Yesterday a lovely couple from the UK arrived here, Claire and James. We hit it off right away and my bunkmate Marion, the French girl and I joined them for dinner. The food here is included in the nightly fee (and is just absolute dogfood might I add). I barely choked down a few bites of some sort of fish that wasn’t very fresh (which doesn’t make sense as the fish are practically throwing themselves onto the boats…). Everyone was in a very festive mood as it was “international night”, which to my dismay, translates into the requirement each nationality must stand before the group and sing their national anthem at the top of their lungs. There is only one other American here and he is actually from Brazil originally, so it was not very melodious between the two of us- but we got a fantastic encore.
A kava ceremony was held by one of the locals. I am still a bit apprehensive about kava, although I had tried it in NadI. This concoction turned out to be much stronger than the other one I had tried, and immediately made the mouth go numb and sort of burned going down. Some local guys entertained us, playing the guitar as Marion and I cracked a wee bottle of local rum that I had stashed in my bag from NadI to avoid a accumulating a bar tab. Around 11 I was feeling a bit woozy after only a few drinks so I left the partiers with the bottle and headed back to the dorm to lay down (I haven’t made it past 11 yet since I’ve been here! I‘m such an old fart.) Something definitely didn’t agree with me and I’m pretty sure it was the fish since I hadn’t felt quite right since dinner. I curled in a ball feeling really crampy, and woke around 4:30 to find everyone else in the dorm where they belonged except for Marion, who was missing. I got really worried for her as its not safe to be wandering around the village or beach alone after dark, and I know she has a guy she loves so I had ruled out the possibility of her making out somewhere. I really considered going to look for her but no one would join me and I was still feeling really sick. It was also down pouring for the first time since I’ve been here and so I sat awake, waiting and having anxiety trying to decide what to do.
Thank God she appeared shortly after in the early morning hours and I hugged her and was so relieved as I was feeling a bit guilty about the whole bottle of rum ordeal and worrying that she may have finished it or something and passed out on the beach. She hasn’t offered information about what she was up to and everyone else that noticed her disappearance is gossiping, but its her business as far as I‘m concerned. I’m just glad she’s ok!
Today Claire and James and a few other folks are going diving down in a spot they call “Supermarket” due to the abundance of reef sharks, turtles, and tropical fish. Myself, Marion and a young British couple Hannah and Daniel are going along for the trip to snorkel above while the divers go down. The dive guide keeps cracking jokes about snorkelers being good chum to bring the sharks in for divers which I don’t find too funny as it is taking every bit of bravery I have to even go in the water knowing there will be sharks there. Hopefully this experience will decrease rather than increase my shark phobia, but we’ll see. Supposedly they are more afraid of us than we are of them.
There is a little herd of wild pigs running around the village today and they are very cute. They look like piglets. They cant be bigger than 25 lbs or so and some are spotted white and black, some white and brown. They are pretty timid and clumsy. They run away as you approach them, crashing and plowing through whatever is in their path, tripping and scrambling around squealing. I caught one of the puppies chasing after the pigs this morning and got a bit nervous that the pigs might hurt it so I snatched it and brought it back to its mother.
My friends are all going camping on a little deserted island tonight where they bonfire and barbeque and drink and then return at sunrise, but I opted out because I am leaving in the morning for the Coral Coast and also can’t bear to part with the $70 it costs to go when I know I’ll be yawning at 10pm. I think getting up early every day combined with getting so much sun is making me tired earlier than usual. There are also boats going out to “Castaway Island” where the movie Castaway was filmed, but I have heard that its really similar to this beach setting, deserted and they haven’t even got Wilson there for shits and giggles. I might be a party pooper but really all the islands nearby seem to be very similar and I’m on a serious budget.
Well, hopefully tomorrow I will be able to post these entries into my blog along with some photos, Maybe some of you are still following!
Xoxoxoxox -K
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