Being prepared

“I remember not being able to sleep well for days when I arrived in the West Indies. It was not the suffocating heat but the unexpected and scary sight of lizards chasing fireflies across the bedroom ceiling. I was also kept awake by thinking about the tarantula I saw scurrying over the garage floor before I came to bed and there was the incessant noise of frogs, cicadas and packs of barking stray dogs chasing bitches on heat. No guide book had prepared me for that.” Murray Watson reckons that no matter how much research they do, prospective expats are always going to be surprised by something in their new home…