Why come back?

Every now and then, one of the little things happens that make me glad I came home. I had one of those moments in the gym last night.I was in the process of dying, that bit when I have just finished my cardio stuff before heading to do weights, and went into the changing room to put down my MP3 player. And I saw a little girl in there who must have been about 6 or 7. I’d seen her around before – she seems to wander around with a book or watching tv while her mum exercises. Yesterday, she was talking on a phone, a pink razor phone. So I stopped to admire it and told her it was very pretty and that she must have important phone calls to make. She smiled shyly back at me, and I started to walk off. At that point, she came up to me (remember I am very sweaty at this point) and gave me a huge hug and then ran off.Why does that make me glad to be back in Jamaica? Well, children in foreign don’t do that. They’ve all been taught that strangers are nasty and dangerous and if you even smile at a child in a shop, their parents will run and grab them and give you a dirty look.* I want to have children somewhere where they can talk to strangers, where adults they vaguely know will pick them up if they start to cry and where they can be hugged by a teacher when they do their work well without the teacher fearing a lawsuit.*And yes, I know that parents are cautious for a reason, there are paedophiles out there and I am not denying that. However, statistically children are a lot more likely to be abused by someone they know well…

Need a roadblock

I haven’t had water at home for about 10 days. Yup, 10 days. Fortunately, we have a water tank, but that’s not large enough to store enough water to run a house of 3 people for 10 days. So we have been practicing the art of filling toilets from a bucket, bathing with an ice cream container and carrying the washing to other people’s houses.

We are used to not having water, we usually have it twice a week for about 4 hours each time. However, this is now getting ridiculous. And what makes it ridiculous is that:

1. The community to the south of us has water (lots of big pretty houses there).
2. The community to the east of us has water (lots of big pretty houses there).
3. The community to the north-east of us has water (lots of big pretty houses there).
4. The community to the west of us has water (lots of big pretty houses there).

Our community, however, has mainly poor people living there. We have a school but apparently that makes no difference.

So we suffer on, listening to excuses from the water commission that change on a daily basis and promises that never come true.

In the meanwhile however, it is a good encourager to go to the gym more often where there is abundant hot water!

Gym Bunnies and soca

I am still going to the gym – it’s been nearly 2 months and I am still persevering. And what’s more, I have now increased to 3 my trips per week. I have this theory that it is best to start easy and build up so I am proud of my 3 trips. And it is starting to make a difference – I saw a friend yesterday who I hadn’t seen for a couple of months and he turned to my friend and asked if I was losing weight – he got a big hug in response!

But I am still not a gym bunny yet… and I doubt if I ever will be. You know the gym bunny – the girls who go EVERY day. The girls who know every instructor and vast quantities of information about them. The ones who always bounce in the gym and never break a sweat.

I got stuck behind one in a class yesterday. I was doing well, holding my own. I was following most of the instructions… just inserting the occassional step instead of bounce but good none the less. Until I got distracted by gym bunny infront of me. She was not really following the instructor… because she as making everything harder. Now that’s just not fair. I’m struggling to keep bouncing etc and she is adding in extra high kicks and jumps. She should be banned for making the rest of us fell inadequate. Humph.

But it is all worth it – I went and ordered my carnival outfit yesterday!!! Ok, so I am only going for the t-shirt option but the shorts are short enough that I wouldn’t have dared a few months ago! And I feel I will have the energy now to jump and wine all the way with the Frenchmen’s crew… with the help of lots of drinks… and to get me in the mood, I have found a soca station on the internet so I am very cheerful in the office today!

I hurt

This is NOT a new year’s resolution, but I joined the gym this week and went for my induction yesterday.

The reason I need the gym is that I currently spend too much time sitting on my derriere in traffic and not doing anything active. In foreign, I used to do stuff like going swimming and going for walks. And life in general was more active there – my job involved getting out more and little things like I used to walk to the pub for my alcohol – here I drive everywhere or get driven!

As a result, my clothes have been getting steadily tighter since I have been back and I realised that I needed to do something before the trend became irreversible.

Then there were 2 motivating factors that have meant that I have decided to do it now:

1. One of my friend’s wants me to jump in carnival here this year and I know that currently I wouldn’t be able to jump all the way to the end of the route, and also that the cute outfits wouldn’t look quite as cute on me as they are supposed to!

2. One of my best friends in getting married in England later this year and I am going to be a bridesmaid!! And as I won’t be able to try on a dress until close to the day, I couldn’t face the embarrassment of getting to England and discovering it is too tight – I’d rather it be too big and then they can take it in!

So off I went last night. I had decided which gym to join solely on the basis of how close it is to my office – I have to make it easy for me to go otherwise I know I’ll miss. So 6pm found me at Spartan, ready to be inducted. I thought it would be a nice gentle walk through – this is what we have, this is how we use it etc. Boy, was I wrong. It seemed to be about pushing me as hard as possible until I dropped.

On the way home last night, my arms hurt trying to turn my car – which is a small car with power steering. And this morning, I am discovering muscles in my shoulders that I never knew even existed. Oh well, hopefully I will be able to see a difference at some point before too long – I just have to keep going!