Island-wide power outages, folks. That’s the way we do life here on Sint Maarten. The power to serve, GEBE? How about “the power to not serve.” “The power to darken an entire island all at once.”
It’s become trendy to complain about GEBE and the power problems here on the island, but I actually don’t mind them too much. I guess it’s easy for me to say that since I live in Maho, where we don’t get most of the outages. We’re on the airport grid, and they can’t shut the airport down too often. On Saturday, though, the whole island was down. Black. darkness. No light, except for the occasional building with a generator and one random man rolling down the street on his hooverboard. Despite the darkness, I found a lot to be thankful for.
There wasn’t any point in hanging out inside, and I couldn’t go to bed early since had to go pick up R from his school dance in a couple hours, so I decided to take my dog, Kito, outside and stargaze for a while. Dang, people, you can see a lot of stars out there when the lights are off! I put down a towel on the grass, lay down on it, and let Kito run around. For all her lack of social graces, Kito is the best fetcher I’ve ever seen. She just drops the ball in my lap, I throw it, and repeat until she drops from exhaustion.
Kito and I spent an hour like that. I have an app called SkyView on my phone, which is pretty cool. You hold it up to the sky and it shows you the names of all the celestial bodies and constellations. I really do need to brush up on my Greek mythology, so it was nice to finally take a break from all the usual distractions and just stare at the stars for a while. I could find Cassiopeia and Orion pretty quickly, but I had to re-learn Cygnus, Perseus, and Pisces.
After a while, Kito flopped down in the grass beside me. It was so quiet and so dark, just like the rural neighborhood where I lived as a kid. We used to lay out on the trampoline at night, searching out the ancient stories in the sky above. The stars were so bright, just like they were those years ago. It struck me how so much in life changes in such a few short years, but the stars never change. The sparkling patterns above me were the same ones that the ancient Greeks saw, and even Father Abraham himself tried to count the same glittering specks. Can you imagine how magnificent the stars must look when there is absolutely no artificial light anywhere around? That’s something most of us have never seen that the ancients took for granted. A fiery streak silently sparked through the velvety expanse above. I haven’t seen too many of those in my lifetime, and I felt a sense of being robbed by the ever-present electricity that drowns out the gleam of the night skies.
My musings were cut short by a sudden burst of light. Someone at GEBE had flipped the switch, and the lamp above me suddenly flooded the yard with a warm glow. The magic of the darkness gone, Kito and I packed up and headed upstairs. On the way, I saw TWO centipedes and swore to myself that I’d never lay on the grass at night again. I’m glad I didn’t see those until afterwards, or I would have been sitting on the roof of my car for the whole hour.
Power outages are no fun, but they really do help you reset your technologically-programmed brain. We’ve only had electric lights for a mere snippet of human history, and people did just fine without them before! I bet they spent a whole lot of time stargazing back then. Like I explained to R later, stargazing was basically antiquity’s version of Netflix. It was the way people used to tell stories, the way we do on a screen now. Sometimes, it’s nice to get back to that. Turn off the modern conveniences and experience entertainment the way our ancestors did.
Here’s a challenge for you: This week, choose a night and stargaze. Download the SkyView app (not a sponsored post, I just think it’s cool) or do your research ahead of time. Learn the stories in the stars, and let your imagination carry you to the top of Mount Olympus. There are so many interesting things to appreciate about the universe– things that even power outages can’t take away.
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When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?
Happy Thanksgiving! It’s the time of the year that we remember to that God for our blessings and show appreciation for the people in our lives. At Sunday school a couple weeks ago, we had the kids list things that they are thankful for an leaves and glue them to a paper tree. They listed their parents, their friends, their things and their favorite TV shows.
I’m thankful for those things, too, especially the friends and family! I find myself thanking God for them every day.
It is easy to be thankful for the good things in my life. What is less easy is being thankful for the frustrating things! The Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5:18. “…Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Jesus Christ for you.” Many of us spend a lot of time trying to find out the will of God for our lives so that we can follow it. Yet here is a clear explanation of His will for us, and we often completely forget to do it! Being thankful in all circumstances means thanking God for the good things in our life, but also thanking Him for the stuff that bothers or hurts us.
My challenge to you this Thanksgiving is to list five to ten frustrating things you are thankful for and why.
Here’s my list:
I am thankful for power outages because they remind me how blessed I am to have power 95% of the time
I am thankful for the mold in my house because it is a result of the humidity that makes my island green and beautiful
I am thankful for expensive food prices because it encourages me to learn to make things like mayonnaise, bread, and tortillas.
I am thankful for Mosquitos because even though they are annoying, they aren’t scorpions!
I am thankful for failing at things I try because it teaches me to move past my failure and my ego and to work hard at attaining goals
I am thankful for slow mail service because it reminds me how awesome it is to live in an age with e-mail
I am thankful for the crabby maintenance man at our apartment because he gives me a chance to practice patience and also to stand up for myself
I am thankful for water outages because they help me to appreciate the hard work that many people do every day to have drinking water
I am thankful for loud late-night karaoke at the bar next door because it gives Ben and I a few extra hours awake and together on Friday nights
I am thankful for med school keeping Ben busy because it makes us value the time we do have together and helps us to make the most of it.
Enjoy your holiday! Let’s finish off the year with thankful hearts every day.
Those of us in the expat/foreign student category can name a lot of reasons why we chose to live overseas. I’m sure the most common answer is “I wanted to experience a different culture.” We talk about the people we interact with, the things we see, the food we eat. But reasons why one benefits from life overseas goes so far beyond just the obvious, beyond the great Instagram moments and the postcards home. Here is a list of some of the reasons why I think living overseas is great.
Power outages
Less choice in the grocery store
The water goes out now and then
Language barrier
Transportation issues
Frustrating cultural nuances
Fewer people you can relate to
That whole confusing English-metric conversion problem
It’s not as safe
Pause. You’re wondering, why are these positive things? Aren’t these some of the reasons why most people never move internationally? Probably. But I would argue that they are also some of the best things that you will experience while living overseas.
Power outages
Power outages are arguably the most annoying part of my daily life. We have weeks where the power stays on for days at a time and other weeks where I spend three hours every afternoon with no power– thus no internet, no AC, no cooking. The whole island is on the same power grid, so if something goes out, the whole island suffers. This is with the exception of the medical school, which has its own reliable generator. Our apartment, however, is at the mercy of the power grid. While it bugs me, this has made my life better in a few ways. First, it teaches me to be more flexible. If I have plans that require power, they have to change. That’s all there is to it. My attitude doesn’t change the fact that we have to eat cereal for dinner. But I can choose to have an enjoyable bowl of cereal by iPhone light or to have a miserable cereal dinner by iPhone light. I’m learning to go with the flow. Secondly, lack of technology forces me to look around and remember all the other thing I can do! Reading, games, art… sometimes it’s good to take away the digital options! Also, the power outages bring us together. We all open our doors to let cooler air in, drop in to a neighbor’s apartment to see if we blew a fuse or if the power is out everywhere, and stop to have conversations.
Steel Drums in the Caribbean
2. Fewer options in the grocery store.
Personally, I like this because it make shopping quicker. With fewer brands and options, I can pick choose what I need and move on. It also makes my cooking more basic and my cupboards less crowded. I know what my staples are, I know what they ought to cost, and I know what I can make from them. Easy.
Honestly, I really don’t like this. It’s gross to have dirty dishes pile up in the sink. It has, however, taught me to prepare and have a few jugs of water in case of emergency. Also, it makes me grateful for having running water at all. It makes me respect people who don’t have running water and work hard to make life work without it.
I interact daily with people who speak English, French, Dutch, Spanish, and/or Mandarin. Most people here speak enough English that I can communicate with them. My biggest struggle, honestly, is the heavily-accented Caribbean English that many people use. It’s terrible, but I struggle to understand foreign accents. It’s embarrassing. I have so many uncomfortable moments in buses and at stores! I’m grateful for this, though. It teaches me to go out of my comfort zone and learn to communicate. It forces me to assimilate my ears to local speech. Someday, when I move to a country without much English, I’ll be forced to learn to communicate on a whole new level. The result of this will be learning a new language. And that, of course, is a wonderful thing!
Cream of Wheat… I think?
5. Transportation issues
We have decided to live here without a car. I am so grateful for my friends who have cars and take me to the store and everywhere else I go! Besides those who let me grab a ride, my only other option is a bus. We live in Cupecoy, an area with mostly resorts and dining and few locals. Therefore, the taxis come often but the buses are unpredictable. If I want to go somewhere by myself, my options are to wait as long as it takes for a bus to come or walk a mile through a golf course along the road to Maho, where buses come more often. I usually choose the golf course. Once on the bus, getting somewhere is not too bad. I did have a bus driver make me get out in the middle of traffic and then holler at me for not standing in the middle of the road to close the door. Other than that, it’s been alright. Certainly less convenient than having my own car. But in many ways, it’s better. First of all, I get to spend time with my friends when we carpool. I love that. Secondly, when I bus it, I get to be a part of normal life on the island. I meet people I’d otherwise never meet. I get to talk to the bus driver and hear his or her story. I get to learn island etiquette better. Want to be a local and not a long-term tourist? Take the bus.
6. Frustrating cultural nuances
I took a few intercultural courses in undergrad. I remember that we once played a game representing a foreigner in a new culture. We were told some of the rules, but not all of them. We had to figure out the rest based on the behavior and reactions of the players who knew all the rules. That really is what it’s like when you live in a foreign culture. People tell you the obvious differences, but not the more subtle ones. You can let this drive you nuts or you can treat it like a puzzle to be solved. In the process, you’ll get some weird looks, maybe even some dirty looks, but you’ll also build relationships. Come in as a learner, with smiles and shrugs and apologies, and people will often be willing to laugh with you and help you learn. Expand your comfort zone! Step out into new boundaries, and enjoy making those mistakes and earning those little cultural victories. In Sint Maarten, locals greet each other formally with “good morning” or “good afternoon” as soon as they enter a new place. It has (finally) become a habit for me, and I’ve had great conversations with the local employees at AUC and people around town because I’m more capable of communicating respect the way they do.
Just because you seem to have absolutely nothing in common with another person doesn’t mean you can’t learn to relate to them. Widening your definition of what it means to connect with another person allows more people into your life. Diversity is a good thing! Expand your horizons. One thing I love about living here is that most of my acquaintances are from vastly different backgrounds than my own. I can learn so much.
Coat of arms sign celebrating history and culture in Berne, Indiana
8. That whole confusing English-metric conversion problem
Thanks, America, for having a complicated measurement system that is entirely different from the rest of the world! I’m still not sure this is actually a benefit. And I do love my dual-system measuring cup. However, I think I will be forced into learning how to operate in either system– and maybe even be able to do rough conversions in my head.
9. It’s not as safe
During my rather limited international travel experiences, people in the U.S. have often fretted to me, “But it’s not safe!” “Africa is not safe!” “What if you get malaria?” “Why would you move out of the country? Isn’t that unsafe?” Even, “Be careful of those Islams over there.” I know they mean well but… really? This American obsession with safety is why schools have to have a specific number of inches between the wood chips and the seat of a swing or risk being written up by a safety inspector. To be honest, I’m not too worried about foreign diseases, all my Muslim friends and acquaintances are pretty cool people, and sometimes “safe” is boring. Why else do people jump out of airplanes for fun? I think the biggest thing here is redefining “safe.” In the U.S., we work so hard to stay safe and secure– we probably tend to go overboard, actually. Even so, the U.S. isn’t really safe. I grew up in the city with the highest national percentage of kidnappings per capita. We have all heard the tragic news about recent school shootings across the country. And some freak on the I-10 spent the better part of September lodging bullets in other peoples’ cars. Now, I live in a the region of the world with second-highest AIDS rate. There is a bar down the street where someone got stabbed last year. Muggings sometimes happen on the golf course at night. Also, all weapons are illegal on the Dutch side of the island, so I can’t even carry mace or a pocket knife to defend myself. That makes me feel uncomfortable. Is it safe? No, but neither is Phoenix.
I realize that many places in the world are extremely dangerous. There are places with rampant disease, war, religious radicals on extremist jihad, and many other dangers. There are places you would not bring your children to live. There are places it is not wise for many of us to go. I think that there are times, however, that we just have to place our lives in God’s hands and follow Him wherever He asks us to go. For some of us, part of the process of trusting Him is putting ourselves in a place that frightens us. What would the world look like had the Pilgrims, David Livingstone, Florence Nightingale, or St. Patrick been afraid to go where it was unsafe? Where would we be without the men and women in the armed forces who are willing to leave their homes to keep our nation secure? Stepping out a place of security helps us to redefine our priorities in life and to destroy unnecessary fear.
Whether you’re in Sint Maarten battling with a bad attitude about the electricity, in North Africa risking it all to help others, or in the United States stepping out of your comfort zone to engage your neighbor from a different culture, we all have something to learn from our circumstances. Whether you’re living at home or abroad, don’t take the little things for granted. Everything that comes our way can shape who we are.
