What I Notice

Today I'm in Australia. Sometimes (but not for a year now) I'm in New Zealand. But usually I'm in the Solomon Islands. Solomon Islands is a relatively *different* country to live in. Perhaps the difference is more distinct not in a description of what I notice in the Solomon Islands but of what I notice in New Zealand or Australia. Everytime I step out of the customs protected areas in the international airports and officially into the "West", I notice something different.

By notice, what I mean is that there is always one thing that strikes me, one staggering reality of life in the West that is different, just one thing that hits me hard in that whole trip.

The first time I went back to the West I noticed the fashion. Back then it was the embarrassing (well not for me because I didn't partake of it) revival of ridiculous coloured tights, dresses that looked like long tee-shirts and long undies, or should I say shorts (?) that girls wore in public. Obviously their mothers forgot to mention some things to them (and for the sake of today's post I'm not talking about modesty - I'm talking about distasteful fashion!!).

The second time I went back to the West I noticed how everything smelled so nice. One member of a Short Term mission team said to me in the Solomons, "it just stinks like the masses of unwashed humanity." Sadly, when I live at home (by which I mean, the Solomon Islands), I, too, smell like unwashed humanity. My clothes are mouldy and sweated in beyond repair, deodorant lasts about 10 minutes, and my house always has that musty smell of the tropics. But in the West - even the airport smelt deliciously fresh and inviting. People smell nice. Buildings smell nice. Even dogs smell nice!!

The third time I went back to the West I noticed how biting the cold was. It's like the wind hit you in the face, the hands, the neck, whatever part of your body that was exposed, and went right into your body, streaming through like a bolt of electricity and leaving you energised and shaken into motion. It was spring, the flowers were out, the trees had changed colour - pink and white and green; it was a new season. At home we have hot and dry and hot and wet. That's it. And those two seasons are really rather indistinguishable, except that in hot and dry your body feels hot but the sweat runs off, and in hot and wet your body feels hot but the sweat sticks. In NZ in the spring, particularly the beautiful Hawkes Bay in the spring, the wind came rushing down from the hills, searching for people to give a cold slap of a kiss on the cheek, and leave them flabbergasted and flabbergusted.

The fourth time I went back to the West I noticed that the houses seemed insecure. I couldn't believe that there were no bars on the windows, no fences securing the property, no guards at the gate to screen people coming in. You could open your window and exit via the window. This may sound like an odd idea to you, but in our house if their was a fire or a burglary where would we exit? We have two doors on the same side of the house, but all our windows are barred. At first I felt unsafe in Australia living in a house that had not bars on the window. You could actually see what was outside without the obstruction but, the windows felt naked.

The fifth time I went back to the West (my current trip) I notice that I can put mascara on and it doesn't smudge all over my eyelids and upper cheek. It's fantastic. There's no mugginess here so it dries straight away.

Fancy that!