The Difference Between Being Rich and Having Money

Every morning, as the sun is rising, I take a moment to count my blessings. I’m thankful for so many things in my life. I have a beautiful house, custom-built from my own blood, sweat and tears. Over the years, as resources trickled in, it gradually became a comfortable home. Even though it’s still a work in progress with quite a long way to go until it’s “finished” as a construction project, I’m extremely grateful to have my own space, designed specifically to suit my lifestyle.

The fruit trees in the garden surrounding the house are also a source of immense gratitude. From the beginning, each tree was planted from seed and nurtured to bear delicious fruit. They’re still carefully cultivated, fertilized with the residue of the organic waste generated in the kitchen, and treated with natural pesticides made from a selection of medicinal plants growing in the garden to protect them from aphids and mealy worm.

My five cats are a constant source of gratitude, keeping me sane and grounded in a world that often doesn’t seem real. Every day, our kitty time matters to all of us as we roll on the floor and fling around home-made toys, or lounge on the sofa snuggle into each other as we enjoy a moment of peace. My gratitude list is endless. It includes family, friends, health, food, clothing, shoes, sand, sea and sanity. Since I began this particular part of my journey, I have considered myself rich.

While it sounds ideal, there’s another side to this life that all those Facebook friends, Instagram and Twitter followers don’t ever see. It’s the reality of a harsher side of life that is never talked about; the severe lack of money. The slow death of tourism in Mompiche means that particular stream of income has all but dried up. There have been no paid reservations at Secret Garden for months. No one comes for the magnificent $5 breakfast that is advertised all over town. No one turns up to learn how to cook traditional foods, to make coconut oil, or to learn how locally grown chocolate is made.

One or two horrific incidents on the border between Colombia and Ecuador, over 300 kilometers from our tranquil fishing village, got national and international press several months ago. Mompiche suffered for being in the same province. More recently, a couple of criminal incidents in nearby towns were reported by national news outlets as taking place in Mompiche, even though they didn’t. People have stayed away in droves. Domestic and international tourists are avoiding our village. People in other towns around the country are warning them not to come, saying it’s dangerous, but it isn’t. Mompiche is safe for tourists, and there is much to do. But our hotels and restaurants are empty. Family businesses are closing. The entire village is suffering. Those of us who once survived on tourism are now wondering how to make a living. Everyone is broke.

Despite all that, we are all quite rich. We live by the sea, on a clean beach. The weather is amazing, with comfortable temperatures all year round. We have adequate water, reasonably constant electricity, and the internet service isn’t that bad—when it’s working. We have access to several food sources that are inexpensive, or even free; fresh seafood from the fishing boats each day, fresh fruit from the trees along the river, as well as red-claw and land crabs, and bananas in abundance. Most people eat a lot of rice—known across more than half of the globe as a staple belly-filler, even though it contains very few nutrients—and there’s no one in our village who goes hungry. When cash is low, the lack of variety in our daily meals may be a source of frustration, but no one is starving to death. Isn’t that the very essence of wealth?

When it comes to the types of food I’m eating, I prefer to keep it simple; mostly vegetarian, and almost always cooked at home. As the money dries up, and hard-won income comes in drips and drabs, eating out becomes a rare luxury. These days, even the $3 lunch menu is beyond reach, but the $1 dinner (two corviches or empanadas from a street vendor) is still doable from time to time.

Even then, regardless of where it comes from, food that is too hot or too cold is impossible to eat. Extreme food temperatures hurt my teeth. My gums are sensitive. The cavities are slowly growing. It’s been years since I stepped into a dentist’s office. While dental care is “super cheap” here compared to other countries, when you’re constantly counting pennies and having to choose between one necessity and another, the dentist is the very last thing on the list, if it’s on there at all. My entire mouth desperately needs attention, but it cannot be a priority. Between eating soft warm foods and stuffing whole cloves between my teeth when they hurt, this is what coping looks like when there’s no money.

Whenever we play the “if I won the lottery” game, I always say I’d fix my teeth first. It’s not just teeth. My glasses were recently repaired for the third time this year with a couple more dabs of superglue to hold them together. Now there is probably more glue than actual frame around the lenses. On the plus side, I can still see through them. As for any kind of health insurance, forget about it. Also, I haven’t paid the land taxes on my property for several years because there is no extra cash lying around. That debt is accumulating and won’t go away, but there’s nothing to be done for it right now. I’m also owed some money, but that debt hasn’t been paid either. There’s no point in pressuring someone to pay up when they don’t have any money. That just makes the situation more stressful. If the debt is paid, the money is already spent; teeth and taxes. It hurts my soul to think of myself as “poor” but the reality is that when someone can’t afford all the basic necessities of life, regardless of whatever riches they do have, they’re still “cash poor” and struggling to get by from day to day in a world where having at least some money is essential.

Every time I make $20 selling cookies on a weekend, it’s reason to celebrate, and it’s something significant for which to be super grateful. It certainly keeps the wolf from the door in a hand to mouth existence. There is enough to buy food for the week, and I always stash enough to buy ingredients for a fresh batch of cookies. However, there will be no visits to the dentist or the optometrist, or any shopping trips to purchase shorts acceptable for public appearances during the summer.

Being cash-poor may mean having to make difficult choices about where money goes, but the riches flood in when I’m out there on the street with my cookie jar, making connections with people, stopping to say hi to friends, and meeting new ones, whether they buy a cookie or not. This is the difference between being rich and having money. Every day, I tell myself it will be okay. I remind myself not to feel stressed or depressed. I take deep breaths and remember my gratitude list. How important is it? I ask myself. After all, it’s only money. Right? I have many other riches besides money.

Even so, there are still times I struggle to avoid the vision of myself as a toothless old hag dressed in rags with broken glasses perched on the top of my nose. It’s extremely difficult to ask people for help, but I do. With swallowed pride I put out my hand and beg on the streets of the internet. Some generous people have chosen to give me a hand. It’s not much money, but it does make a tiny difference each month. It gives me great pleasure to post stories just for them, and also provides motivation to keep working, to keep trying, to keep pushing on. To continue to have hope for a better future is a treasure worthy of gratitude.

Recently, I traveled with a friend to his farm in Puerto Quito, about 4hrs drive from Mompiche. We spent time cutting banana branches, picking fruit, discussing the variety of trees, planting, fertilization, and future crops while walking around the property. Later, we went into town for a delicious lunch of steamed tilapia. (He was buying.) While in the bathroom of the restaurant, I noticed in the mirror that my “good” shirt was full of holes. I hadn’t seen the holes when it put it on half-asleep at 4am. Horrified at my ragged appearance, I resolved to go through my wardrobe and see what else had holes in it.

I’d worn a summer dress out in public all weekend before I realized it had not just one hole, but several poke-a-finger-through-sized holes on the front and back. In my wardrobe, there were holes, stains, broken zippers, frayed edges, fabric threadbare from wear. Some of my clothes I’ve had for years, and a lot of things were still good. However, more than half of it was only fit for rags, perfect attire for shipwreck survivors. Whatever couldn’t be repaired or renovated from the pile was designated for recycling into dog and cat toys, bathmats, shopping bags, fabric beads, and some will be incorporated into recycled art projects. Some of it became designated as “work only” clothing. It doesn’t matter if that stuff gets ripped or stained, or if the zips are broken. It won’t take long before they’re covered in paint, tiling cement and wood glue as I use up materials I already have to keep working on projects for the house and in the art gallery.

It’s been at least a year since I bought an item of clothing, new or used. There’s no room for luxuries with such an austere budget. While I’m thankful to have clothes on my back, and I’m fully aware there are people subsisting with much less, I noted that one of the first things to go whenever cash became scarce was new (or used) clothing. I own four pairs of shoes: sneakers, crocs, gumboots and flipflops that have been repaired several times. Considering I spend most of my time barefoot, and fully connected to Mother Nature, I’m okay with that. New shoes aren’t even on my wish list. The upside about being this rich is that I will never be a slave to the latest fashions. It’s also a blessing that I stopped using shampoo, conditioner, and skin-care products years ago.

A new blender is on my wish list. Mine is ten years old and could die any day. It’s been repaired a couple of times and is showing signs of fading out. There are currently no resources to repair it again, so I take really good care of it, making sure not to burn out the motor with each use. I can’t imagine life without my trusty blender, mixing up my fresh juices and soups and sauces, but when it does finally die, I will find out what that’s like too. Sadly, there will be no more hot sauce to sell.

Also on this wish list is a washing machine. Imagine! I don’t have—or need—a fridge, freezer or any other appliances apart from my blender. A washing machine would change my life. Not just for clothes, also for washing the hammocks, the bathmats and hand-towels, and all the sheets and towels when I have guests and volunteers. I could also use it for some of my recycling projects; washing all the paper-making screens, for example. From this vantage point, a washing machine feels like an unattainable dream. Mostly, I just try not to think about it too much. I try to focus on all the riches I already possess, like fresh unpolluted rainwater and a large tub for hand-washing clothes.

Every day, I work hard doing a variety of activities all designed to generate income. From promoting tourism activities to advertising my books online, flogging cookies and chili sauce in the streets, writing stories, and creating recycled art for sale at home, I’m quite busy most of the time. It’s possible I have my fingers in too many pies. People often tell me I work too much. Friends try to encourage me to take days off and go to the beach. Struggling to get the bills paid, it feels like I don’t have that luxury.

A few days ago, I had to make a tough decision between paying the internet bill or buying fresh food for the week. I thought about it all morning before I paid the bill with my last cash. The internet is a potential source of income, so it matters. There is fruit on my trees and a few veges left from last week. There are lentils and beans in the cupboard. I still have a few eggs. The fishing boats still come in every day. I’ll get by on what I have. I’m a creative cook and will make it work. The undiscovered riches inside my cupboards will find their way to my plate.

A long time ago, I learned it was worth having more than one source of income so that if one stream dried up the others could fill the void. But what happens when they all run dry? That part wasn’t in the instruction manual. I keep hearing mantras like, “If you work hard, the rewards will come.” So I keep on working. Daily, I tell myself that someone will want a bottle of the best hot sauce this side of the equator, a well-written book or a good travel story, a comfortable bed in an eco-house, a fantastic breakfast, a traditional cooking class or a recycling workshop. They don’t. No one does. They haven’t for a long time. At best, they might like a really good chocolate-chip cookie for fifty cents. You might be surprised at how many people don’t want one, or how many do but can’t afford one. These are tough times.

I could choose to feel despair, and there are moments when I do feel like crying, but that won’t solve anything and it certainly won’t pay the bills; internet, electricity, gas for cooking, food. Instead, I put one foot in front of the other and keep going. I choose optimism. I choose not to worry and to believe I’m strong enough to survive this struggle. I choose to use whatever resources I have available to keep producing whatever I can, and to keep hoping that something somehow somewhere will bring in a decent pay day. Every day, sometimes every hour on the roughest days, I remember to be thankful for what I have and I tell myself that it will be okay. I’m sure that it will be. Won’t it? After all, I’m already pretty rich when you think about it.

 

Life without a fridge

When I first moved to Mompiche, the tiny cabin I rented was pretty basic. It was a small 4m x 4m grass-roofed hut with a tiny balcony, and it had a bed in it. Soon after I moved in, I bought a new mattress to replace the lumpy old one. Then, I built a table on the balcony and put a stove on it. That became the kitchen. Many wonderful meals were cooked on that stove. Over the two years I lived in the “Love Shack” (named so by a previous resident), I grew fruit and vegetables in a garden I built at the side of the cabin, and set up a small covered dining area between my cabin and the next one. During the entire time, I didn’t own a fridge. It didn’t even occur to me to buy one.

Every day, I would go to the beach and get fresh fish for myself and my cat. Actually, the cat went and helped himself to fish sometimes, fleeing the scene with a disgruntled fisherman on his tail. Mascara always escaped with his fish. I’d bring fish home, clean it and cook it immediately. There were never any left overs because I only got what I needed for one meal and there was never a reason to store food. The fridge wasn’t necessary.

Fruit and vegetables were stored in baskets I made from a coconut palm leaf. Eggs were kept in there too. I didn’t need to buy a ton of food in advance while I was shopping daily, and I avoided buying food in packets, jars, or tins, except for things like lentils and quinoa. Everything I ate was natural and made from scratch.

After two years in the “Love Shack” I moved into my own house at the back of the village. At that point, it had no doors or windows, there was no kitchen or bathroom, and my bed was a mattress on the floor. Apart from being unaffordable on my extremely skinny budget, buying a fridge was definitely not on my list of priorities. I’d already learned how to live without one. I weaved a new set of baskets with palm leaves and that became the “fridge” at Secret Garden. While I camped out in my new home, building the kitchen and bathroom, planting the garden, having doors and windows built, the thought of buying a fridge never entered my mind. It didn’t even occur to me that my lifestyle might be odd until someone came to visit.

“Where’s the fridge?” she asked, holding two bottles of beer. Maybe if I drank beer, a fridge would have been higher up in the list of priorities. In the end, we borrowed a tiny space in a nearby friend’s fridge to store beer during her stay. Next time I was in town, I bought a large cooler. One large block of ice lasts for at least 24 hours. I rarely used the cooler myself, but always suggested that guests could buy their own ice (for $0.50) if they needed to keep things cool; it was mostly beer.

On 1 October 2018, I will have been living in my own home for seven years. There is still no fridge, nor even the thought of buying one. I don’t need it. The same—albeit slightly battered—cooler still sits in its spot between the living room and the kitchen. It gets moved downstairs for BBQs or parties. I still buy vegetables and harvest fresh fruit daily, making my meals from scratch, and visit the boats on the beach to get fish from the fishermen. Sadly, Mascara is gone, but now I have other cats who eat fresh fish every day.

Life without a fridge isn’t that complicated. In fact, it’s simpler. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The F@#$+%g Birthday Cake!

One afternoon, Figu, the local surfboard-shaper, stops by my cabin after his surfing session on The Point. We hang out for a while, shooting the breeze as I trim pumpkin flowers and chop onions and tomatoes for a sauce. Then, he drops the real reason for his visit.

“It’s Pablo’s birthday today. Can you make him a cake?” he asks.

“Sure.”

I happily agree to make his brother a birthday cake, without a single clue of the pending nightmare about to descend and darken my life. We discuss the flavor, I give him a very fair “friends” price, he pays and then leaves. Not long after, Amber, Pablo’s girlfriend shows up.

“Can you make it a heart-shape?” she asks.

“No problem.”

I take the heart-shaped cake mold from the bench and show it to her. Satisfied that I can complete the mission to her specifications, she leaves, grinning from ear to ear, content that her boyfriend will be happily surprised later that day. Not as surprised as me, I’ll bet. Not wasting any time, I get to work. First, I have to find an oven. Since my thriving café business was abruptly shut down at the beginning of the year, I haven’t baked anything for a long time, and don’t have an oven handy.

“We’re going out, but it’s okay. You can use the oven here,” agrees Cecilia, who is renting Didi’s house at the other end of town.

The oven is at the back of the house, behind the kitchen. This will be logistically interesting, but whatever it takes, right? I go back to my cabin and, while the tomato sauce simmers on the stove, I prepare the cake batter, creaming butter and sugar, adding eggs and fresh passionfruit pulp, sifting in the flour. Piece of cake! I’m out of baking paper to line the cake tin, so I scrub the gathered dust out of the mold and grease and flour it well. Batter poured into the tin, I walk back to the other side of the village, to Didi’s house, and light the gas oven. Setting the cake in the center of the top shelf, I ask it not to burn, and return home to finish preparing the stuffed pumpkin flowers for dinner.

I stir-fry cooked wholegrain rice with chopped onion, garlic, pepper, raisins, and a sprinkle of cumin. Then, I add nutmeg, soy sauce and a dribble of natural achiote for color before stuffing spoonfuls of spiced rice into the delicate yellow flowers. Meanwhile, the fresh tomato sauce is simmering, rich with onions, garlic, tomatoes, and fresh oregano. I gently place the flowers into the sauce. They’ll cook slowly in the covered pan. Fifteen minutes in to the cake’s journey, I return to Didi’s house to check on it, only to discover the gas has gone out.

Oh no! Then, patting my pants, I realize I’ve just changed my clothes and no longer have a box of matches in my pocket. Damn! I quickly return to my cabin to retrieve the matches, add some water to the divine-smelling pumpkin flowers, and run the one hundred and fifty meters back. I light the oven again. No gas. The tank is empty. Aarrgghh!

Leaving the the uncooked cake in the still warm oven, I set off to search for another oven. On my way back across the village, I run into Amber on the street. Rearranging my frown into a smile, I wave a friendly greeting, hoping to whizz past quickly. But no, she wants to stop and chat!

“Hi! How’s it going?” she asks cheerily.

What can I tell her? It isn’t going that well so far.

“Um. All good,” I respond, almost jumping out of my skin with alarmed urgency. “The cake is great. But I really have to go and find some stuff right now. Talk later!” Without further ado, I run in the opposite direction.

All over town, I search for another oven. Most of the restaurants don’t even have ovens. Who knew! Those who do are using them and do not have space for a cake, thank you very much. Knitted disapproving raised eyebrows dismiss me. As I run from place to place, desperation creases my brow. How am I going to cook this damned cake? At the crossroads in the center of town, as I’m wondering where I’m going to find an available oven, Figu appears. There is one oven left unexplored.

“Help me!” I explain the problem so far. “I need you to go and talk to Leo about borrowing Morongo’s oven to cook this cake for your brother.”

Morongo has a bar across the street from my cabin. He has a strict policy about not lending anyone things from his bar, including his oven, and having already used it a few times this week, I can’t stretch the friendship any further. An outright “NO” from Morongo will destroy my chances of ever cooking the cake. But . . . he’s leaving town today, leaving Leo in charge. Figu runs away to find Leo, who is renting the bar in Morongo’s absence.

“Can it wait until after Morongo leaves later today?” asks Leo when he sees me.

“Sure, why not.” I don’t really have a choice, do I?

I leave the raw cake in Didi’s cooling oven and go home to twiddle my thumbs. Meanwhile, the stuffed pumpkin flowers, which have been slowly simmering away in their herbed tomato sauce on the stove at my cabin, are ready. I turn it off and sit back in the hammock to twiddle my thumbs some more.

Finally, after about half an hour, Morongo and his wife, Amy, leave for Manta. As soon as their 4WD is out of sight, I bolt across town to Didi’s house and pick up the now cold cake batter, wondering how much damage this false-start has done. Racing back across town to Morongo’s bar, I put the cake in his pizza oven and light it, with the box of matches now back in my pants pocket. The cake is now in the hottest oven in town. The temperature control is not good, and “low” is not vocabulary it understands. Knowing this could get tricky, I watch it like a hawk. Every five minutes, I peek in the door and rotate the tin. Even with all my attention on it, as I hover over it like an expectant father, the cake burns. It’s charred black on top, and only just cooked underneath. Great! Aarrgghh!

By now, I’m beginning to feel slightly stressed out by this cake. I cover the passionfruit charcoal, still in its tin, with a cotton cloth and leave it on the stove at my cabin to cool, then go to work on the cardboard box in which I plan to deliver what I have now decided is my last ever order for any kind of cake. The preparation of the cardboard box includes going out to find a box, which also means a flying visit to Sara’s house to hand over the dollar I still owe for yesterday’s muchin, and having to sit patiently and silently through yet another well-meaning but excruciating lecture on why it’s unnatural and unhealthy to be the only single woman in Mompiche.

Finally, I get back to my cabin with the cardboard box and quickly turn it into a cake-box with some scissors and tape. I cut another circle, guessing the size since the cake tin is still busy, and wrap it in foil to make a portable disposable cake plate. By now, the cake has cooled enough to be decorated.

To add to the general stress of baking, apart from the intense equatorial heat, there are no work benches and no sinks, not to mention no electricity and no running water. My cache of kitchen tools is extremely limited. Having a heart-shaped mold to bake this cake in at all is a miracle. By now, I wish I’d said no. However, I still have a cake to deliver, and time is running out on me. The only flat workspaces I have are the top of the stove, or the wonky wooden floor. There is more space on the floor. The broom flicks the dust around, and some newspapers are laid out so I can get to work.

Sitting on the floor, I flip the tin upside to tap the cake out onto a ceramic plate, so I can then flip it straight over onto the foil cake plate, and it will end up sitting top-side-up. The cake won’t come out. It’s stuck in the bottom. Aarrgghh! Maneuvering carefully around the edges, I dig it out with an egg-flip. It ends up in crumbs. Delicious, charred crumbs that now barely resemble a heart… Dammit!

With a bread knife, I slice off the charred top and throw out the black bits. It’s a bit messy, but I figure I can tidy it up a bit with the frosting. I mix cream cheese, icing sugar, and chopped fresh pineapple to make a filling. I slice the cake in half, juggling with all the bits as they fall off when I remove the top half, inventing an entire trilingual vocabulary of brand new curse words as I work, and then spread half of the pineapple cream over the base. Just like a jigsaw puzzle, I put it all back together, trying to gather some shreds of serenity and patience, which is now in very short supply.

Hot and sticky, and fed up with this damned cake, I take a break. I’m a bit over the massive effort it’s taken so far to create a simple cake. A drink of water restores me a little. I go to the rainwater tank and splash cool water over my face and neck. As I turn back to my tiny workspace, I see Mascara (The Mask), my cat, with his face gleefully buried in the frosting bowl. Aarrgghh! Anything remotely resembling rejuvenated mood and restored patience flies over the balcony with the cat, who is instantly evicted with a thump and a roar. Spinning back to the cake, I stand on the metal cutting edge of the aluminium foil box and roar again, violently flinging the box far away. Unbalanced, I accidentally put my hand into the pan with the pumpkin flowers, squashing three of them flat. The third roar is tigerish, a wild angry growl. My wide-eyed neighbor silently scarpers inside her cabin, not even daring to ask. Now, I’m totally over this freaking birthday cake!

“I cannot work in these conditions!” I cry in despair, washing tomato sauce from my hand.

I stop all movement and sit cross-legged on the floor. Meditation. Close eyes. Count to ten. Breathe. My heart pounds in my ears from pent-up frustration I am not able to release completely just yet. Count to twenty. Thirty. Fifty. Trying to clear mind. Passionfruit cake aroma distracts me. After a long painful minute, I spread the rest of the cat-licked pineapple cream over the top of the cake, hiding the worst of the damage, and maintaining a rough heart shape. Once it’s ready, I try to get the cake in the box. The foil plate doesn’t fit. It’s too wide. Aarrgghh!

Finally, I fold over the edges of the foil plate and squish and squeeze the cake into the box, trying not to touch it as the sticky cheese frosting drips over the sides in the clammy humidity. Using tweezers “Happy Birthday Pablo” is drawn carefully with sliced bits of fresh pineapple over the top of the cake. Glad my ordeal is finally over, I close and seal the box and go to put the cake in Cristhian’s fridge. Locked. He’s not home. Aarrgghh!

Switching to Plan B, I get permission to put the cake in Carlos’ fridge next door instead. I go home to take a well-deserved nap in the hammock. A few hours later, Amber comes by to collect her cake. We go to the fridge to retrieve it. Someone has put a heavy bucket on top of the cake box and squished the cardboard down into the middle of the cake. It’s a complete mess. I’m totally devastated and would like nothing more than to scream. Aarrgghh!

“It’s okay, it’s not your fault,” she says, smiling and shrugging. “It will still taste good.”

As she walks away with her squished birthday offering, I swear on my Irish ancestors that this culinary abomination is the last birthday cake I will ever bake in Mompiche. As it turns out, that isn’t quite true, but it’s a very long time – and in someone else’s well-equipped kitchen – before I make another attempt at baking another one! At least the stuffed pumpkin flowers in herbed tomato sauce are delicious.