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New Zealand is a paradox balancing precariously between the 1950’s and the modern era. All around are signs of modernity from new flash cars and plasma screen televisions to jet boat rides and heliskiing. There are certainly none of the social stigmas of the 1950’s with women keeping their place in the home while the men go out to work a la the Cleavers in Leave it to Beaver. Women’s top priority in life is not to be married straight out of school but rather to see the world or at least to spend the winter skiing the mountains in the area or hanging out by the lake. Gone are the poodle skirts and leather jackets replaced long ago by tank tops and Northface jackets.
So why, with all of the surroundings of modern people living modern lives, do I often get the sense of camaraderie with my grandmother? Perhaps it’s the fact that home life here with its boring daily chores seems more akin to what our grandparents did than what I am used to back home. My house has a dishwasher, its true, but no one ever uses it because it costs too much to run it and we don’t have enough dishes to wait until it fills up to start it. So, we all do our dishes by hand. Seriously, did you know that you could actually do dishes by hand and that they would still get clean enough to use? Now, I will admit that I have pre-washed some of my dishes before I put them into the dishwasher back home but I don’t think that I have ever not put the dishes in the dishwasher and I certainly wasn’t worried about the cost of the electricity or water to run it because that was just what had to be done. Dishes had to be washed so we ran the dishwasher. But it’s not just the hand washing of dishes that seems a bit antiquated. No one has a clothes dryer; instead line drying everything. Again, I have line-dried clothes before. In fact just last year I had a clothes line installed in my back yard so that I could do just that, but it wasn’t because I didn’t have a dryer, it was for some hippy notion that I was helping the planet by not using the power to dry my clothes when it was sunny outside (and because they smell so nice air dried and call me weird by I like the crispy feeling that the fabrics have when they come off the line). If it rained or if I was just too lazy to hang them, they went into the dryer without a second thought. That is not an option here. You actually have to plan your washing ahead of time because of the time that it takes for things to dry. Need to wash sheets or towels and only have one set? Well you better get those washed and hung out first thing in the morning or they wont be dry by the time you need them to go to bed and heaven forbid it start raining. These are just things that no one really takes into much consideration back home, or at least I didn’t.
Lest you get the wrong impression, there are good things that come along with this such as a real sense of community and friendship that is often times lacking back in the States. People rarely sit alone at home and watch TV instead opting to sit outside on someone’s balcony or patio and have a drink and chat. On the rare occasion that you do sit around and watch TV, it is almost always with someone else and more time is spent talking over the TV than actually watching what is going on, unless of course its American idol that’s on. In that case, silence reigns supreme so that everyone can revel in the undoubtedly horrendous voices and freaky dancing that comes with the audition rounds. Once the real competition begins, however, it will lose much of its appeal and the conversations will recommence.
Whether this lifestyle is better or worse is not the point. The point is that things are different here and its those differences that make traveling and living abroad such a rush and worth any of the hassles that come along with hand washing dishes and line drying clothes.