I was still in Canada when I asked Heather to measure a set of kitchen cabinets in my new home in Costa Rica. She and Henry were busy getting my house ready for my arrival. They painted, installed hot water on demand, bought bedding, had a bed made, and generally made my home livable and for that, I can never repay them. Now back to measuring cabinets.
Heather can be quite blunt and swears sometimes so, I paraphrase her when she asked “why do you want to measure cabinets?”. “For a dishwasher”, I replied. I heard the sigh in her typed response.
When I was 13 years old I spent a summer washing dishes by hand in my uncle’s restaurant and since then, I have always hated washing dishes so, one of the first things I planned on doing when I got here was to buy a dishwasher.
The first couple of weeks were spent organizing things and I had no opportunity to really think about the dishes. Rebecca and Ryan, who came down with me to help me get settled in, were pretty much sharing that task with me. After they departed, I was on my own doing dishes by hand and eventually got around to looking in stores for dishwashers. Interestingly enough, there are not a lot of dishwashers to be had in this area so, I kept washing dishes by hand while planning to eventually look in Liberia.
I have made a number of trips into Liberia since arriving and have never once looked for a dishwasher. I have settled into a routine, I get up in the morning feed the cats, put the coffee on and clean up any dishes on the counter.
I actually enjoy doing the dishes. I find dishwashing to be somewhat therapeutic. Never in my wildest imagination did I expect to use the words dishwashing and therapeutic in the same sentence.
Told ya so….