Well, firstly, hooray! Jane has made it to Uganda in one piece : ) And just a reminder–we will put our names after the title of the post so you know if you are in the south pacific or uganda before you start to read…
Very little makes me as happy as when I am Under Water…chlorinated, fresh, ocean, doesn’t really matter. I am covering for a midwife shortage coming up when two of the midwives head to a conference so am taking a couple of days before hand to relax and get ahead on work. Today I headed to Hideaway Island…just a mini-bus and skiff ride away. This tiny island boasts a resort that is open for day-use for the cost of about $10 which is then credited back to you for purchasing a drink at the snack bar. It’s something out of a dream really, with white lounge chairs in a single row across the ocean front and picnic table under the shade behind them. The island seems to be made of millions of pieces of washed up coral. Hideaway is the proud home of the only underwater post office and I bit it and paid $4.00 to send one home. It’s kind of a dive down and there were several folks who purchased them and wrote their notes but couldn’t make the dive down so I played post-lady (or so the aussie’s call it) and dove repeatedly under to get the cards posted. It is kind of funny as at 2pm every day a man dressed in scuba gear waddles into the ocean, empties the box and then puts the postcards in the skiff where they are delivered to the main post office in Vila, where they may or may not make it out to their destinations. But it is just so cool, I couldn’t resist. The coral here is full of color and life, with purples of all hues, deep reds, bright yellows, endless endless color everywhere I looked under the ocean. I saw giant purple clams and swam in a school fish that was hundreds and hundreds of fish big. I tried to herd them and got a big circle going but realized I was in the middle of it and suddenly surrounded by yellow-striped fish all staring at me with one eye was a bit creepy and I swam over the top of the pack. Little black and white fish are curious fellows and if you stay still for two long they will converge on you to investigate. And luminescent rainbow fish like to be warm and will hover near your body if you stand on the ocean floor. Giant fish disguised as coral show themselves if you keep very still and wait for them to move. The water is in a protected bay and quite a lot calmer than the snorkeling Benjy I did all over Kauai. I met a woman from New Zealand who was also playing hookie and we lounged and read and chatted the afternoon away. The sun felt great after the week-plus of rain and cold. I took the skiff back to the main island (a 4 minute nauseating ride), then took a walk down a long spit which turns into black sand at the end. It was incredibly beautiful and quiet. I would love to go back there at night for a bon fire. On the way back I saw the pack of med students and they invited me to come out with them tonight but I am beat from the day in the sun and surf and hope to get a good sleep tonight without the noise of the squalls waking me up every 15 minutes or the noise of the Aussie rugby team that was here last night hooting and hollering in a drunken roar at 2am (urrrrgggghhh). I have made my most important connection so far when I struck up conversation with a loud happy local woman at the NumbaWan Café. I was wondering what approach to take when it comes to independence day here and heard her speaking English so I asked. Should I diverge and tell you the contents of the conversation I overheard? Probably, at least a snippet of it. She and her girlfriend were looking at pictures of some of the dancers that are performing on independence night here. They pulled up a photo and her girlfriend said “there is a G-d!” to which she replied, without missing a beat, “or a devil, but either way, I’m in!!” This was followed by huge infectious laughs. But back to the story…there are clearly parties being planned all over every neighborhood. It turns out that she is in charge of the events in my ‘hood. She actually seems like she might be in charge of the neighborhood in general. She has a week-long program and was detailing all of the night’s activities. There are competitions for everything—kid’s competitions, men’s, women’s, beauty, dancing, kustom dancers, foreign dancers, food, on and on and on…It kind of sounds like 7 nights of the Camp Talent Show. But the important part of this story is that now I get to go and hang out with Ciska—Queen of Seaside Neighborhood. Hooray! A word about Aussie TV: It’s Horrible. (ok , that was two words but now I’m done) A word about morals on Vanuatu: As long as one is honest about their immorality, it is moral. Steal? Cheat? Play around on your spouse? Just own up to it without skipping a beat when asked and it’s all good. A word about bugs in Vanuatu: If they have left their home and entered yours, and Dirty Harry is not doing his little lizard job and eating them, close your eyes and smack with a shoe. Gross, but better than bug bites.
