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We've been living in the jungle for awhile now, time for the newness to wear off and the reality to set in. I find myself equaly dismayed and amazed that we live in a rural part of a developing country. On my better days I am in awe of the natural beauty, the simple lifestyle, the focus on community. On my lesser days I am consumed by heat and bugs and dirt.
There is a sense of being very much on your own here. While there is a large and varied community, the country is lacking in infrastructure, meaning you are on your own in figuring a lot of things out. It works fine when life is good but when you need help you are sometimes on your own. It can be unsettling but then at the bottom of it you discover your own resourcefulness, and realize how coddled I was living in the West. Of course, there are good and bad things about that too. Having your needs met easily and modern conveniences at your disposal means you can ruminate on other issues in your life. Living day to day focusing good portions of your waking hours on meeting your basic needs means you live more fully in the moment, both good and bad.
Everything I do here takes longer, from shopping to laundry to cooking, sometimes cooking can take hours if you factor in soaking dried goods to prepare them for cooking. Sometimes it is so hot you can't imagine cooking at all but then you realize that neighbors all around you manage and have managed for years and decades before you came along and somehow that makes you want to try a bit harder. Because it's not impossible, it's just different and consuming in different ways than we are used to. When we lived in the States we estimated about 10% of our foods as being obtained locally and we now comfortably feel that number has gone up to 60%, our produce and beans and meats and breads and cheese are all bought from local farms in our community. There is much less variety but it is good enough, we have much less packaging and much less waste. We compost all of our food and paper products now and drive very short distances. These simple things feel good and we feel good knowing we are teaching our child these things too.
One of the most beautiful things I've experienced so far is watching my child flourish in this place. Gone are the days of shopping and TV and instead we fill our time with nature and rivers and animals and play. Her imagination has run wild here and she's already able to name different plants and animals and has started her own nature collection of fallen leaves. She is more fully at home here, running wild outside and strengthening her muscles and her mind and turning her skin a beautiful brown. She's completely unaffected by bugs that give me great pause. She's adapted far better than I have so far, and I've realized it's because her life was already lived more fully in the moment, something we seem to forget as we grow older and something I'm being forced to relearn as we continue to forge a new home here.
Sometimes I question our decision to come here, I worry about sickness and money and other things that I often forget to take it for what it's worth, an adventure of living differently, of setting goals and meeting them, of pushing myself to be my best self even on the days that are hard.
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