September 26, 2010-Sunday Siesta

     When I spent three months in Spain during college, I distinctly remember how the plazas, cafes, and places of business, which were usually so alive and noisy, would shut down completely for siesta or rest time. Even in Madrid, the metropolis capital city, only the cafes would stay open during the early hours of the afternoon right after lunch. I love this concept of taking time to relax in the middle of each day.
     As an American, it is a particularly refreshing concept. We are so trained from birth to go, go, go until we are physically sick at times.  Our country has a strong and admirable work ethic, but we often don’t balance that work ethic with time off and vacations to unwind and de-stress.  That’s the great thing about living on the atoll. Not only do we tend to run a bit more on island time and have more time in general to relax after work and on weekends without the hustle and bustle of the city and responsibilities of stateside life (no away games for our kids’ sports teams, no cars to work on, no yard work or house work to speak of), but we also are given a full month of vacation time with our tickets to the states paid for by the company (which can be very expensive at $1200 a person just to get to Hawaii and no competitors to bring the prices down). 
     This time off the “rock” is particularly crucial when it’s not possible to just take a “road trip” to get away for the weekend. So, we work really, really hard all year long, then play really, really hard for a month to six weeks on vacation in the states or some other exotic or European tourist destination. And on the weekends, well, for me I employ that siesta time that I thought was so clever of the Spanish. Of course, there are busy diving weekends and sailing weekends and so forth, but sometimes you just need to rest, and having only that one day is not always enough, although it will have to do for now.  Today, I had a perfect siesta time with the boys while they played, and then we watched movies together, one of our favorite pastimes on the weekends here if you haven’t noticed already.  And tomorrow it will be go, go, go again as we head to Ebeye for our first Citizenship Club meeting of the school year and clean up at the house we are staying at for the full time resident arrives back tomorrow, and another busy week is fast approaching.