GOING THROUGH THE STAGES

I watched a plane fly overhead as I was sweeping the balcony this morning. It got me thinking again about the stages I have gone through as I have worked through coming to terms with living in a new country. Allow me to give you a look inside my mind (scary thought, I know) by describing these stages.

STAGE 1: LIVING OUT OF A HOTEL ROOM
In this stage you are in survival mode. You do your best to make a home out of a single room (plus tiny bathroom) by naming different parts of the room 'kitchen', 'laundry', 'study' and so on. This, however, is more of a mental pursuit and achieves little towards making you feel like you have a home. Survival may also mean pinching bread from the hotel breakfast buffet to try and make school lunches or borrowing the pool towels for the kids' swimming lessons. At this stage you may feel apprehensive about telling locals that you live here, in case they want to send you back, but you also grow sick of being expected to behave like a tourist (no, for the thousandth time, I do not want to go sight-seeing!). However, you still take advantage of certain aspects of tourist life, such as the pool, soft drinks and dining out every night.

STAGE 2: A NEW HOME
Once you have a house you may feel a little more confident about telling people you live here (until you have to admit that you don't really know where your house is and you have no idea what your phone number is!). Don't expect to feel confident about too much else though. You may be afraid to leave your house and each unfamiliar noise can cause apprehension. The noise-phobia will be alleviated when you learn that those sounds are firecrackers - not gunshots! Tension is not so much caused by things that are new and different as it is by not knowing what things might be the same and what things might be different. You can become very aware that you could commit a terrible social blunder at any moment without ever even realising.

STAGE 3: GAINING CONFIDENCE
This is the stage where minor accomplishments take on major significance. You walk around the neighbourhood - maybe even on your own - obviously starting simply, with a walk down your driveway. You buy bananas from a stall around the corner, without the comfort of a translator. You have your first encounter with a large, hairy, foreign spider - and survive. You use your phone. You cross a busy road. You dabble with the local language (albeit just to say thankyou) and they might even understand. You do the everyday things that everyone else around you is doing (in almost the same way). You are aware that people are surprised by your presence but you also know that you are making it - a day at a time.

STAGE 4: AN AEROPLANE FLIES OVERHEAD
It grabs your attention and you watch it go. You think about being on a plane and you think about being at home. You find yourself thinking about all the mundane things you would be doing at home and all the amazing things you are doing because you are here. You also begin to realise that although you might miss many things about home, especially friends and family, you are actually happy here. You realise with satisfaction that this is turning out to be what you had wanted it to be. You also realise that you are now coping well enough with life to be able to have the time to ponder these things, rather than just dealing with surviving.

The plane flies out of sight. I don't know how many more stages there are (we've only been here a little more than a month) and I don't know whether they will be good, bad or in between.
Still, I do know: so far, so good.