Yes, it's true. We are traveling again. Andy and I are in Belize. Andy is staying for 3 weeks & I am here for 1 week. We are running the Jungle Dome whilst Karen is on holiday in Canada.
Our two boys are with my mum and sister in Aruba. And I have to admit, travelling without the kids has been very enjoyable so far (only 3 more nights and I am back home again). Of course, we always have a great time when we travel as a family, but it is also nice, for once, to not be responsible for anyone but myself. It feels rather good to have a break from being ‘mum’. As a mother, it’s so easy to lose your sense of self. Because you put everyone else’s needs before your own (generally) & you feel like you are only nurturing yourself with the scraps (of time) that have ‘fallen off the table’. But for now, my time is my own. And, as long as I know that my boys are happy (which they are), I can continue to enjoy myself and enjoy spending time with my husband. So to us, this is in part a working-holiday and part honeymoon (which we’ve never had before).
And being back in Belize has been great. It’s like I had almost forgotten what a beautiful country this is. It’s an absolute paradise! In a way, it’s much more beautiful than Aruba. It’s just so lush. Aruba has better beaches, that’s true, but apart from that, it’s a rock. It’s a rock with some cacti, some donkeys and some goats. Oh, and with a lot of mega hotels and resorts (these, obviously, do not make the landscape any prettier)
The Belize inland (which is where we are) consists of jungle, amazing birds and wildlife, rivers, small villages and character-filled lodges, like our own (much nicer than those gigantic monstrosities of the Aruban time-share hotels)
Still, each country has its own charm. Aruba is such a comfortable place to live (and, unlike what the US press says about the island, it must be one of the safest and most peaceful places on earth), Aruba truly is ‘one happy island’, where everything has to be celebrated excessively and abundantly, it has great bars and restaurants, good schools and facilities for families and the different cultures on the island seem to blend well together.
Belize, on the other hand, is an oddball country. It's a country steeped in contradictions. Many people have no running water at their houses, but they do have a cellphone and cable television. Many call themselves Christians, but they believe in witches, ghosts and shape shifters. It's a country of many cultures, each with their own traditions, yet they all feel Belizean.
Belizeans are generally polite and quite shy. They don’t party the way the Arubans do. When the Belizeans go swimming, they keep all their clothes on and the women refuse to dance when the men can see them. The country is steeped in religion. Any office you go in will have biblical versus stuck to the walls & church is often people’s only form of entertainment (I am now mainly talking of local rural communities and not the ex-pats) Many of the local Mayan women here seem to go to church so they can show off their new clothes, to join in what can only be called karaoke, to sway to the music and to enjoy the BBQ. Some will be genuine believers, but quite a few seem to go for ‘just a bit of fun’.
I have found living in both countries very enjoyable. Aruba because of it’s so ‘normal’ and ‘easy’. If you can live in Europe, you can live in Aruba. It isn’t all that different from each other. But living in Belize has been enjoyable especially because it is ‘not normal’. Nothing is like it is in Europe. It’s like a different world all together. How often have Andy and I not looked at each other over the years, laughed and said: ‘only in Belize’ (meaning, something as weird as this could never happen anywhere else). Every day is a surprise waiting to happen. And the more flexible your attitude is, the more you are able to ‘go with the flow’, the better your experience will be in this country. You may have planned to go from A to B on a certain day, yet you end up at X for some bizarre reason. And all you can do is laugh, which, by the way, is something the Belizeans do a lot. They laugh easily and heartily. It puts us, those from wealthy Western nations, to shame.
In countries like Belize, people seem to generally be more content and happy. Even when they live in a wooden shack, have no electricity or running water, no shoes for the kids and the women spend much of their time collecting wood for their open fires to cook on.
And it’s amazing how many people can live in one wooden shack here. The logistics of it are baffling. You wonder how on earth it all fits. Yet, when more family members or friends show up from Guatemala, everyone bumps up even more and that family is taken in too.
But in Europe we complain when we only have one flat-screen TV (the one in the bedroom is broke and we have no money to buy another) or we say that our house is too small because two of our children have to share a bedroom...I mean, what are we on about? It is embarrassing to hear everyone complain these days.
Recession or no recession...we are the fortunate ones. You are sitting behind a computer right now, you can explore the world (even if only online), you obviously can read and have been educated, you have a roof over your head, you have eaten and you have clean drinking water. So let’s stop complaining & start being thankful. That’s what I’ll do today. I will say my thanks for the rich life that I am living and have lived so far.
As Moby and I always used to shout out at each other (and what will be my mantra for today): ‘Life is nice!’
Showing posts with label expat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label expat. Show all posts
Friday, January 23, 2009
Monday, November 17, 2008
Back where we started (for a few weeks, anyway)
It's funny being back in Holland. Some things have changed (a lot of new buildings and shops) & many things are still the same as when I was a little girl here. The people out on their pushbikes, going ice-skating with the family (no natural ice though nowadays), watching Saint Nicolas come to town, drinking lots of hots drinks throughout the day, watching silly gameshows on TV, playing boardgames with my family...it's all so familiar and cozy.
What I did forget- having been in the tropics for so long- is how cold your ears get outside, how horrible it is to sit on a cold toilet seat and how long you delay getting out of the shower or bath as you just can't stand the idea of drying yourself off in the cold.
Still, I like the seasons and all that comes with it. Of course, no one would choose rainy days or cold winds over a blue skies. But I enjoy the changing scenery throughout the year in Europe and it is something that I have always missed in Belize and Aruba. So I am enjoying myself.
Today we'll be meeting some family that we haven't seen since we were kids. Should be interesting.
I just wish that Aruba and Europe were less far apart, so we could hop backwards and forwards a bit more often.
What I did forget- having been in the tropics for so long- is how cold your ears get outside, how horrible it is to sit on a cold toilet seat and how long you delay getting out of the shower or bath as you just can't stand the idea of drying yourself off in the cold.
Still, I like the seasons and all that comes with it. Of course, no one would choose rainy days or cold winds over a blue skies. But I enjoy the changing scenery throughout the year in Europe and it is something that I have always missed in Belize and Aruba. So I am enjoying myself.
Today we'll be meeting some family that we haven't seen since we were kids. Should be interesting.
I just wish that Aruba and Europe were less far apart, so we could hop backwards and forwards a bit more often.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Do you want to spend more time with your family? Move abroad!
Tired of the rat race? Starting to forget the names of your own family members? Then it is time to take action! Go on an adventure together. And I don't just mean an adventure vacation (though that can be a nice start), but a real life-changing adventure. Move to a new country! And why not? If you're not happy in the new place, you can move back. Where ever you've come from will not just disappear.
Having done it ourselves, I can definitely recommend it. And starting a lodge or B&B with your family is something else that I can recommend. My two boys were born in Belize as we were building up our jungle lodge, The Belize Jungle Dome. And it was a wonderful lifestyle for us as new parents. We were always together as a family as the lodge was also our home (we later build a house at the edge of the land to have some more privacy). And, as a new mom, I didn't get the feeling that I was just 'sitting at home with the kids'. We really had the best of both worlds. Building a successful business and being full-time parents.
Starting this project as a couple also brought my husband and myself closer, as we don't have many of the same interests in life, and having something like this to share has been great for us.
So why have we moved away from Belize and our lodge after all these years? Because we felt like our job was done there. We did what we said we were going to do and created a great business. We didn't want to expand anymore and our staff had become so good at running the lodge that there wasn't much left for us to do.
Also, I wanted to do something in the creative field again and didn't see any opportunities for that in Belize. So now we are living in Aruba and I have joined a local radio station, Cool FM. And I sing in a band here on the island, called RetroMatic.
The lodge still runs wonderfully well without us and provides us with a nice income so-again-we have the best of both worlds.
Having done it ourselves, I can definitely recommend it. And starting a lodge or B&B with your family is something else that I can recommend. My two boys were born in Belize as we were building up our jungle lodge, The Belize Jungle Dome. And it was a wonderful lifestyle for us as new parents. We were always together as a family as the lodge was also our home (we later build a house at the edge of the land to have some more privacy). And, as a new mom, I didn't get the feeling that I was just 'sitting at home with the kids'. We really had the best of both worlds. Building a successful business and being full-time parents.
Starting this project as a couple also brought my husband and myself closer, as we don't have many of the same interests in life, and having something like this to share has been great for us.
So why have we moved away from Belize and our lodge after all these years? Because we felt like our job was done there. We did what we said we were going to do and created a great business. We didn't want to expand anymore and our staff had become so good at running the lodge that there wasn't much left for us to do.
Also, I wanted to do something in the creative field again and didn't see any opportunities for that in Belize. So now we are living in Aruba and I have joined a local radio station, Cool FM. And I sing in a band here on the island, called RetroMatic.
The lodge still runs wonderfully well without us and provides us with a nice income so-again-we have the best of both worlds.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Why do we love living in Belize?
“So why did you move to Belize?” It's the question that everybody asks when they come to our jungle lodge. The strange thing is that we haven't got a straight answer to that. We just had enough of living in London. After the worlds of television and football, we wanted a change.
But why we chose Belize I don't honestly know. It could as well had been New Zealand, South Africa, Costa Rica, or any of the other countries that we researched online. Belize just sounded attractive; it's the only English speaking country in Central America, only a 2-hour flight from Miami or Houston, politically stable & part of the Commonwealth as a former British colony (back then known as British Honduras)
By now, we have been living in Belize for 5 years and have moved from loving it, to hating it, to learning to like it, to loving it once again. Only now it's a much deeper and more sincere love.
You can compare it to a long-term relationship/marriage, as this usually goes through these same stages; first you fall in love, then you fall out of love, you learn to like each other again and eventually, if all is well, you end up truly loving each other. It's actually a shame that so many people never get beyond the ‘falling in love/falling out of love' stage. They seem to take it as a sign that this relationship isn't for them after all. What they often lose in the process is experiencing the deeper (if less fiery) type of love that's just beyond that phase.
So why this analogy? Because the same thing happens to so many who immigrate to a (developing) country like Belize. They never get beyond the first falling in love/falling out of love stage. As soon as the honeymoon period is over, they are on the next flight home or off on another exciting adventure. The locals have seen this over and over again, so they take everything newcomers say with a huge grain of salt. Only once you cross the 2-year-mark, do they begin to accept you and will consider to taking you seriously.
Why do we enjoy living in this funny little Central American/Caribbean country? (Belize has a minor identity crisis; it sees itself as a Caribbean nation, when truthfully it's Central American) Well there are many reasons. Mainly the sense of freedom that you feel when you live here, the fact that our children can play outside without us having to breath down their necks at all times, the unending supply of sunshine, the relaxed attitude of the locals, the astounding natural surroundings, the reef, the caves, the Mayan temples, the wildlife, the sweet and juicy fruits that readily drop from the trees, the fact that we can live like kings and queens on a reasonable budget and the simplicity of life that is a constant undercurrent in developing nations.
Once you've experienced life in a country that doesn't rush, you start to see the insanity of this very Western habit. Why do people in Europe and America rush all the time? Generally they are busy making money to buy stuff and to build ever bigger houses to put all their stuff in and then they end up with debts to pay for the upkeep of these houses and their stuff in it, so they have to work harder yet again & round and round it goes.
In Belize we get to enjoy the simple pleasures that don't cost anything or at least not much; like watching the sunrise and listening to the jungle awakening, climbing trees with our 3-year-old, taking him cave tubing & snorkeling, shining flashlights in the garden at night, catching frogs and tadpoles (big hit with young boys), enjoying fruits and vegetables from our own garden, etc. Stuff that many people in Western society just don't have time for anymore.
The funny thing is that we actually have managed to make a decent living for ourselves here whilst doing all this. Simply by sharing this lifestyle with others. We generally eat with the guests of our jungle lodge, their kids (when they have them) run around with ours and with all the local Mayan children, we all walk (on bare feet) to the edge of the garden to admire groups of howler monkeys, we enjoy the fresh produce from our gardens together, play board games, float in the pool at night whilst stargazing, etc.
It's wonderful that people actually pay us to experience this lifestyle with us for whatever period of time they are here, as this enables us to continue living like this. So it's another catch 22, but quite a pleasant one.
Still, as idyllic as this all sounds, life is far from perfect here. After years of trying to find perfect…(fill in the blanc) I have come to see that perfection is nothing but a trick of light, a mirage, like the end of the rainbow. It simply doesn't exist.
See, reality can also be harsh when you surround yourself with as much nature as we have. Mother Nature, in all her beauty, can be a rather fierce lady; you simply don't mess with her. When the river floods, it floods, when lightening decides to hit your house 3 times in as many years you deal with it, when biting insects attack, you get used to it as best you can, when it rains, it pours and when it's hot it can be unbearable.
So will we ever go back to Europe? Who knows? Right now I wouldn't want to give up the great life we have created here, but I know that nothing ever stays the same, so it's possible that one day we may want to. What I do know for sure is that living in Europe will never be like it was before. The world has already changed too much for that in the last 5 years. We emigrated from England to Belize on September 11th 2001, the day the world changed into the mess it seems to have become. I try to keep positive and to see the metaphor in it all. The world can never go back to being like it was before 9/11 and neither can we.
But why we chose Belize I don't honestly know. It could as well had been New Zealand, South Africa, Costa Rica, or any of the other countries that we researched online. Belize just sounded attractive; it's the only English speaking country in Central America, only a 2-hour flight from Miami or Houston, politically stable & part of the Commonwealth as a former British colony (back then known as British Honduras)
By now, we have been living in Belize for 5 years and have moved from loving it, to hating it, to learning to like it, to loving it once again. Only now it's a much deeper and more sincere love.
You can compare it to a long-term relationship/marriage, as this usually goes through these same stages; first you fall in love, then you fall out of love, you learn to like each other again and eventually, if all is well, you end up truly loving each other. It's actually a shame that so many people never get beyond the ‘falling in love/falling out of love' stage. They seem to take it as a sign that this relationship isn't for them after all. What they often lose in the process is experiencing the deeper (if less fiery) type of love that's just beyond that phase.
So why this analogy? Because the same thing happens to so many who immigrate to a (developing) country like Belize. They never get beyond the first falling in love/falling out of love stage. As soon as the honeymoon period is over, they are on the next flight home or off on another exciting adventure. The locals have seen this over and over again, so they take everything newcomers say with a huge grain of salt. Only once you cross the 2-year-mark, do they begin to accept you and will consider to taking you seriously.
Why do we enjoy living in this funny little Central American/Caribbean country? (Belize has a minor identity crisis; it sees itself as a Caribbean nation, when truthfully it's Central American) Well there are many reasons. Mainly the sense of freedom that you feel when you live here, the fact that our children can play outside without us having to breath down their necks at all times, the unending supply of sunshine, the relaxed attitude of the locals, the astounding natural surroundings, the reef, the caves, the Mayan temples, the wildlife, the sweet and juicy fruits that readily drop from the trees, the fact that we can live like kings and queens on a reasonable budget and the simplicity of life that is a constant undercurrent in developing nations.
Once you've experienced life in a country that doesn't rush, you start to see the insanity of this very Western habit. Why do people in Europe and America rush all the time? Generally they are busy making money to buy stuff and to build ever bigger houses to put all their stuff in and then they end up with debts to pay for the upkeep of these houses and their stuff in it, so they have to work harder yet again & round and round it goes.
In Belize we get to enjoy the simple pleasures that don't cost anything or at least not much; like watching the sunrise and listening to the jungle awakening, climbing trees with our 3-year-old, taking him cave tubing & snorkeling, shining flashlights in the garden at night, catching frogs and tadpoles (big hit with young boys), enjoying fruits and vegetables from our own garden, etc. Stuff that many people in Western society just don't have time for anymore.
The funny thing is that we actually have managed to make a decent living for ourselves here whilst doing all this. Simply by sharing this lifestyle with others. We generally eat with the guests of our jungle lodge, their kids (when they have them) run around with ours and with all the local Mayan children, we all walk (on bare feet) to the edge of the garden to admire groups of howler monkeys, we enjoy the fresh produce from our gardens together, play board games, float in the pool at night whilst stargazing, etc.
It's wonderful that people actually pay us to experience this lifestyle with us for whatever period of time they are here, as this enables us to continue living like this. So it's another catch 22, but quite a pleasant one.
Still, as idyllic as this all sounds, life is far from perfect here. After years of trying to find perfect…(fill in the blanc) I have come to see that perfection is nothing but a trick of light, a mirage, like the end of the rainbow. It simply doesn't exist.
See, reality can also be harsh when you surround yourself with as much nature as we have. Mother Nature, in all her beauty, can be a rather fierce lady; you simply don't mess with her. When the river floods, it floods, when lightening decides to hit your house 3 times in as many years you deal with it, when biting insects attack, you get used to it as best you can, when it rains, it pours and when it's hot it can be unbearable.
So will we ever go back to Europe? Who knows? Right now I wouldn't want to give up the great life we have created here, but I know that nothing ever stays the same, so it's possible that one day we may want to. What I do know for sure is that living in Europe will never be like it was before. The world has already changed too much for that in the last 5 years. We emigrated from England to Belize on September 11th 2001, the day the world changed into the mess it seems to have become. I try to keep positive and to see the metaphor in it all. The world can never go back to being like it was before 9/11 and neither can we.
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