on the weekends, I continue to resent housework (although it does seem to be getting easier) and we really do live on a scruffy third world dot which can drive one bats.   

We only have even more hard work to look forward to as our new business kicks in and it’s going to take us at least 2 years before we can move into our own home. It’s not for the faint-hearted and it is by no means an ‘opt-out’ type lifestyle, as we slave to put the kids through international school and worry about things like medical insurance.

It’s been tough and harder than we could ever have imagined. Just after I had burnt my back and Tyler had twisted his leg, we both slipped badly on the slimy driveway after torrential rain had caused more power failures.  The next day I was so stiff I couldn’t brush my teeth and had to do it sort of sideways and Tyler couldn’t even get his socks and shoes on. We just looked at each other and packed up laughing. We laughed again even louder that night when we were telling friends at a party, who after several glasses of Verve, thought it equally funny as we reanacted the morning. The blog that day would have been called “Too old for Paradise” – but we got through it.

San Juan, August 2011