I never really realized how spoiled I was growing up in the United States until Christine and I moved to Sint Maarten.
Don’t get me wrong, I love wading in the ocean every afternoon, and I never need to wonder what the weather will be like, because it’s always 80°F and partly cloudy with a 20% chance of rain. It’s just lots of little annoyances that I had never thought to worry about before.
For instance, just a couple of days ago, I bought a brand new desk chair. Not super expensive, but not the cheapest at the store, either. I tried several at the store and thought the one I picked out was pretty solid.
Today it totally fell apart.
The thing is, this doesn’t really surprise me as much as you might expect. The quality of things down here just can’t compare to inside the USA in general.
A few weeks ago, somebody stepped right through a concrete floor. The plywood supporting the concrete had completely rotted away.
Did I mention this happened at a fairly nice resort?
That’s just how things go here.
Our house was painted just before we moved in, but nobody bothered to paint under the house number. They just painted around it.
The power hasn’t gone out yet today, but I’m sure it will. It usually averages an hour or two a day. A week or two ago, it was out for five hours, in the middle of the day. That was the worst.
Please don’t misunderstand me, I really do like it here.
I’m just learning about a lot of luxuries I grew up with that I never gave a second thought before moving down here.
Christine has been dealing with similar issues.