The Simple Life.

When I was a little girl my good friend Beth and I would often tell people that we had been born in the wrong era. We were obsessed with the 1800’s and what we thought would be the “simple life.” Now that I am a little older and actually living a much simpler life than most of my American friends, I thought it would be fun to write about some of the differences between my life in the U.S. and my life in Brazil.

I realize that not all of Brazil is the same kind of living as where I live in Rio Vermelho. If you were to travel to the Amazon you would find that some people live with far less comforts than we are blessed to have, but if you were to visit Rio, or some of the other bigger cities you would find that there are parts of the city that are very modern and not so different from cities that you would find in the U.S.

In our town of Rio Vermelho life seems to move at a much slower pace. We have lived here only three and a half years but we feel like we know everyone. If we don’t know them by name or nickname (such as Water Guy, Bakery Guy, or Cat Lady) we recognize almost everyone. Most of the people I know do not have cars; we obviously do a lot of walking. Some people would think that this would be such a pain, but I think it is part of the reason that everyone knows everyone. When we walk we are always waving and saying hi to our neighbors and friends as we pass by.

Besides walking being a way of life there are other differences as well. One of the more obvious differences would be the lack of all of those modern machines that I so often used to take for granted. Here we do pretty much all of our housework by hand. When we wash clothes we wash them by hand and then hang them out to dry. When we wash our dishes we wash them by hand. When we make coffee we boil water and pour it through a funnel with a filter. When we cook we peel, chop and dice everything by hand – the only food processors in this house are attached to my wrists. ☺ A few other little differences that have made our life interesting in teaching our newest additions to adjust to their new home would be - we can not drink the water from the sink, we have no hot water in the house (our showers do plug in to get hot though), the houses have all tile instead of carpet, and the most fun one of all … we can’t flush toilet paper. Lets just say that my six year old had a bit of a hard time getting used to that last one. ;)

Some people might think that all of these differences are a bad thing, but I have found that I really do prefer the simple life. Of course I have had moments that I miss having some of those conveniences that we had in the U.S., but if I had those things I would be missing out on other things. I would miss laughing with Nate outside as we desperately try to stay caught up on laundry for eight people. I would miss playing detective with the kids to figure out who tried to flush the toilet paper, and I would miss the talks that I have with my oldest as I wash and he dries the dishes. The simple life can be difficult at times but it can also be simply sweet.