Domestic Goddess? Moi?

I am having to revise and dust off my domestic skills. Ten years of life on the move and the various assorted amahs and domestic helpers has softened me. (Annette, Feli, Mirasol, Mary, John and N). So this week I cooked my first meals in ten years as N is still unwell. The kids of course thought the idea of me cooking a meal was utterly hysterical and sat perched on the kitchen counters in utter amusement as I prepared to cook our first meal in a decade.

H was the chopper, Z the cook and B the master organiser and recipe reader.

It worked well.

And now, after a week or so, they are really enjoyng the ritual of sitting around in the kitchen whilst everyone does something.

Meals this week?

1. Chicken with farfalle and sage
   
2. Red lentil stew with olive bread
   
3. Chili con carne
4. Salmon parcels with dill
   
5. Spicy canellini beans and pumpkin curry

And the best thing is that they are already talking about what we will cook next week. As I type H is poring through cook books and Z is arranging fresh herbs in glass jars along the kitchen window.

I like it.

I hate those last results

That stress tests is really stupid. really bloody stupid.

insane.

@!&£^shit!! &am blood*%?y p;*£jkhf j(**h^& bum V%))_& F@!!!!

Love the Expat Lifestyle!

Just did on of those online stress tests - my results?

"Thank you for taking the Stress Test!

Your total stress score is 472

If your score totals 150 or more:
You have a 50-50 chance of developing an illness.

If your score totals 300 or more:
You have a 90 percent chance of developing an illness."

Well that encouraging. Thanks a bloody lot for those results....

I'm off to have a carrot juice and go for a run.

That or a big glass of red wine.

Flying friendships

A was flown off the island this morning by emergency helicopter. We had a flurry of phone calls and texts and I rushed off to give her a hand. I have been visiting her every day, picking up her children from school, doing shopping and ferrying the husband around. I have also been a point of contact for the school and some of her other friends.

It has been a hugely emotional time. Her pregnancy was not planned although it did come as a welcome surprise, twins though were an even greater surprise and the whole pregnancy has been fraught with difficulties. There was a life threatening situation for all concerned last month when she was flown to London for treatment and an emergency operation. Stress levels are huge and we have all spent many hours crying, holding hands and laughing.

Such is friendship.

The thing is though that living on such a tiny island has its repercussions and one of them is the quality of medical advice that we have here. Basically, we either get a specialist from the UK who visits on an irregular - and extremely busy - basis or we have to make do with the local talent.

And the local talent is not always that great.

The problem here is the overloaded medical system, the lack of resources, the small talent pool and the expense of living here. Combine that with high alcoholism (and the associated injuries) and the problem is compounded.

Anyway A is now in an overseas hospital and we are all on round the clock watch. Two babies, one mum, two siblings still here being babysat by all of us and an anxious husband dashing between the two countries. The grandparents flying in as I type....

N's neck

N's neck sort of exploded. The absess thing. So we rushed her off to the hospital to get the specialist to look at her again. And they think it (and she) is doing well. She has another appointment in three weeks with a guy who flys over from London and is the hospital consultant on cases such as this. That and she sees the opthamologist and the liver guy who will be monitoring her liver for any damage. The drugs are apparently quite aggressive and so they want to keep an eye on things.

Right now she is nauseous and has bright orange urine. She is also dizzy.

She is now starting to think that she wants to go home especially as her mother keeps calling and weeping. Perhaps after she sees the consultant. She asked me to research hospitals in the Philippines and a friend of mine here (who is also from the Philipines and who speaks tagalog) has been invaluable. She has helped translate diagnoses, talk N through things and explained things to her in a way that she understands. She has been able to put into context what the doctor and I haven't as well as reassure her that she will get better if she continues to take the medications. The big worry is whether she will continue to take them if she returns to the Philipines.

N also asked me to write up a list of questions that she needs to ask the doctor as we will be out of the country when she has her next appointment.

Stay posted.

Holding my breath..

I'm holding my breath a lot these days. I know I shouldn't be but I can't help it. N walks into the room, and I hold my breath. I breathe into my shoulder. I turn my head and try to suck in air from close to my body (what use that is is anyone's guess!!) or I try to discretely leave the room.

This is insane. She must feel like a leper but no matter how I rationalise this I still feel the fear. I still panic. I still want her out of the house. Part of this is of course because of her diagnosis but another part is because I fear that she won't be honest if things change.

Most people wouldn't hide a lump on their neck until it was the size of a mandarin - they would be worried but they would go and get it checked out. Most people would get it checked out months before it grew to that size.

She is instead relying on a prayer handkerchief that someone from her village has blessed that she wraps around her neck. And, it doesn't get washed as it would wash away the blessing.

I tried to talk her out of this last night.

"N. I think you should be uncovering your neck. It probably needs air to heal."

"No. It is a prayer and if I take it off it will get worse."

"Yeah well. The doctor didn't really suggest this. Maybe you could just wear it sometimes."

"NO. I have to wear it all the time."

The problem for me is also that I don't trust her to tell me if things get worse. The fact that this boil grew to such a huge size means I don't have confidence that she will tell me if she starts to cough. If she starts to feel much worse. Or if she starts to have any other symptoms. If the TB moves to her chest or becomes active.

I don't feel like I can really trust her anymore.

Part of this is, of course, money related.

For her, working overseas has been a very lucrative move. She is earning much more than she ever did back in the Philippines and this means that she is much better off financially. For her to admit that she is not well, could mean that she loses her job. It could mean that she is sent back to her family to recuperate. Instead, she wants me to look after her.

She told a friend of mine that we are like sisters.

But that is not at all how I see the relationship. I would catergorise it as that of long term cleaning lady - I am polite and pleasant to her but basically we have a financial relationship. She is hired to do a job and the emotional relationship is very small. We don't discuss personal matters, she is not affectionate to my children, we don't talk about family matters. We discuss what vegetables to cook for dinner or what priority of household chores needs to be done. And that is about it. The thing is though that living in such close proximity to another person you have to have a more formal relationship or it simply won't sustain. The person that I want to be close to is my husband or my friends. Not N.

So things are compunded by guilt. I feel guilty about my reaction to her illnes... I feel panicked about her illness and I feel mistrustful of her ability not to make financially based decsions.

At best I see this situation continuing for about a month. She sees the specialist in four weeks and we will have more information at that point. Ideally, I want her to go home and be with her family. I want her mother to take care of her and I want my house back to myself. But I also want her to get better and not suffer by being back in a third world country. And I need to protect my family.

The banker spends his days being rationale about this. Thank God I married a rationalist and as soon as he is home I feel calmer.

Today I woke up to a house reeking of vinegar. The kitchen is steaming in vinegar. The toilets have been wiped down in vinegar. The windows polished with vinegar and her lunch is simmering away on the stove in litres of vinegar.

Her mother suggested it as a way to purify the house, and to help heal her neck.

Meanwhile I am dry retching in the study. I am trying to be OK about this but I feel ill with the smell. Add to that boiled mutton and I am just about to abandon house and home.

Vinegar, boiled mutton and TB woman walking around coughing and trailing prayer handkerchiefs wherever she goes.

So today will be another holding my breath day...

What did we think about?

Perhaps this should really be called, what didn't we think about!

Being married to a banker meant that the number of things we evaluated and considered was huge.

We started off by looking at what was happening around the world during the six months before the posting was due for renewal. We looked more seriously at what was happening in Asia and in Europe on a country by country basis. The banker called the HR departments in a number of countries where he had good solid relationships to suss out what was happening and he also started to think about contacts and connections - everything in this world is always about contacts!

Then we started having country specific discussions along the lines of "What do you think about Vietnam? India? China?"

"Sure, wherever" was usually my response.

As the time got closer the banker had to make more serious contact with the various HR departments, and he polished up his CV and sent it to various contacts in the bank. He worked out what the market was paying in different countries and evaluated what our package was worth: in English pounds, Aussie dollars, Hong Kong dollars and a variety of other currencies.

How much money could we bank is we rented a 4 bedroom house in Hong Kong and the kids went to an international school as opposed to renting in the UK and sending them to a public school? Was it a valid comparison? Which was the more likely or more favoured option in terms of accommodation, education, employment opportunities for me, tax rates, interest rates? How do we factor in health risks in Asia such as SARs and bird flu? Was it important? How would I fare in these countries (as an asthmatic) and would I breathe easier in one country or another?

I did comprehensive allergy testing.

Where did the kids want to go? Should we consider their opinion? Or not? Was the information that they offered valid or too emotional?

How would we handle moving them to another country? How much would airfares be back to Australia? And how often would we want to go? What was the impact of ageing parents on this?

Should we ship over all of our goods that are scattered all over the world to one central location? Do we leave stuff in Australia? Should we buy or rent? What was our long term retirement plan? Which country did we think we would be living in? How long would the banker have left in a traditional corporate environment? How could he best place himself in the future? What areas of the bank were more lucrative? Growing? Declining? In demand?

If we moved what would we do with the dog? The guinea pigs? The fish?

I worked out a 76 day exit strategy and planned it all out on Entourage - I worked out how long it would take to get visas, immunisations, letters from the school. I stopped buying large jars of coffee and started purchasing itty bitty sized jars.

We ate our way through the pantry and had car boot sales culling down all sorts of odd things even though we tend to travel fairly lightly.

And now?

Some of it has been for no use at all. Some of it has been very valuable and most of it has helped in making a decision that stands up on its own two feet - in terms of the banker's long term career, in terms of the children's education and in terms of our future.

Right now though all I feel is a sense of absolutely blessed relief that this whole muddied, complicated, stressful process is behind us now. For another two or three years.

And this time I am keeping all my files, all my plans and all my inventories reasonably up t date so I can just dust them off again and do it again.

See you in 2009!