originally posted Jan. 30, 2006

I believe in the power of a sink basket: that little thing that catches the food bits
on the plate and the crust from the frying pan. My maid doesn’t use the thing. I put it in, she takes it out. We’ve never had a clogged up drain.

So, I considered my history with the sink basket. When I roomed in a house in college, the home owner insisted all food be scraped off the plates into cardboard milk cartons, which smelled sour. Then, this woman insisted we wash each plate with water and a scrub each plate and cup before putting the dishes into the dishwasher (what was the dishwasher for anyway?). This woman’s drain clogged several times a year. Gray black slime gurgled up from the basement drain and the homeowner would have to call a service man. The sink basket was a failure.

I don’t go that far, but I still place the sink basket in the basin before doing dishes - I’m conditioned this way. I feel uncomfortable watching little pieces of uneaten cereal pass down the drain.

We do not have a hot water tank on our first floor in Costa Rica. All our laundry is done in cold water (I have the whitest and cleanest clothes I’ve ever had in my life here), and we wash dishes in cold water - people add bleach to the soapy water - almost everybody does. A batch of dishes is washed with lots of bubbles, and then rinsed. The cycle is repeated until the dishes are done. The wash cloth is not hung to dry, but remains wadded up in a ball next to the soap. Although I cling to the sink basket tradition, I’ve transformed my washing ways. I do dishes like the Costa Ricans do.

When I first moved here I brought my own mop. Boy was that silly. No one can clean floors like those I’ve witnessed here. Moving abroad has given me the chance to grow up and shake loose my “old country” way of thinking. I’ve become a lot more flexible with the definition of time; and I no longer believe one must have snow for a fabulous Christmas.

But, I don’t abandon everything, in fact, I hold tight to the customs I adore: I won’t change my shoe habits - four minutes in stiletto heels (popular here from the playground to the mall), and I’d have a broken ankle. I need my space; I don’t eat rice at every meal; when I make a phone call, I introduce myself (I don’t force the person I’m calling to give up their identity); I don’t stuff myself into jeans that are too small; I’m o.k. with the fact that kids get dirty; I don’t like my red wind chilled; and when a car’s stuck, I’ll get out and push.

It’s important to ask WHY. Why? Why oh why do we do things.

Living in a new culture, I see the day differently. I am still an American; my daughter has the interesting task of assimilating the culture of Costa Rica, with the values I model from the U.S. I’ve learned there are a million ways to wash a dish, cook rice, and clean floors. These things seem so minute, unimportant, but the value in understanding a different culture is that I see these little moments under new shades of gray and a brand new silver lining.