Sunday, June 19, 2005

Lies, damn lies, and travelling

Coming from an obscenely rich country like Australia where we don´t think twice about spending the average annual income of Ecuador on a pair of jeans does create it´s own set of problems. The idea that we can quit our jobs and travel for a year, eating in each city´s best restaurant every night and then expect to get jobs once we return is really beyond the comprehension of most sane people. For people who seem to live a hand to mouth existance, me and my expensive handycam are from another planet. So during Spanish school when Kate mentioned she bought a ring on Ebay for 70 dollars, the jaws of our Spanish teachers dropped. That´s 35 hours wages for them.
Consequently we have found that we have had to begin lying to our new Spanish friends. Now I say I´m only travelling for 4 months, which takes me from ridiculously, discustingly, smugly rich to just plain unbelievably rich. The fact that I´m not even considered that wealthy in my own country is not a conversation I´m about to start.
Another thing we´ve found ourselves lying about is the fact we´re married. With our previous christian family the idea that we slept in the same bed and werent married would be enough to bring on the second coming. (no pun intended) So we lie about being married... Which often means we have to lie about more things like about when we got married and how our wedding day was etc etc. We also tend to lie about believing in God. Being heathens in a very catholic country it is just not worth the 6 hour conversation needed to explain the birds and the bees Charles Darwin style. The idea that many westerners have no religion at all doesn´t even occur to most people here. Oh well, looks like Kate and I are going to burn in hell.

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