Oh, the Horror!

Have you ever cleaned out a grease trap? I mean, a grease trap that hasn't been cleaned for a year? As of today, I have. Luckily it was dark under the sink, but from what I felt on my hands I imagine it looked like this:

Add some roaches and maggots (those I did see, crawling out into the light), and you have the nightmare that was under my sink. Now, we're living in a rental house. The owners never informed us about this thing. I have never lived in a house with a grease trap, so it wasn't on my radar at all. But the smell under my sink had gotten so bad, I had to get to the bottom of it.

Two hours later, I had black gunk up to my elbows, bacteria coating my lungs (I'm sure), and another notch on my "cockroaches killed" belt.

I will have nightmares about this day for years to come.

Then, the fumigators came to the house with their rat trap cages and placed them in my ceilings. If I hear cages rattling I'm supposed to call them to come remove the trapped rats. And we have glue traps set for mice too, which apparently I'm supposed to "just fold over and toss in the garbage" when a mouse gets caught. Grrreeaaaat.

Tomorrow, I do toilets! Yippee!!

Everyone is telling me to get a "helper" (i.e. housekeeper), and now I see the necessity for it. In a house this size and a country this hot and humid I could literally spend all of my free time cleaning. Literally. But finding household help is not easy. You have to get someone who is trustworthy and comes recommended by someone you know and trust. Well, I don't know anyone here yet.

I did interview one woman, but apparently I "scared her off". Really. I was feeling her out, describing some of the dynamics with me and my kids and explaining why I need help in the mornings, and apparently the picture I painted left her imagining a crazy kid throwing knives at her. Also, I asked her how long she thought it would take to clean our house each time she came. "3 or 4 hours", she said. So when I asked her to come work for us I named the hours she had described. But when I asked for four hours a day, that was considered an unrealistic expectation.

So, I won't get her, or anyone she knows, as a helper.

I've asked all around, but no referrals are coming in yet. In the meantime, my time really will be consumed cleaning this house. I don't even have the option of "letting it go" and putting it off. The bugs and rodents are too quick for that.

I feel disgusted...but as I reflect on other places I've lived, I realize that cleanliness and convenience are not as --

--sorry, I lost my train of thought. I hear a cage rattling above me. Ewww.....--

What I'm trying to say is that the things I'm dealing with here (rodents, clogged toilets, mildew, roaches, toxic grease traps, maggots in the trash) are not unique to this new land I live in. People have always had to share living space with critters and clean up after their physical needs. I guess the difference for me, personally, is that in my former life I could call someone or buy a product to take care of the problem such that I didn't have to see it, feel it, smell it or think of it. Here, I will be more hands-on and nose-in.

I hope my stomach is strong enough.

One thing--the smells and bugs and cleaning issues are so much a part of daily life here that I don't have to make any apologies for the state of my home or the smell of the trash. People here don't even register those things. Actually, today I as I was dumping my black water out in the front of the house, I was glad that the construction workers at the house next door were watching me get so dirty and sweaty. I almost wanted to go bum a cigarette off one of them and join them on their break. (Not really. I don't smoke. Just to be clear.) I wanted to say "See? I'm not a spoiled American 'ma'am'. I'm not here to hire help and look down on the country. I'm one of you! I clean my own grease trap!"

Okay, I have to go to bed. This rattling cage is really giving me the creeps. I have to get that fumigator back here first thing in the morning.

I'll clean a grease trap (once, but never again), but I won't dispose of my own rats.

Hot and gross. Too hot to think of a catchy title.

It's hot in the Philippines. All the time. And humid. All the time. This picture is pretty much my look now. All the time. Lovely isn't it?!

All the things I feared would happen here, do: my eyebrows melt off halfway through the day, my eyeliner smears and streaks, my clothes stink, my head sweats...not a pretty picture.

I got used to being pretty for awhile. I felt like I was getting the hang of making up my face to look like I had natural brows and lashes. I fit into my clothes well. Here, I've lost so much weight from the lack of gluten-free diet options that my clothes hang on me. I know, you're thinking "What's wrong with that?! I wish I had that problem?"...but it means I'm hungry a lot, and when you're bald you don't also want to look super thin. Besides--I've still got my baby tummy. :)

Anyway, the funny thing here is that I have totally stopped caring. When guys come over to do repairs on the house we're renting, I don't go check my makeup. When I go shopping, I don't put perfume on earrings on. Because, by the way, scents mixed with sweat and bug spray are just not okay, and for whatever reason I can't wear any of my earrings now without my ears getting infected.

So I'm finding myself without all of the beauty aids I was relying on. I feel ugly, frail, smelly, greasy (yes, I've had to go back to using Clearasil again here because my face sweats so much), washed out and just totally unfeminine. But I really don't care.

Life is so much harder here than in the US that suddenly appearances don't really mean much to me. Survival means more. I have this feeling that I'm here temporarily and have to "rough it" for awhile until I come home. Who knows how long "temporarily" will be, but the attitude is working for me so far. Luckily I have no occasions where I need to step it up and look nice in any way. At least, I haven't yet. For now, "hot and gross" is the new me!
Maybe this is the freedom I've needed.

Halloween Redefined (slightly)

Yes, I am finally writing again, post-move. How do I begin to catch you up on everything I've seen and felt in the last month and a half?!

I don't. I just start sharing stories.

So tonight I have to write about Halloween in the Philippines. I took my kids to a neighborhood where another expat family lives. They got us tickets. Yes, you have to buy tickets. My kids and I were as excited as we could be given that we were all melting in our costumes. But when we got there we didn't see much happening, and my daughter started to get anxious and disappointed. She expected that we would go, meet up with this family, and go together to ring doorbells. But here, the neighborhood puts on a "program". Everyone met up at the "clubhouse" and had pictures taken. Then we all started off as a big group for the "parade". Everyone went along a route together to the certain houses who had opted in for trick-or-treating.

My daughter wasn't having it. She just kept yelling "This isn't trick-or-treating! We shouldn't be going with all these people! I want to go alone!" I know, honey. So we hung to the back so we would feel like we were doing our own thing, but then several houses had run out of candy when we got there. Plus, the heat was forcing off costume accessories as we walked...Nothing I could do or say could make my daughter happy, which made me hurt so bad--especially because Halloween has always been a favorite of mine and we try to do a lot to make it special.

After trick-or-treating we went back to the clubhouse for the program, which involved a magician and a screening of Michael Jackson's Thriller", dubbed "The World's Greatest Music Video", followed by a "Thriller" dance contest. The star of the show here though was the food. My daughter walked in and saw ice cream, marshmallows, red popcorn, hot dogs on sticks with marshmallows (scroll down a bit on this blog post to see) and a chocolate fountain. Suddenly this was "the best Halloween ever"! Forget the distress of the first 80% of the night.

Afterwards I brought the kids home to our own neighborhood, where I put my son to bed and let my daughter go out again with kids here. I had to. The neighborhood was blaring the theme from "Ghostbusters" all night long and one house had purple strobe lights. A kid gets curious. The system here was the same, but this time she was ready for it: everyone gathered down at the communal basketball court (really just a concrete pad which doubles as a parking lot) and then went out all together to each house. She loved it.

I just think it's so interesting how circumstances can feel so bad, and then something very small can change our outlook completely and we end up with a memory of pure joy. I didn't like our first trick-or-treating experience here either, but I did feel good about our neighborhood tonight. As I was waiting for the kids to get up to me, I was outside watching and listening for them and I ended up talking with a guy who is doing work at the house next door (the workers apparently sleep out on this concrete pad at night while they're here because they are sort of migrant workers). It was a great conversation, especially given the language barrier, and I felt like Esther was making major inroads with kids in the neighborhood. It turned out to be a nice night after all.

Oh yeah--so I won't tell you all that I had to go through to get my daughter's costume put together. The wig was this big issue in and of itself. And my daughter spent the entire night without it because of the heat. This is definitely not a wig-friendly country (more on that later). So at the start of the evening I really wanted to throw some fits like my eight-year-old was. But suddenly everything changed. For me the turning point was standing outside my house and seeing a couple stars overhead, listening to this classic song from my past, and knowing that my daughter was having a great time. In our Filipino neighborhood.

Get on up there...

Challenged by my daughter and cousin to get on the trampoline, what could I do? I had not been on a tramp since I was about fifteen, but my daughter was learning to do flips. Surely I could manage a seat bounce.

I had to take my scarf off though. I knew it would go flying, and that is infinitely more embarrassing than taking it off of my own volition.

My cousin's daughter didn't bat an eye! She was more concerned about my jumping technique (which was pretty rusty).

Now, a few years ago I would not have gotten on that tramp. I would have been afraid of falling off, afraid of making a fool of myself. Now, I just want to have a little fun, do my best, and say I did something.

It's the same with my bald head. A few years ago, I would never have done something that required me to take my scarf off in front of people. Now, I just don't care. Feeling the sun and wind on my head is way better than sweating under a scarf cap.

Life is good when you lose inhibitions. Get on up there.

Getting there?

I feel a certain kind of freedom these days. I'm not working, I'm worn out from preparing for this overseas move, and I'm suffering from allergies. But I feel free from the need to look pretty and put-together when I leave the house! I seldom wear earrings, I throw on whatever clothes are not packed away, and I haven't replaced my black eyeliner pencil in a couple months. I've gone on errands bald and I never have shoes that match my outfit. This is the freedom I've aspired to for a long time.

But I've realized that not caring is not the same as being free. Just because I don't care about how I look doesn't mean I've accepted and come to love how I look. But I don't feel bad about myself, just the same. Maybe this situation, by which I mean being 75% packed for a move and having pressing issues to resolve before we go, is giving me the practice I need. It's actually not difficult to live my life without looking my best all the time. Fancy that.

Maybe I am growing into a certain kind of acceptance. Maybe, in this transition time, I'm realizing that I can live with, and enjoy, a lot less than I thought.

This could be just the stepping stone I need to move to a stage of love and preference for a more natural expression of who I am and how I have grown out of my culture's standards of beauty.

Are They Real?

(https://disneyland.disney.go.com/entertainment/disneyland/fantasy-faire/)

A few weeks ago, my eight-year-old daughter was at a drama camp where the kids acted out the movie Frozen. At the end of the week, the "real" Elsa came! My daughter kept asking me if she was really real. What could I say? I kept asking her what she thought. When "Elsa" showed up, I could tell that my daughter was really looking closely and trying to reconcile the differences she saw between the movie character and this real life princess. She concluded that this was, indeed, the real Elsa who lives in Disneyland, with all the other real princesses. They don't look like their cartoon-selves, for some reason she can't quite articulate, but they are really real.

I'm not sure what to say to all this. I know kids need a little magic now and then, but where do I draw the line? So far, I've tried to hedge: "Yes, there are people in Disneyland who get to be princesses while they're there...for a little while...at least, they get to look like princesses..."

My daughter insists they're real. They live there. And now she is determined for us to move to Florida to be close to the princesses.

I admit I'm very inconsistent about on the princess issue. One day I'm belting out "Let It Go" in the car, one day I'm refusing to buy Princess band-aids because "they're not dressed appropriately". And my daughter has, unfortunately, gotten more and more obsessed with them.

The Princess Question continues to confound me. I wonder how popular the Disney Princesses are in the Philippines? As we prepare to move there, I find myself wanting to stock up on Princess movies to ease the transition for my daughter. But my husband, like many fathers (I'm guessing), has had it.

My comfort is that my daughter has not asked to wear makeup, is not boy crazy, still won't let me wash or brush her hair without a fight, and wants to grow up to be not a princess, but "an ice-cream maker and seller". Which is its own issue...

Here I Go

I'm back. I hate getting this behind on the blog, but in my defense I've had a few things going on that needed to take priority. The first was a trip to California, where my husband and I paused from life to honor our marriage of ten years. It was a beautiful few days in Santa Barbara. I will share one "alopecia moment" from that: On our last day, which happened to be my 33rd birthday(!), we went hiking in the Santa Ynez mountains.

 

The hike was amazing...and hot. I had my little hat/scarf thingy but took it off shortly after starting. The mountain breeze, when there was one, felt so good on my head. But twice we heard people approaching from the other direction, and I freaked out a little. I hurried to put my hat/scarf thingy back on before we crossed paths with any other hikers and then took it off again after they passed. What a silly thing to do! I just didn't want to face people bald. I have no idea why.

Then, on the way down, I tripped over a tree root and took a pretty nasty fall. I came the rest of the way down with bloody knees, a red, sweaty face, and black dirt all over me. We didn't see any other people the whole way down...until the trailhead, where a group of very cool mountain bikers were beginning the climb. I was so embarrassed. I tried to walk directly behind my husband so no one would see. And then, all of a sudden I got gutsy. Maybe I was empowered by these bikers who were taking on an impossibly steep and rocky trail, but I suddenly thought that maybe, just maybe, I might look like an intense hiker who really hit the trail hard core. Maybe I sported a shaved head by choice. And wow, I'm definitely not afraid to get dirty. I must have gone "off-road". That image of myself got me out from behind my hubby's back!

It wasn't so cool though when I had to go into a pharmacy down in the town and ask for bandages and a washroom. I was quite a sight.

ANYway...the other thing occupying my time lately has been preparation for a huge move. I'm moving overseas in September (AAAHHHHH!!!!) and I had to hit the ground running after getting back from California. Passports, banks, realtors, all that. Speaking of passports, here's another "alopecia" moment. I had two sets of passport photos taken: one bald, and one with a scarf. I read that your picture should reflect how you normally look, but that hats and such were not allowed. When I was submitting the application, I tried to get them to use my scarf photo. The guy asked "Is it religious?" Honestly, I was tempted there...but I said no, it's medical.

So my passport will be illustrated with my beautiful bald head. At least I got to keep my scarf on when I renewed my driver's license....