I had a great time though, endangered species not withstanding. Some very sad and disturbing developments though. One sister in law died in childbirth. Premature labour brought on by yet another bout of domestic violence... Another uncle has a very serious case of elephantitus ... and one of the teachers ... ayoung guy died in his sleep.
And me?I accidently swam with a shark. I was standing in waist deep water inside the reef, and noticed a fin slowly rise above the water about 15 metres away. I thought I was hallucinating until I heard one of the chiefs resting on the stage ... a kind of verandah affair just above the beach cry 'shark shark'. This is it I thought. So I started to carefully and splashlessly move back to the shore about 40 metres away. Because of the shape of the beach, it actually dips down just near the shore, and I thought if this shark is going to take me, he'll do it there. My legs were a bit shakey once I got out of the water, but no damage.
When I got back to my house I mentioned the adventure to my brother aged 9. Oh it wasn't a shark, just a dolphin, he said. And he would know because he was there. And he knows better than the chief ....
Other than that it was pretty much work work work. I didn't drink nearly as much kava as on previous occasions and that seemed to have allowed me to preserve a calm demeanor in the face of the usual shenanigans -consultants not turning up when they said they would ... the laplap and the water shortages ...
Oh well am back now, and back into it.
1 comment:
I'm so glad you're back somewhere I can imagine (I'm sure that's a great comfort to you on a grey day in PN). I got extremely breathless reading about the shark. Just tell me - the circumcision ceremony in your next post - it's just ceremonial, right? This seems a terribly personal question, but you're not planning any permanent adjustments?
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