Note: This blog has been written between 21/1/2020 and 10/2/2020). Some struggles have been solved already😊.
Sometimes I got some reactions of you as reader, you are asking me if all is always going well. Hell no, I got struggles here, definitely. Different ones than in The Netherlands, though. Let me share some with you.
Anti-vampire food 🧛🏼♀ & Feeling like a Bounty 🥥
Because my stomach and my intestines cannot stand garlic and raw onion, I have to ask the cook to modify the dishes. Apparently, this causes confusion and miscommunication. So, sometimes I don’t have a proper lunch, because all is with garlic. Since we are in the jungle it is not so easy to get something else or cook something for myself. I feel that my body is getting weaker, I am lacking important nutrients like protein. We have cow pies (or black eyed peas), lentils and even soy meat, but when it is prepared, it all contains garlic 🙄. Sometimes it looks like you are eating garlic as main dish mixed with something else 🤪. I tried to eat it twice, I got quite sick twice. That was for me the reason to cut off the garlic completely.
I thought it wouldn’t be that difficult to do so, but I feel that I am causing a lot of troubles and confusion and I struggle with it. I got the feeling that they don’t believe me, they think I do it on purpose. They make a lot of jokes about it, my patience to accept all jokes is almost gone… I don’t know if I need to tell them (they will take it personal, that’s part of the culture), or I just let it be. I have chosen for the last option. I just accept it the way it is, and nowadays, they don’t mention it anymore 😊. Lately, I had a talk with the owner, on the day I didn’t feel well because of the garlic. He spoke with the cook about my garlic-issue, now everything is fine. Well, I still have to ask/write down on the whiteboard in the kitchen: NO GARLIC. Another thing is the variety of the food; after 2 weeks I was done with the curries and white rice (which I eat in really small amounts, because it has barely nutrients and for the carbs it is not necessary to eat that much rice), so I am creating new meals in here 😊. Like plain boiled lentils with boiled veggies or salad (salad without dressing, they use too much salt and vinegar, that’s ruining my salad 😅). Pumpkin soup with a little water and fresh coconut milk, no salt, no onion and no garlic and red rice, yummie 😋😋 (red rice is so much more stuffing and tastier than white rice 😊). For lunch I often safe rotti ((it is made of wheat flour, grated coconut, water and oil, it has the shape of a chapati or a rice cracker) and have that with my nutmeg chutney (instead of jam, dahl curry and coconut sambal 😉). Coconut is almost in every dish… I think I am a real Bounty 🥥at the inside right now 😂😜.
Money, money, money 💰🤑
Another frustrating issue is the payment. I hand in a loose piece of paper, all classes, rooms and dates written down for the lady who does the accounting. Unfortunately, she is often asking me for my notebook, to take a picture (which she has done already…) to start checking everything for the payment…. It’s all double work and it makes me a bit (well… way more than just a bit😅) grumpy. The only thing I am thinking: why do I do all this work? It is all for nothing. Frustration, irritation, and then I have to remind myself: breathe in, breathe out, stay calm, be patient (the same things I tell in my yoga classes 😜😇). At the end, all is fine, but the whole way of working… it is so non-consistent, there is no logical order, and then they are complaining that it is so busy… 🤔🙄. For me it is so easy to think: Analyse your way of working, change it if needed, save time, save money. And there we get the magical word: ‘change’! That creates stress here 😉😝. In many things they are really laid-back, but when they need to change something suddenly or quickly, they get stressed. They need more time to get used to another way of working. For me, it is so common to change, modify, adjust for one purpose: work les and earn more (Western mindset😉). After a talk with the owner I changed the registration of my class, I now do it myself, I don’t need to ask the staff to do it (and they are happy with that 😊). Me too, because I know for sure that I get paid😜.
You’re hot 🥵 & you’re cold 🥶
I have had my ‘stress-moments’ here as well, I had that with taking a shower. I had only cold water… There is a note that they heat the water by using a solar panel, but on rainy/cloudy days they need to heat up the water manually (a big barrel and underneath it they make a fire to heat it up). I spoke to the staff to manually heat up the water, no problem. Fortunately, one of the guys was clever, he walked with me to my room, checked all pipes and concluded that the blue tap was my hot water. So, we opened it, let the water run for about 1.5 or maybe even 2 minutes and yes…I had warm water! Lovely, especially when you want to wash your hair or shave your legs. The good thing is, I really appreciate the warm shower, I realised that isn’t that common to have warm/hot water. I am very grateful for that, every time I take a shower 🚿🙏🏻😊.
As you may have noticed, this blog is called ‘Struggles… (Part 1)’. Yes, there will be a part 2! Do I have so many struggles? Yes and no, I just don’t want to post a super long blog 😇.
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💜💚 With love 💜💚
littlemissyoga