make no assumptions

This morning - again, fresh after a rain:
Stepped on a large cockroach in the kitchen, and it didn’t bother me really. Adaptation, it really is amazing. We’re in the jungle now, and the status quo has shifted. Oy! I thought the rain was long finished, but suddenly the sun fades and it’s pelting down again. It is so beautiful up here, lush, and no wonder. Does this happen every morning? There’s a dog at my door, small and wiry and cute - he just looks in inquisitively for a while and then leaves. There's something on my chest – look down, kill the mosquito, too late. He’s full of my blood. Reminds me, time to take malaria pills.

I’m listening to Anne Sofie von Otter through headphones. Drowning out the noisy chaos – baby wailing, shouts and laughter of Dominicans working on the property, music, revving motorbike motors. We’re practically camping here, except that our tents have a solid roof, tile floor, toilet, sink, shower, fridge. But the outside is inside, since the windows are all open and the door is just a bug screen. You can’t really use the taps except to wash your body – cook and wash food with the bottled water. And anyways, the shower is little more than a trickle of cold water – easier to wash hair in the sink. There’s only one small dim light, and the night is so dark that we use candles and our headlamps. But I’m not complaining! I relish this. Life is so much simpler. Everything more deliberate. (eg. I think twice about whether I need another cup of tea, instead of just mindlessly flicking on the kettle again.)

It feels kind of absurd to be typing on my laptop, reading on my e-reader, listening to an ipod. So contradictory and ironic. The fact that I need to go find an internet connection every day for work binds me to my alternate reality that I haven’t yet been able to shake off yet.

I walk into town again. Houses, those impossibly tiny homes, open right onto the street - people hang out of them. They all stare at me as I pass by, all smile and say "hola" back. A little boy joins me half-way into town. "Inglese?" "Yes!" "Hello, miss," he says shyly. We chat a little bit, not understanding each other at all. I tell him my nombre, he shakes my hand. Big grin.

It's real life. So vivid.

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