THE HONEST TRUTHS BEHIND EVERY EXPAT

“One day a long time from now you'll cease to care anymore whom you please or what anybody has to say about you. That's when you'll finally produce the work you're capable of.”

That J.D. Salinger quote was posted to a friend’s Facebook status yesterday, and it got me thinking. After a few seconds, I made the Facebook-appropriate gesture and “liked” the post, and then I typed a comment about how the quote described my current state of being, sure that living in Papua New Guinea helped me achieve enlightenment. Ironically, I felt a bit hesitant to post the comment. I was cautious of what others might think – would I sound cocky? Would others be find my comment distasteful in any way?

I hit the enter key and sent the comment into the internetsphere because I really did believe that I was content.

While it is true that my personality and my values have transformed since leaving America more than three years ago, it didn’t take long for me to reconsider my recently penned statement. The friend who posted the quote – an actual, real-life, amazing friend – wrote back, “Moving out of your environment gives you a nice, clean slate to be yourself without as many preconceived notions and pressures from people who know you.” I suddenly realized that I did care about the words some people say to and about me.

I studied those words for several minutes and examined them from different angles. Was I supposed to take offense to those words? Did she really intend to sting me or prod me, I wondered. Maybe I am interpreting the words incorrectly, because I don’t believe she would actually intend to throw a transcribed punch, even though in that moment I absolutely felt as if a fist had struck my chest.

After a couple minutes, I decided that I probably was misinterpreting her words, so I began to look at them from other positions, examining my life as an expat wife. I began posing questions to myself, trying to remember back to the days of April 2011 and July 2013 when I landed first in Singapore and then in Port Moresby.

Was moving to a new environment easy or difficult?

Was starting over pleasurable or a bit of a nightmare?

Did I leave others behind in order to start afresh?

Did I feel social pressures in my new environment?

Did I experience social pressures from my friends and family left behind?

I posed two of those questions to Nicola via WhatsApp, and then I wondered if I had ever answered any of these questions in front of the people who knew me in my previous life. I say “previous life,” because that’s how other expat wives describe their own lives. Apparently there is a pre-expat life and a post-expat life. The two worlds meet at one point like walls dividing rooms but never overlap. There is a distinct “before” and an “after.”

When a person refers to life in before and after terms, the listener should infer and understand that the middle point – that wall – represents transition, and transition is often difficult.

Yes, the expat lifestyle is exciting, but why is it exciting? Because anyone who is not an expat isn’t living the life of an expat. The grass is always greener.

Expats get to explore another country. We travel to locations that others only see on Google Maps and other people’s social media pages. We have stories of retreats in Bangkok, Bali and Sydney, which are only glamorous to those who live on the opposite side of the world. My British friends think the U.S. and Canada are amazing, faraway lands. Those who live in Asia likely dream of visiting Capetown, the Outback or London, among other places. Since I am being honest here, I will admit that I am jealous of my expat friends who go to Vietnam, Cambodia, France and the Maldives because I have not yet been there. The grass is greener and the water is bluer. I get it. I am one of you.

People are excited by travel and experiences other than their own. That’s why we have dreams – because we all aspire to be someone other than who we are right now or to do something other than what we currently do. If we did not dream, we would accomplish nothing.

So, yes, expats travel. Yes, expats observe cultures different from our own, we participate in celebrations that are unlike our norms and we experience life in a new environment – all of these things are very cool. But on several occasions, being an expat kind of sucks. And maybe while we have been flaunting the good and the amazing, we just haven’t been honest about the bad and the ugly.

When a couple becomes an expat (I will use couple to describe my own situation – please insert person, family, individual, whatever will make you happy), the first step after committing to the opportunity is to tell people. When we told my mother, she finally felt her umbilical cord pop and it wasn’t a clean cut. My husband’s mom was not happy. Our friends told us we were crazy and gave us looks that said, “See you in a month” as they toasted us farewell. Not having immediate support from the people who mean the most is challenging.

Once a couple tells everyone and hopes they all recover from the shock (and they do), the couple then either finds someone to rent their home while they vacate for an unknown period of time and assume the undesirable role of landlord, or they sell everything they own so as not to be tied down. We broke our condo lease and chose the latter. Moving sucks.

We determined which items were valuable enough to make the trip across oceans and we got rid of the rest. We sold furniture and a car; we donated a full-size Honda sedan’s worth of goods as the car was filled – trunk, front seat, back seats and all; we donated the second car. In a matter of days, everything we owned was gone, whether in someone else’s possession or on the back of a small semi. Parting with and disposing of items that just days prior were completely necessary takes some adjustment. Learning just what you can live without takes some adjustment.

Saying good-bye to friends and family members sucks. There are tears and sad faces and long hugs and lots of tissues. My husband and I have spent the last three years leaving and every time we prepare to board a plane, Paul’s mom gives a quick pat, pivots and heads for the door because she can neither bear to see us go nor for us to see her cry. My mom cries every time. I cry every time. Expats experience sadness and those around them do as well.

Landing in a new country is thrilling but the 29-hour commute on no fewer than three economy class planes is something entirely different. That’s right, not everyone flies business. And even 14 hours on a business class seat will make your butt hurt. And toes turn into Tootsie Rolls for days after landing. And the dry airplane air makes the boogers inside your nose feel like jagged glass. And there are airplane lavatories used by hundreds of people throughout the 14-hour flight. Flying from one part of the world to another in a matter of hours is incredible, but it isn’t all pleasant.

Climate changes distress the mind and the body, and women’s hair. For the first three months in Singapore, Paul and I would sweat just walking outside. We would sweat while getting ready to leave the house and desire a shower after we had already taken a shower 20 minutes prior.

And then there’s the time adjustment. Imagine taking one day per every hour difference – that’s more than two weeks between Ohio and PNG no matter which way you fly. Jet lag isn’t pretty. Just ask my friend, Van, about the time he flew from Singapore back home to D.C. and immediately attended a wedding and landed in the hospital because no one should have alcohol after traveling for an entire day. Well, you could ask him but he doesn’t remember, so you should instead ask our friends in Singapore about the epic night that Paul and I joined them for dinner within hours of making the day-long commute. Better yet, read about it.

The thought of starting over is refreshing, I will agree with that. When I was in high school, I couldn’t wait to start college at a place where no one knew me. I could reinvent myself as a gregarious person instead of the shy, approval-seeking, wishing-so-badly-I-fit-in person I was at the time. Moving to another country is not like going to college.

Landing in a foreign country without having someone to guide you, to point you to a grocery store, to teach you how to use the public transportation system is courageous. Learning that English is a universal language that is not universally spoken or understood is frustrating. Telling a taxi driver that you need to go to Cairnhill (kayrn-hill) Road and having him tell you to get out of his car because he doesn’t know where you need to go because karyn-hill is actually pronounced cane-hill is confusing.

Trying to find basic essentials in a country that has not discovered online shopping or even commercial websites is frustrating. Waiting in line for 30 minutes and finally making it to the front of the line only to find out you spent 30 minutes in the wrong line is frustrating. Having businesses open late and close on time is frustrating. Having a bank tell you that you cannot take money out of your own account because they do not have the cash to give you is frustrating.

When the couple gets beyond all of the emotions a couple experiences in the inaugural week or two, they might give a thought about making some friends – finding someone who can act as an ally. This is when the real emotions emerge.

“When you move to a new country, there is no pressure from people that know you, agreed,” Nicola told me last night. “But that's because you have no friends. So actually the pressure to get to know people, find friends and get to be around people that will accept you for you is worse. I get it, I really do. And I intend no offense towards anyone in stating my opinion. It's beautiful here, and we are blessed and honored by the opportunity of living in a different country. It does give a person a clean slate, and I am not being ungrateful for this amazing life, but the reality for me personally? The reality was being in a room full of people and feeling totally alone. Trying to piece myself together after leaving a career that defined who I was. Crying silently to myself because all I wanted to do was see, touch, hear and feel something I knew.”

For me, making friends with the expat wives was actually pretty similar to high school. I joined an organization and clung to the first handful of women I met. We were casual friends first who were all new to Singapore. We explored each other, observed each other and slowly bonded. Six to eight months later, I found myself wondering why we were all still hanging out. It took a while for me to realize that I didn’t have to be friends with these women just because they were the first friends that I made. We drifted, and that drifting process taught me that it was O.K. to not be friends with everyone while still being friendly to everyone.

In the last three years I have met a lot of women with whom I did not mesh. Though Singapore was getting a slow inflow of women in their 20s and 30s, the vast majority were closer in age to my mother and grandmother. I met an incredible amount of people yet failed to find the good few for the first year. When I did finally find them, I could not remember a time in my life without them. With these people, I learned the value of true friendship. Then I experienced a new friendship phenomenon, one where the new good people moved out of the country as quickly as they arrived. Friends left, and when I was close to leaving Singapore, I began erecting my own expat wall, distancing myself from making new friends.

When I moved to PNG, I was even lonelier than I had been in Singapore because there were no organizations dedicated to making friends. I met the pilot wives but I did not come close to fitting in with them. I was on the outside of a social circle while feeling trapped on a guarded compound. I have friends and family elsewhere who love chatting on the phone, and I have a husband who is with me all day every day, but I feel it is important to communicate that being an expat can sometimes be lonely.

Expats also try to make friends at work, if the suddenly-unemployed other half can find work. Obtaining employment in your own country can be difficult. Add to that an unfamiliarity with your surroundings, no experience within the region and fighting for a position in a place that values hiring its own citizens above foreigners, and the caveat that if an employer does want to hire you, that employer must jump through massive hoops of paperwork in order for you to have the legal right to work, and employment becomes more of an honor resembling a prize on The Price is Right than a guarantee. What? You cannot commit to a term longer than your spouse’s contract? Job security what?

Finally, what about the people we left behind when we embarked upon the greatest journey of our ever-changing lives? We miss milestone birthdays, weddings, pregnancies and births. We miss reunions and face time with our ever-aging family members. We miss experiencing inside jokes and watching our nieces and nephews through each stage of life. While we are living “the good life,” we are missing out on others’ lives, and then when we do make it back to our home countries, we are hit with the expectation that we must see everyone we ever encountered – who live all over America, by the way – within the three weeks we are Stateside because, after all, we are only there for three weeks.

And when an expat couple repatriates back into their home country, another wall is affixed, again preventing one side from ever fully touching the other.

After considering all of this, I wondered if I was the only one with this thought line. Do other expat wives feel the same way? Did they feel social pressures?

My friend, Megan, a fellow American expat who I will claim to have known my entire life said, “I definitely felt my own pressures. I wasn't sure what the ‘expat lifestyle’ was. I joined a million groups and clubs to meet other expat wives, only to determine that THAT ‘expat lifestyle’ was NOT for me. It was only once I abandoned trying to embrace being an expat and fitting in with the expat wives, and doing the ‘expat thing’ that I found true happiness and made TRUE friendships.”

When I asked Nicola about her initial expat experience and whether she thought starting over in a new country was easier or harder than it was when she lived in England, she stated that she “never found anything harder in my whole life.”

So, yes, expat life is amazing, and, like many other expats out there, I love a lot about what my life has become. But there are also a lot of disadvantages to the life that at times appears to be so much better than everyone else’s. The grass is always greener on the other side, but even grass can be deceiving. You don’t know if the grass is naturally green, if the owner meticulously nurtures and manicures the grass to form it into the green it has become or if the green you see has been spray painted to mask the true battered state that some expats are not likely to reveal.

I am beyond grateful for the opportunities that have allowed Paul and me to become expats twice. I have learned to not take for granted branded goods, electricity that works for 24 contiguous hours, water coming out of a tap, toilets, friendships.

I have learned that I can leave the house without makeup, that I don’t have to look pretty to feel pretty and that life without solid people supporting me is no life I want to pursue. Because I have made the good friends in my life abroad, I now have pillars on nearly every continent. I have come to a place where I do not put much care into what other people say or think because I know who I am and the people I choose to have in my life accept me as I am. I accept that I am not on this earth to please anyone, let alone everyone.

Except I do care what some people say and think. I may not care what any other person in the world has to say about me or my actions, but I do care what my people say. If my friends find fault with my words or actions, I want to be a better friend, so their words matter. If my family members are hurting, their feelings matter.

If my people say something that strikes me wrongly, I realize that I do care what they think, but if I am hurt by their words, it is my responsibility to determine whether or not those words merely sting and quickly heal or plunge and form deep scars. To Mr. Salinger I would say, “One day not far from now you will realize the value of true friendship. On that day you will discover that true friends will help you produce work beyond your capabilities alone and that nothing else matters quite as much.”

OMG PNG

As if spotty Internet access, daily power outages and water system failure weren’t enough to keep us laughing at third-world occurrences, the last two weeks we have been bombarded by door issues. We have one exterior door that opens into the living room/kitchen combo, so there are not a whole lot of backup options.

A few weeks ago, we noticed that our key was not easily opening the lock inside our door, sometimes requiring a little jiggle to offset the lock. As the days went by, the annoyance turned into disturbance and eventually turned into a fiasco when Paul could not get into the apartment for several minutes. I joked that we could start using the bedroom window as an ingress/egress point.

He contacted maintenance, explained the situation and was told that someone would be by to fix the lock. A man came, assessed the lock, added some lubricant, which seemed to do the trick, and then went on his way. Our key, though just slightly sticky, did work much better than before. I was satisfied with the service and I was pretty sure that Paul was as well.

A week later, another maintenance man arrived on our doorstep. I was still wearing a pajama top that wasn’t exactly outside-world appropriate. Thankfully the maintenance man knocked before coming in – something they do not typically do. I suppose the maintenance people are used to residents having jobs and tourists checking out of rooms, so popping a master key into the lock and letting themselves in as if any apartment were their own home seems to be the norm. I have been startled on a few occasions.

I answered the door as it was opening while covering my goods with my folded arms, asking how I could help. The man advised that he was checking on the door. He heard that we had a faulty lock. I told him a man the week prior had already come and fixed the lock and that it worked just fine. Apparently our housekeeper had complained about her key sticking, so this guy I guess was just following orders. He didn’t seem to understand that the lock had been fixed, even after testing the lock with the key because the next thing I knew, he was removing the door knob from the door. I went into the back and changed into something more appropriate as I told Paul what was happening.

We spent the day with a hole in the door that exposed us to the outside world. The latch part was still in the door, though, so the door itself could not be closed completely, otherwise we would be stuck. So not only did our door have a hole in it, but also our door was slightly ajar.

Paul did his thing while I stayed in the apartment and then I did my thing in the gym. Everything was fine until I came back inside, leaned my backside against the door and gave it a push with my hands and the rest of my body. Oops. No problem, I thought. We’ll just pull some lever and the clasp will release and all will be fine. No, it really wasn’t that easy.

I figured we would just leave the door and the maintenance man would know how to fix it, but Paul slightly freaked out and kept spouting words like, “if there’s a fire I don’t want to be stuck in here,” so he did not appreciate my lackadaisical attitude or my jokes. With a pair of scissors and some determination fueled by anger directed at me, Paul was able to once again open the door. So there we were, in our apartment with a hole in the ajar door.

Sometime around 4:30 the man reappeared with a similar doorknob. He installed the knob and tested our keys that suddenly did not work. Paul was out so I swapped our old house keys for the new ones. The maintenance man had three keys. He said one was for us, one was for housekeeping and one was for the manager; I took two keys. I thought we were all set, he left, job done.

When Paul came back, he quickly assessed that while I had received new keys for the knob lock, I had given away our old keys for the deadbolt. Oops. Apparently our new keys did not work up top. We were able to get our other key back the next day and continued on living life with two house keys. It’s been done before.

We realized this week that our housekeeper’s key works in the deadbolt lock but not in the new knob lock. I guess the maintenance people did not give her a copy of the new key. Paul and I yesterday made the decision to simply lock the deadbolt any time we require service moving forward. Problem solved.

This morning maintenance came to visit!

Apparently there was something wrong with our lock, but I did not know what that could be. It took several rounds to get him to understand that the bad lock was fixed and that yes, we were living with two keys, but that two keys were not an issue for us. Everything was O.K. He left.

Half an hour later he was back with another guy. I cannot tell you how many times I had a conversation that included these words: “You have two keys – one for this lock and one for this lock.” Yes, I just showed you that. “We are going to take this one out, take it to locksmith and then you have one key for both lock.” Nine times I had that conversation…at least. I’m not kidding.

I just let them do what they wanted to do. Like with most things in PNG – food orders, contracts, bill discussions – no one will ever understand logic or what we consider common sense. It is often easier to surrender.

Did you notice that we have four locks on our door? One knob lock, one deadbolt, one sliding bolt and a chain.

So we sat all day with a hole in our door again. I ran to the back and came back with a sock to stick through the hole and around the door so that I wouldn't again accidentally lock us in. They chuckled and kindly removed the latch. This afternoon, two men came back and replaced our door knob with yet another lock. They were quite pleased that we had one key to open both locks. Funny, both sets of keys – our newer set and the original set – both opened the new lock.

We thought we were good. The knob was in, the locks worked, the keys worked in the locks. Everyone was happy. Problem solved.

Then around 7 p.m. someone came around to check on the door. Paul confirmed that we were still good. I swear, if a maintenance man knocks on our door next week, I am leaving the country.

WHO LIKES NORDSTROM?

The more Paul gets out of PNG, the more he despises being in the country. Two weeks ago, we were in Singapore. Last weekend he was in Brisbane. Yesterday, as like most days these days, Paul decided he was bored. Now, I have heard the bored word on occasion. Paul doesn’t really do a whole lot when he doesn’t have work to do.

He watches baseball between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., he naps after lunch and then he wakes to watch The Pickers, Pawn Stars, American Restoration sometimes, two episodes of M*A*S*H followed by two episodes of Seinfeld, immediately switching over to The Late Show with Jimmy Fallon. When Jimmy has said his farewells, I may have a shot at the remote. Or Paul will find Top Gear – the real one, not the Aussie or crappy American versions.

While he is watching all this TV, he is on the internet reading reddit threads, pilot forums and playing games like Free Cell and Capture the Flag, whichever is his new thing at the time.

The thing with Paul is that he goes all in on something he likes. If he doesn’t like something, he will give an attempt or two and then quit because why should he continue to do something that doesn’t make him happy?

But when the things that fill Paul’s day don’t do enough to keep him entertained, he comes to me. Not for ideas, not for conversation, not for anything other than a human bean bag that he can jump on, poke, bounce around and laugh hilariously because he is just so funny.

The last two days he has confessed his boredom, just two days – mere hours, really – after he returned from the first world.

I have been working on some projects and keeping myself mostly entertained but I do occasionally get bored as well. When I get bored, I usually sit in front of the television and not really do anything else. If I have control of the remote, Paul is not in the house.

We have 2.5 weeks left in PNG before we head back to America for the summer. Paul has his aircraft training and I am going because why would I stay in PNG alone for more than a month when I could be in the first world – the cheaper first world – spending time with friends and family doing all of the things that I cannot do here?

Our nephew is having a birthday party June 1, the day we tentatively planned on arriving stateside. When the party was announced, I decided (yeah, I decided) that we should land a day early since Paul’s family would be at the party and it would be nice to attend the first of the kid’s six birthday parties.

He’s having a GI Joe-themed party, so I thought I would invest in something camo. I hit my favorite online retailers and found a nice pair of fitted camo pants from the Gap. On sale and free shipping – done. I nabbed two tops in the process. I showed a lot of restraint with that purchase because I initially had three additional items in my online shopping cart that I eventually removed because I have been pursuing spirit-led spending and my spirit was telling me that the other items were not necessary and that my total was getting out of hand. I also decided not to purchase a fun camo scarf that I found on Nordstrom’s site and considered that a win.

Then I received an e-mail regarding a bachelorette party I will be attending in a few weeks, also in America and also in the middle of jet lag recovery week. Now, at 31, I feel that I am too old for bachelorette parties, especially for women in their mid-20s but the girl is about to be my sister-in-law-in-law so I will proudly chaperone until I can wear real shoes no more. (Fact: when a person wears flip flops every single day, real shoes of any kind – boat shoes, heels, ballerina flats, even Sketchers walking shoes that people are supposed to wear on walking vacations – tear up the feet and create blisters at the heels, the sides of the feet and the top of the feet near the toes. Oh the toes. Don’t forget about blisters on the toes!).

The invitation advised that among scandalous things like lingerie and underwear, I also needed to bring a mask for the evening on the town. I do not own a mask, here or in America, so, of course, I needed to find one online. What color mask should I wear? I don’t know what color dress I will be wearing. Do I have a dress worthy of a night out with mid-20-year-olds that still says, “I look amazing” and yet “I’m 30 and I’m married so don’t touch me you horny infant”?

The short answer is that I do not own clubbing clothes because I do not go clubbing. So, again, I sought my online retailers, both for the dress and the mask. While I was searching for a night-out dress, there were other dresses that filled the pages and widened my eyes.

Sundresses, maxi dresses and wedding-worthy dresses abounded in so many beautiful prints and colors. I found myself lusting over them and wishing that I had money so that I could buy them all. I actually said to myself at one point, “If I had a job like I used to and earned my own money, I would absolutely buy that dress right now!” That’s when I admitted that I have a problem.

I stopped looking, closed the website, took a breath and got back to reality. PNG reality but reality nonetheless.

After a workout that had me sweating like I swear I have never sweat before, leaving a puddle on my pilates mat that made burpees dangerous because I kept slipping, I showered and began washing the dishes.

The bored man appeared and dropped my pajama pants to my knees, exposing my behind, a true act of a juvenile whose dirty uncles have obviously had a hand in raising him. Both hands covered in soap up to my elbows and half a load of dishes to finish, I kindly asked my husband to return my dignity. After laughing and running around the room in a manner I should have associated with his still 5-year-old nephew, he got closer but did not acquiesce my request.  

I attempted to pull my pants back up my body and then Paul – again, 5 – decided he would help. He grabbed my pants, pulled them up to the sky as far as they would go and ensured the drawstring was outside of my tank top, not underneath as it was just moments prior. Luckily, my pajama pants are so long that the bottoms were tucked firmly under my heels meaning that I was not injured in the process. He simply could not get the pants as high as he wanted them to go. But he did leave me there standing with my pants up to my true waist, drawstring out and proud.

I decided that I had to do something to combat this behavior. The word divorce has never in five years come to mind but I realize that there are absolutely moments when I don’t like him at all and that debacle by the sink definitely consumed a few of those moments.

Then, genius struck. Oh, this is awesome! I thought as I appeared in front of him.

“Listen here,” I said as I stood proudly, looking down on him seated in front of the television on the red leather loveseat, all smiles. “New plan: you annoy the crap out of me, I do some online shopping.”

He didn’t seem to understand, so I spelled it out.

“You continue to bug me, I will dwindle the bank account. You leave me alone, I will continue to restrain myself and the money stays in place.”

He may realize that my bark is bigger than my bite but I do have four dresses picked out already, which would bring the total somewhere around $400 so he can try me.

I think he got the hint. We went to bed. We slept.

We woke….well, he woke, went into the other room and came in some time later to see if I was awake.

He walked over to my side of the bed and started smiling and agitating the bed, asking if I was going back to sleep. Then he laughed and said he guessed not.

Still coming to, I looked at him and said, “If you’re bored already, this is going to be a long day.”

He laughed and plopped on the bed.

Fewer than two hours later, while I am writing this piece, he barged into the room insisting that I watch a video he just sent me. He plopped onto the bed, pushing me to the side, sat on top of me and suddenly decided that he would dig his teeth into my arm.

I warned him about Nordstrom. “I found a fantastic dress on Nordstrom last night. It’s $88.”

“For the wedding?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“That’s actually a good price.” O.K. that threw me.

He continued to press his teeth into different parts of my arm, pressing harder and pressing his teeth in different angles against my skin.

“If you break skin, I am buying two dresses.”

I thought it was a good threat and I was so ready to pull up the website and order them if he actually did, but Paul saw my threat as a challenge and forged ahead with his new battle plan.

“I want to see how hard I can do this before actually breaking the skin.”

Anyone reading this better buy stock in Nordstrom today. 

THIRD WORLD TRAFFIC

Driving in the third world is not difficult but it does take a lot of patience and there can be some heavy gasping; balancing offensive and defensive driving is an art. Speed limits are rarely posted and even when they are, no police people are around to enforce the limits so speed is anyone’s game. Traffic lights are even sparser than speed limit signs and people pretty much utilize the lights as suggestions.

When one major intersection shaped in a T had its three sets of signals fail for no fewer than three consecutive days, it was anyone’s guess who actually had the right of way. Basically, everyone had the right of way so everyone pushed their way into the intersection until each car – much like a bumper car scenario – made its way out of the cluster.

Roundabouts or traffic circles predominantly indicate major intersections; there are large and small roundabouts. Some roundabouts have names that indicate the neighborhoods like 5 Mile, 8 Mile; others have names for the businesses located on the roundabout: the Mobile Roundabout, the Courts Roundabout.

Most cars are tattered, either beat up from loose road rocks or from local misconduct. Cars are dented, scraped, keyed; windows and windshields are shattered or missing. Today we saw an SUV boasting a back windshield lined perfectly with even duct tape layers that blended in with the metallic exterior.

Since we are in the third world even cheap vehicles are hard to come by for many of the locals; more than half the population is unemployed. Those who do not hold day jobs often do what they can to earn money by selling goods in the markets or on the sidewalks. Some even get paid to sweep dust from the streets. When the streets are either covered in dust or actually constructed of the dusty terrain, Paul doesn’t see the point.

Because most people in the city do not own cars, they walk. They walk in and out of traffic, sprint or jog across the freeway and bring a whole new competitive level to the game of Frogger. So when someone gets close enough to my car to knock on my window while I am sitting in morning third-world rush-hour traffic – alone – fear, terror and a whole lot of anxiety hit me all at the same time. Then there’s the confusion regarding who would be tapping on my passenger window and why and what the heck and I going to do about the situation to which I am about to turn my attention and my eyes….

Yesterday Paul had an appointment to have our car serviced. Instead of leaving our car overnight, I promised Paul that I would wake early so that we could have the car at the shop before its 8 a.m. time slot. We were amazingly on time/early. I drove our vehicle while Paul drove a friend’s behind me.

Before we left the compound, I drove down the hill and stopped short of the security gate to mess with the CD so that I could have the right music for my cross-town journey. I was hoping for some Carrie Underwood but Blake Shelton beat her because my husband beeped at me from behind. Slightly aggravated, I let the song play and moved myself toward the gate. Impatient, party of one.

Makeshift roundabout on the right

Just on the other side, before turning onto the main road that is still under construction and apparently now boasts a roundabout made of orange cones right at our entrance, a large heavy-duty SUV was approaching. Our lane is not wide enough to have two vehicles advance through the gate, so I went first and pulled far to the left in order to get my husband through and allow this person to enter. My phone rang.

“Hey,” Paul says. “You have my license.” Now, in America, we like to have our driver’s licenses on hand even though the law states that we have something like 30 days to show proof of licensure. In PNG if we do not have a license, the traffic police can fine us or put us in jail.

“What do you want me to do,” I asked, “get out of the car and run it back to you?” With street people on my left and my right and people in the approaching vehicle, abandoning my running car did not seem like the best idea.

“No, I guess not.”

“I tell you what – if you get pulled over on the way to the dealer, I will just pull over as well and we can figure it out if we need to.”

“Yeah, O.K.”

O.K. then. I hate driving and speaking on a phone, so I hung up and progressed into the traffic flow.

At 7:45 a.m., there was more traffic approaching the Mobile Roundabout than I was anticipating. With Blake singing to me through my car speakers and my speed not more than 10 kph, my mind began to wander. I was thinking about third-world traffic and how to describe it to friends or in a blog.

Beat-up cars, SUV tanks made for jungle exploration and construction vehicles all vying for a position in the roundabout’s center while villagers brace themselves for a race across the cluttered roadway. The trees behind spraypainted block walls offer a burst of green against the reddish dusty clay terrain, dirt filling the air with every wind whistle and tire rotation. While my mind was drifting, I was startled – scared sh*tless, actually – by the sound of knocking coming from my passenger side.

Who was knocking on my window? Why would a person be knocking on my window? I didn’t see anyone approach me. Is this person going to have a gun? Am I being carjacked? Should I look or drive on? I am in traffic so I can't exactly drive on. All in the span of two seconds.

Eyes wide and mouth in a terrified position, I grasped the wheel and turned my head to my left. My stupid husband had pulled his vehicle into the left lane and had driven close enough that he could reach out his window and knock on mine.

“What the hell are you doing?!” I yelled at him as I put down my window. “I was terrified!!”

“Give my license,” he casually replied, smiling, and stuck out his arm.

This is sooooo not the time, Paul……

Trying to not be distracted by my imprudent spouse, I focused my eyes on the road and scanned for anyone who could now do things to us in our open windows (we have been warned to keep windows up in crowded areas; on this day the sidewalks in this particular area were pretty vacant). I used my left hand to finger through the middle console in search of his license, first grabbing his work ID, then my license before finally finagling his. People behind him honked their horns because he had more room in front of him than I did.

Angry at him for scaring me and for foolishly making me do this in the middle of PNG, I darted my arm toward his, passed him the ID and put up my window before he had time to apologize.

I calmed down by the time we reached the dealer but that didn’t stop me from sternly warning Paul, “Don’t ever do that again.”

He apologized and that was that.

On our way home from the dealer this afternoon we encountered a bit of traffic on Waigani, one of the main roads through town. I was again driving our vehicle while Paul followed in our friend’s. Paul called me (he really doesn’t seem to understand how much I do not want to talk to anyone while I am driving). Because I wasn’t exactly moving, I answered. He told me that he had just done a test drive with a dealer representative, that a previously under construction road was again open to the public and that the lack of traffic meant that we would easily be able to bypass the upcoming intersection and get home quicker.

I broke my own rule while again sitting in traffic to confirm the route and then made my way onto the side road. At the end of the road, third-world confusion set in. Let’s see if you can picture the scene.

We drive on the left side of the road here, so picture a line of cars in the leftmost lane, followed by a line of cars approaching from the right lane. As I near the intersection, my road ends and joins another much busier road at a T. While the cars on the street ahead of me quickly move in opposite directions, some are also filing one by one into the oncoming traffic to my right.

So I have my lane on the left side of the road and oncoming traffic to my right. The next thing I know, I have a couple big, bad, tank SUVs driving up onto the sidewalk to my left, coming at me from my left and then merging their way across my lane, one squeezing between my vehicle and the one to my front. Sure! I will just sit here praying you don’t scrape my car with your awesome dog caged SUV. Why not? It’s not like I’m going anywhere at the moment.

A sign to my right indicated that only one lane was open ahead. While other Land Rover and Land Cruiser vehicles decided to push straight ahead onto the sidewalk four or so inches above ground, I didn’t want to put my Kia up to the challenge unless absolutely necessary so I waited for an opening and then I moved into the lane to my right and indicated my intent to turn to the right, across one lane of traffic. Let’s just say that nobody else in the vicinity liked my idea. People from both directions wanted into the lane that I was now occupying. I pretty much held traffic and made everybody hate me. I was going to cause accidents. I should have caused accidents.

Luckily, I used my confused white girl status to my advantage and some very nice local men in a construction truck guided me to what I thought would be my new lane. Not so. I found myself upon layers of gravel, above street level, approaching another intersection that had one street leading off to the left, oncoming traffic approaching to my right and absolutely no lane for people in my direction. I was literally faced with two directions and neither was the way I needed to go. I sat there for a moment trying to figure out what I was supposed to do, totally forcing vehicles behind me to sit while I pondered my options and my sanity.

I made the van driver behind me very angry. All I could think to do was get out of the way so I moved forward, carefully sloped back down to the road and made the left turn. I did not feel comfortable pulling to the side of the road so I drove ahead, made another left and pulled to the curb. Paul saw me, obviously figured I was in distress and a few seconds later pulled behind me. I called him, half frantic.

“What am I supposed to be doing?”

“Sorry,” he replied. “There was no traffic when I was here a little while ago. We didn’t have to fight for a lane.”

We chatted for a minute, checked Google Maps for an alternate route and I quickly realized that we were an inclined plane wrapped helically around an axis. (If you don’t get the reference, Google it.)

“We need to make a U-turn and go back,” Paul advised once back on the phone. “Can you handle it?”

“Only if I don’t have to drive on any more sidewalks.”

“You’re going to have to drive on the sidewalk.”

Picture pursed lips, furrowed eyebrows and eyes that seem to say I do not like this.

“Fine.” There was no other way out. I was going to have to drive on a sidewalk. Again.

I followed Paul to the T intersection and decided to snap a few photos while I was not moving.

This is the gravel patch on which I drove. Picture that black SUV on the right as myself with about six cars stopped behind me.

This is me preparing to climb the curb.

Squeezing between pedestrians, who actually belong on the sidewalk, and the oncoming traffic, just hoping I don't do anything more stupid that what I am already doing.

Like a painful shot, my trauma only lasted a few seconds. I had actually driven the Kia upon a sidewalk last month when the road flooded so I knew the car could handle the terrain. I just didn’t want to do it. My Kia man handled that elevated curb on the second attempt and gracefully descended back upon the road as if I had never left it – O.K. that’s a lie. The car was completely wobbly for the next few kilometers – and I was definitely relieved once we vacated the area.

Life in the third world is definitely easier than it was when I first arrived last July but I don’t know that I will ever get used to driving on sidewalks. Then again, I never expected that I would be O.K. with a lot of things that are now part of my daily life. Such is life in the third world.