It’s the infrastructure. One time the electricity went out and I called The electrical company and they said “we are going to fly in experts next week, so we are getting it fixed”
That was the update. Much of the expats were dumbfounded.
For example, there is a 30,000 member town that has high end hotels that do not have functional generators. You could Pay $600 a night and not have air conditioning.
The alternative is being proactive about a backup system.
Fiji has successfully done it. Their infrastructure is great. In Fiji, they have a similar 3rd world infrastructure for electricity. When it goes out, they have fully functional backup generators and a strong team of support. While blocks are down and you wouldn’t even know it as a consumer.
As Americans and mostly Aussie expats, the electrical challenge translated to not being able to shop for more than 1-3 days of food, but that was easy to adjust to once it was understood.
But for example, the hospitals when they didn’t know how to treat something— they would just amputate. I’m guess that would be a surprise to most people.
They had ni blood bank. They have one now, but I would get calls to come down to the hospital and “save a life” by giving blood right this minute.
When forklifts at the port would break, they would just take the week off and ship new ones in.
Which made the port constantly run behind. We had our own backup forklifts that we would keep on hand to make sure that our international contracts were honored.
It’s a beautiful place and the people are wonderful, but there is many challenges when planning a life there that many would take for granted
Those who live such isolated lives should get out of the city from time to time, maybe just leave their safe neighborhoods. Grew up in NYC and was in cub/boy scouts and we did camping trips. My father preferred a rural and rugged lifestyle so we frequently vacationed in up state NY and Vermont where a lot of the activities were outdoors such as hikes, nature walks, tours, etc.
The same guy went home for the holidays. He was to take a boat to get to his parents island. The boat was 3 days late. No communication so he basically camped waiting for the boat. He told me this was not unusual, you just had to wait. They did not tell you it was delayed or when it would come.
He also told me that on his parents Island they spoke two totally different native languages. I asked how that was possible. How did they trade? He told me, "oh no if you crossed the river they would kill you". I asked how long ago that was and he told me it was during his fathers childhood.
The locals decided it was getting harder and harder to find rats to get paid to capture. They started to cut the tails off and release the rats back into the sewers so that they could procreate.
So the government's attempt to kill all rats ended in rats being bred and eventually an increase in rat population.
Here is one link that tells some of the story:
It seems that the natives were already a lot more enterprising than the French had thought.
I had heard of the story of the Cobra Effect[1] but the Hanoi Rat Masscacre is a much better documented example of the Perverse Incentive phenomenon. It also strikes me as an example of Goodhart's Law[2] in effect.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive#The_origina...
That's a pretty rude response and also invalid. He's not dumbfounded at the slower pace of life. He's dumbfounded that a nation of 300k could have a week long electricity outage and not have a single resident capable of fixing the issue or a backup plan ready to activate. It suggests exceptionally poor planning -- even for an island nation in the Pacific.
Or the inverse... it suggests a much higher tolerance for inconvenience. We're just spoiled in Europe and America (including at our most popular vacation spots.) People lived for millions of years without this shit, ten thousand years of agricultural civilization alone...
What if you can't afford a generator and fuel, and you're medically reliant on a CPAP machine or a chair lift? You may be physically unable to leave your 2nd floor apartment, and unable to call for help because your cordless landline phone no longer has power? Not to mention the financial cost of all the food in your refrigerator spoiling.
All of those things can be accounted for with money. But a government should plan to ensure a certain minimum standard of living for its citizens.
> What if you can't afford a generator and fuel, and you're medically reliant on a CPAP machine or a chair lift
Virtually everyone on the planet with such a malady is in a similar situation every single day except for some of you Americans and most Europeans.
I'm not saying it should be that way so you don't need to take it that far, I'm just saying some people are seriously spoiled and can't deal with any hardship (let alone the slightest inconvenience) at all anymore. Most people on the planet can, because they have no choice.
Work opportunities was the real one, but I wanted to take my young family (at the time my kids were 3,7,8) to experience a different culture. For example to feed sharks and go see a live volcano.
It is a world away from the suburban kid's lifestyle back in the US (or wherever; i'm from NZ)
Congratulations on taking the bold choice to move!
I've had some very interesting experiences bumping into expats around the world. It's amazing how many times they expect <remote, undeveloped country> to function exactly like their extremely expensive and developed home country.
They complain about the differences endlessly, but of course they want extremely cheap food, accommodation and alcohol.
It's a very big disconnect.