Planning to come home

We are down to a month left in Grenada. We will be boarding a plane June 30th, and as our time draws near a close there is lots to think about.

Selling off assets

We really only have two here, our CRV and our living room furniture.

The CRV: If it had been just me, I would have taken buses. However with the whole family we needed a way to get everyone to the beach, grocery stores and hashes. We have been able to sell it losing about $3,000 Canadian but if you think of it in terms of $3,000 for transportation costs for almost a year, that isn't too bad.

Back to the wee furniture

The living room set- When I got sick with Chickungunya everything hurt. Our furnished apartment had little Hobbit furniture in which everyone including Owen looked like a giant. But apart from it's stature it was scratchy and itchy. We had toyed with the idea of buying furniture but it is as expensive as back home and we really didn't have that kind of money. Then one day we saw a tent sale at Courts and were able to get our set for half price. SOLD. And now we've sold it for $100 XCD less than we paid. So about $5 Canadian a month we had comfort, definitely worth it.

Today we lost our furniture and by Monday the car will be gone too. While we are really happy not to have to worry about recouping our losses, we were definitely hoping they would have taken just a little longer to sell. This weekend we will try to get in everything we have missed. But we realize there will be missed opportunities because buses don't go everywhere we would want to go.

Mentally getting ready

Selling stuff and planning who to give what to when we leave is easy. Getting your head on task and away from back home is hard. Facebook does not make this easier. I call the pictures of yummy food, "food porn". Cakes, sandwiches, salads and BBQ that we can't make here for a variety of reasons has me longing for a Whopper, Boston Cream doughnut and Rosie's pizza!

Things like my bathtub seem so close, yet impossibly far away at the same time. (Owen and I are in a battle for first soak- my plan is to send him to Ama's!!) The boys are planning what games they want to buy and I keep reminding them we are broke, it will take us about 2 years to repay the debt we incurred coming to Grenada.

And as I think about all the yummy foods, comfy sofas, huge car with wide roads, I also feel really guilty because there are people here (in fact all people here) who deserve the material things that I have gained. They work as hard as I do, care for their families as much as I do, but because I happen to be born in Canada my opportunities are exponentially greater than theirs.

Not that I think everyone should aspire to a Canadian lifestyle but it shouldn't be so hard either. Problems we have faced and tackled as a country- domestic violence, children's rights, equal pay for work of equal value, and living wages  have raised the status of women to a place where we can leave abusive relationships and have a place to go. Things are not so simple here, not that those issues are simple in Canada either, but women, social workers, teachers, police officers have choices and resources.

That is what I wish my friends, neighbours colleagues had- choices and resources.

I am glad I have experienced, even for a little while, what people in developing countries face. It makes me a better Canadian and a better global citizen... even if I am craving rhubarb pie!