Excerpts from the Peanut Gallery

There are worse things

This weekend my visa expires and I have been left with no choice but to go to Mauritius for five days to renew it. I have experienced this immigration delinquency before and I am once again reminded that there are worse things in life than a visa expiration trip.

The last time this happened I was in Nicaragua and I was “forced” to go to Costa Rica. Now, this really cheesed me because it the visa expiration happened to fall on the very weekend that all my friends were going up to Matagalpa for a friend’s concert. Those days, I would make the two-hour trip up to Matagalpa about every other week, so it is not like I was missing out on a once-in-a-lifetime event, but you know how it is when you feel like everyone is going to have a party without you. So I stomped around the office in a cranky mood trying to find a place to stay in Tamarindo… stupid beach town… mumble mumble… maldita immigracion... mumble jumble…

Yes, I was a spoiled cranky-pants until I arrived in Tamarindo, one of Costa Rica’s premier surf resorts and realised that there are worse things than an enforced, paid holiday to the beach: My roommie Shannon came along so I wouldn’t get lonely and we had a lovely adventure running away from the other backpackers, getting top notch spa pedicures and even met us some handsome fellas. As I recall, I had a jolly good time all around.

Here’s a bit of advice from Auntie Kiks for those kids who want to grow up and try to save the world: clam down and enjoy the ride. This week, faintly in the back of my peanut gallery mind, there was the kind voice saying “it’ll be ok, this will be good, you will get a visa and if you don’t, they will figure out plan B or C or Z…” Unfortunately, the rest of the peanut gallery was the usual, charming gong show, so poor little gaffer didn’t get much credit for being wise or calm or right. Instead, I stomped around my office trying to get answers and make people run after my anxious inquiries.

So often I hear that in order to make it working overseas, be it as a humanitarian worker, a missionary, in the diplomatic corps or just any old international business, there is one virtue above all others: flexibility. It’s true, but it is something deeper than that. You have to be able to roll with the punches on the surface, because deep down you trust. There is nothing naïve or weak about this trust. You make the best arrangements you can with the knowledge you have and then you let it go. It is also called "faith" and what makes it work is that it delights in people - lovely, flakey, people - but doesn't need to rely on them.

Of course, it's much easier said than done. Of course, it's much easier to be cynical. I hear other expats whine about how people take advantage of you or won’t do what they promise or this or that or the other…

But so what?

So they tell you they will do something and then don’t do it for four days. So what? I have the sneaking suspicion that, contrary to what popular culture tells me, my time is not as colossally important as I think it is. I think that's the difference. The beauty of faith is the wonderfully freeing idea that if it doesn't work out - shock and disbelief - the world won't come to an end, because it turns out that I'm not at the centre of it all.

Man I should take my own advice… At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if I am in Madagascar or Canada though. Being at peace with the things I can’t control is not a challenge unique to a new culture. Some days we're better at it than others. I am happy to report that at the end of the day, I can trust that this is in the hands of someone greater.

It’s the other 23 hours of the day that are a problem …

posted by Kiki @ 12:33 p.m.