My walk down to lenakel

Well I was supposed to get up and got to White Sands with Namke, his wife, and papa blong Joseph, but it was raining and that kind of gave me an out. Namke was at my hut at about 0500 asking if I still wanted to go. I ended up going back to sleep until about 0900. I got up and did some reading. I am in the middle of The Search for Captain Zero. So far I have really been enjoying this book. I think my Dad will dig it too. I just finished part of the book where he ends up in this little surf town called Sayulita. Sayulita is where 9 other guys and I went for Jeff Hulseys Bachelor party. I think the mosquitoes were worse there then they are here.

I then ate some lunch with Sophia and we played the guitar and then some wild rounds of seven lock. Seven lock is one of everyone’s favorite games here. I think it I okay, but it does not leave much of a challenge. There is not a whole lot of thinking to it. I would rather play something like pinochle or canasta.

Well at about 1300 I headed down to Lenakel. Of course five minutes into my walk it began to pour down. I posted up under a tree for a bit, until it lightened up enough for me to push on. I had never walked this path down to Lenakel before. It is a very nice walk. It is flat almost the whole way with only a few rolling hills. At the very end it drops down pretty quick, so I imagine the first leg heading back would be a real lung burner. It took me exactly one hour and forty minutes to get from my house to the post office, even with stopping for the rain.

When I got down to the TVL store to buy a refill card for my mobile phone, I realized I left my pouch with my evri samting at my hut. Lame! I ended up buying a new phone as mine will not hold a charge. So hopefully this phone is okay. It was very cheap. Only 7,000VT and it came with 2,000VT worth of phone credit. The phones are all pay as you go. Tomorrow is Kranki sundei so if you put time on your phone you get double value. This will give me 4,000 VT worth of credit, plus another 4,000 from two other cards I have.

Well my whole purpose in coming down today was to house sit for Jessica. As it turns out there trip got cancelled due to a land dispute in Anewa. Anewa is a small island close to Tanna. Well we went the Nakamal last night and had a few shells before coming back to her house, cooking up some soup, and then watching ELF. Does not seem to matter how many times I watch that movie I still laugh the whole way through. “I like Smiling, Smiling is my favorite!” “Wow he is an angry little Elf.”

Well yesterday after going to get my new phone I headed over to the Bank/ Post Office to try and get some money out of my account. I had left my passbook in my little pouch up at my house, so I had to have the manager’s approval. I then went to the post office side but the post man was not there. I headed out side and he was sitting on the bench. I asked him if I had any samting inside and he pointed down to the bench where I had a stack of mail. It is pretty cool that he knows who we are and does not charge us for a post office box. He just holds our mail until we come in.

Well I was parched from my walk down with out any water, so I found a kol-kol grape drink that came in what looked like a soda can but was made out of plastic. I chugged it in about two gulps. With my thirst not quenched I went and bought a kol kol tusker and headed down to a little beach cove between the mama’s market and the wharf. I cracked open my beer and started reading my mail. As I was laughing out loud from stories from friends both here in country and those back home in the states, I thought about how not much in the world could compare to that moment in time.

Mail is such a wonderful thing. I do not think I could have been any happier then at that one moment in time. Laughing out loud I got a lot of looks from other locals enjoying the beach. It really made me miss everyone, both PCV’s and everyone at home. It is so nice to hear stories from home. I know to everyone at home they think oh well nothing new is happening here, but even just hearing about little stuff at home is a big deal here. I felt like a kid on Christmas morning getting every present I wanted.

I woke up this morning and found out that Jessicas new little puppy that I was to watch is very sick. It seems to have real hard time breathing, has thrown up everything in its stomach, and will not even lift its head for food. I suggested we cut up a piece of penicillin and give it to her. Hopefully it will make her better.

I am not sure what today will have in store for me. I think at some point I will head to Leniae Palms and get an ice cream cone or two. I need to make sure my dairy intake stays up so that when I go back into Vila and treat myself to a phat brownie Sunday from Jill’s, I do not get sick. It is very common for PCV’s to get sick when they come back into Vila; due to the fact that while at site there are no dairy products. Then you come back and eat cheese, milk, ice cream and everyone gets sick. I figure if I eat ice cream every week or two I should be able to keep enough dairy in my to keep me from getting sick in Vila.