Living in Close Quarters
Posted on | August 21, 2010 | No Comments
I’m a girl from the ‘burbs. While Cape Canaveral and Cocoa aren’t technically suburbs, growing up there was in many ways a very typical suburban type of upbringing.
Until I joined the Army, I never really spent much time in a big city – Orlando was one of the biggest I’d ever seen, and news flash – Orlando ain’t that big.
That changed when I joined the Army. After I got out of basic training, I was sent off to San Antonio, TX, which is a pretty good sized city. After that, Washington DC – and from there, all the way off to Seoul, Korea, one of the most densely populated cities in the world.
But, despite living in these giant cities, I actually lived on the Army base. I spent some time in Korea, living with friends off base, but generally most of my day to day life was a bit removed from actual ‘big city life’.
And now here I find myself in Lima, Peru. While it doesn’t have a lot of skyscrapers and other things you’d associated with the big city, it does have a LOT of one thing – and that’s people. People live jammed all up on top of each other here. Tiny houses – we’re talking 200 to 300 square feet – house whole families, often several generations. And the houses are built one right next to the other, with little or no space in between – often sharing walls. It brings new meaning to being close to your neighbors.
Now, of course, you’ve got places like where we live, with bigger houses and a small yard – but we still live close enough to our neighbors that we can hear everything they do. You learn to actively not listen at first, and then after a while, not listening just becomes a habit. One of the hardest things for me is hearing someone sneeze from upstairs – I have a nearly irrepressible urge to yell out “God Bless You”
I was talking with my upstairs neighbor yesterday and she wanted to apologize for any recent noise while her son was visiting. He’s a musician, and there’d been quite a bit of music and partying with him and his friends.
Now, of course we heard the music, and we actually enjoyed it. We joked about not needing to go out for dinner, we could just set up candles in the kitchen and have a romantic meal with chamber music to serenade us.
Of course, that all takes a different turn when the dude in his bathroom in the new apartments next door starts singing along.
It’s all just a part of living in the city, like the dust and the pollution and the traffic and the crowds. You either get used to it, or it breaks you down. I’m glad I got used to it.
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Tags: Cape Canaveral > Korea > lima > peru > San Antonio > Seoul > Washington DC
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I got tired of life happening while I made other plans, so I quit my job and came to Peru. I live here with my Peruvian husband, two sons, three dogs and various other family members, depending on the weather.
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