An expat living in another country told me that the one-year mark is the end of the honeymoon. The burning love of the place starts to fade as the reality of what it means to live there, not just visit, becomes evident. Do you accept it for all that it is, or do you pack your bags and go?
I am totally there. I am still in love with Barbados. I love how the tension has been released from my body and my mind has become more still on the island. I sit on my surfboard on the aqua blue ocean and feel the warmth of the sunshine on my skin. I feel blessed to have been given this new lease on life during a pandemic. I feel like I could do this forever – but could I?
It took ten (10) hours to change the registration of my car from the previous owner into mine, and I paid someone familiar with the process to do this. People ask me if I am going to buy a home here. To that I think, Dear God if it took 10 hours to register my car what nightmare beholds me to buy a home?!
Kian (left) and Tristan (right) hold Baracudas that we are buying for dinner at Oistins fish market.
Luca helps Kate make rum punch by juicing the limes
There are still things that I don’t understand in Barbados, including:
- Lineups from lack of process
- Keeping roosters in an urban setting
- Not honking at someone that has parked in front, rather than pulling into the laneway (and causing a traffic jam)
- Half the things that the Bajans say
These drive both the visitors and the locals crazy, so, at what point is it accepted as part of the way things work here?
Acceptance was described to me as getting clear on the facts of how things really are. Given this reality, you then have choice. The opposite of acceptance is resistance.
Clashes with values often make acceptance difficult. For instance, it is a value of mine that when I spend money, I expect worth in a tangible object or in a service. This does not happen here on the island compared to home. Goods are expensive to import and so are overpriced. Customer service is not a thing. Can I live in a place long-term that is so expensive, and that doesn’t seem to care about working with the paying customer?
Accepting doesn’t mean letting it roll off your back or pretending it doesn’t bother you. I still feel frustrated and feel the tension of not having my expectations met. But knowing this is the way it is, I can then choose how to respond. Resistance, however, aims to prove that it isn’t or shouldn’t be that way.
With a new Go Pro I capture moments out on the water
With my Go Pro I can now check when my form is bad (most of the time) and when it is good (see here)
I snapped my board this week. This poor board has been stripped and repainted and now broken. Adrian, the man that fixes boards on the island, says no problem, we can fix that!
Here are some facts that I have attempted to put into words and pictures in my travel blog but that you cannot know until you experience them:
- Barbados is one of the most beautiful places that I have ever been.
- Barbadians are kind and focus on building community.
- I am the happiest that I have ever been in my adult life.
It is only through acceptance that I will be able to look at the facts of how Barbados is and decide whether I stay here or whether I go. The reasons to stay are compelling, yet being from Canada, so are those to return home (for summers).
For those that have lived in a foreign country, what were the things that struck you after a year that made/make you wonder whether you could stay?
in truth, most of us keep resisting life, as it takes courage to challenge ourselves to see the world without judgement. We seem to want things our own way. We think we are right. Travelling the way you do gives you insight into the reality that there is no right or wrong way – just different. If we could all accept that there would be peace within and maybe even world peace.
Susan, what a lovely thought that inner peace for each of us could bring world peace. To say that I don’t get frustrated when things don’t go my way would be misleading. My need for fairness and justice (or at least my definitions) make it hard for me to let things go. I have started to funnel this resistance into “release letters” to service providers, which express my viewpoints and the facts as I saw them as their customer. The service provider can then judge for themselves the impact of those ideas. Then I let it go and get on with it. This is much harder when it comes to people in my life that I care about or care how they see me. But I am working on it, because I think inner peace and indeed peace at large is something to aspire to!
I love this comment and looking back on when I lived in India (like TEN years ago:), I can for sure say that I had a super ethnocentric view of the country. Like, I was being a brat hahaha! Service was “too slow,” there was no ice to be found (anywhere!!!!!), driving was chaotic…but at the same time, those are the things that make the country beautiful. The slowness is what adds to the “not everything is about money” mentality, and I get that now. What I DO still struggle with, however, is the difference in value systems. Susan, you’re right in a way: who’s to say that one’s country’s values are better than another’s? That being said, I think I really do struggle with the idea that in some countries, gender, race, ability and sexuality are treated with more discrimination and inequality than in my home country, or in other parts of the world altogether. That, is something I continue to struggle with daily. I would be curious to hear your thoughts!
So after one year in Canada I knew was going to stay, That same year I threw myself into summer and winter’s pursuits and most importantly getting a job. I still had a hard time with the culture even after the commitment to staying It’s not found in a book so you have to experience it and by living here in Canada I gradually understood. I got to the point where i would say after 10 years that “ the sad thing is I don’t miss Ireland “I do however really miss the Irish humour. Here I can go days, sometimes weeks with out a proper laugh .So to live in a less warm culture I needed to accept it or point it out in a funny way that people can understand. I kid you not the first order was to speak slowly & clearly to white Canadians! This culture adjustment took me a long time and now I get it. Well most of the time ! There is a saying in Ireland about the English people who came to Ireland to conquer, their descendants became more Irish than the Irish themselves “. Donough
Donough, I miss laughing with you! Maybe it is an island thing because the Bajans love to laugh as well. You are right though – there is no book to inform you whether you will love a place. You need to immerse yourself into the place and the culture and see whether it sticks or not. You must feel it all around you and for an extended period of time. The heat here helps as a selling point. I sometimes think that you are more Canadian than I am the way that you have embrace the winter. Miss you!
I think that “I am the happiest that I have ever been in my adult life” is worth like 10000000 points:) That being said, I’ve actually been thinking about that a lot since I LEFT Barbados – especially since I often fantasize about coming back. I think that for me, one of the things I DID struggle with when I was there – and I remember struggling with this when I lived in India for 6 months – is the difference in value systems when it comes to gender. You’ve written in previous posts that “misogyny isn’t a culture,” and I totally agree, but that’s not to say that misogyny isn’t more ACCEPTABLE in certain cultures. And that for sure is the biggest struggle for me: can I live somewhere where misogyny is more acceptable than it is where I live now? I have a hard time saying yes to that…but I also haven’t fully said no yet:)