Compound Living

Well, we’ve been here about a month and it has been everything we expected it to be. All of the strengths we expected are certainly present. The school is incredible. The level of accountability, professional development, and the ease of navigating systems that are all in place have all been positives for us. When we were searching for jobs, these were high on our list of priorities. The kids are incredible, although the kids everywhere are usually incredible in different ways. We are fitting in nicely from a professional standpoint. However, that’s not the main focus I want to address in this post. I want to address compound life, since it’s the area I had the most curiosity about when we set off on our journey.

Compound living is pretty great. But it’s also very peculiar. I’ll explain. First, I’ll address the stuff. I kind of listed some of it in the last post, but I’ll go more in depth here. It’s like living on a resort. All of the day to day amenities you might want are present. The facilities are all state of the art, accessible, and enjoyable. There are three pools, ranging from lap pools to resort style sitting pools, and everything in between, oh and they are building another one. The gym is huge, open all the time, and fully equipped. There is ample space for about 40 people to work out at the same time, although I haven’t seen more than 10 there yet. There is an indoor track so you can run in the air conditioning. There are two indoor tennis courts, and two indoor basketball courts, full court. There are indoor badminton courts, and indoor table tennis. There is childcare for the athletics center, a smoothie bar, and a spa. The spa doubles as a barbershop and salon for whatever you might need. And all of that is just in the athletics facility!

If you stray across the street, you end up in another building that has a coffee shop, frozen yogurt shop, Persian rug shop, party store, bike shop, home goods store, grocery store, Burger King, Mediterranean restaurant, hotel, hotel restaurant, bowling alley, movie theater, and a game room with pool tables, fooseball, a gaming system, and a poker table.

Between those things alone, you can get by without leaving the compound if you choose to do so. Everything a person could want is already present. So that’s the stuff.

Now to the peculiarities. Everyone is everywhere. We are around the same people all the time. They are great people. We couldn’t ask for better. Truly. People here are friendly, helpful, and generous. It is an odd experience however to be surrounded by the same people all of the time. When we were in Ecuador, I described the relationships as having a family feel. I totally stand by that statement, and we still keep in contact with them. The difference between the community here and there however, is that in Ecuador, after the party or BBQ, people would drive home. Most people lived a few minutes away by car, or farther away. Here, when the party ends, we walk next door and go home. When we go to the grocery store, we see our coworkers. When we go to the gym, we see students. When we go get frozen yogurt, we see them all again. Again, I can’t restate how kind everyone has been and how great the people here all are however I am just making the point that it feels like a society unlike anything else I’ve experienced before. The close proximity an omnipresence makes things feel a little surreal. We are well taken care of. The amenities are plentiful and excellent. The people are great. But it definitely takes some getting used to. It almost feels like we’re living in the movie The Truman Show. The best way I can describe it is like living in a small bubble.

There are a lot of positives to this. For example, there is literally something going on every single night. We are never bored unless we want to allow ourselves to be. There are dinner parties, bbqs, movie clubs, book clubs, sports clubs, card games, and every other kind of thing you could think of. It’s all within a three minute walk. Plus, if we wanted to, we could even print on the school’s server since we’re close enough to be on school wifi!

We will certainly experience some difficulties with compound life but in the meantime, we’re very happy. It’s taking some getting used to but whenever we get fed up, we will drive off compound and do a bit of exploring.