Hey again! Time for part two of my journey abroad, I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy sharing it.
I left off last time talking about all the hard work we had to put in before we could properly do our surveys. So while we spent most of our time studying, doing chores, or diving, when we got time off we played hard. Our time off was during the weekends in which we were allowed to walk off the base and do anything we wanted, well not "anything", Our weekends started on Friday and Saturday as everything was closed on Sunday so it would be pointless to go into the city. Even though we worked on Thursdays everyone still looked forward to Thursday night as it started off our weekends by rewarding our hard work with a barbeque that was entirely prepared by the staff. Most of us used this as a time to get drunk, play games, eat great food and be with great company.
Although I showed up to every barbeque and participated with the groups on the weekends, I still had reservations about whether I was wanted there or not. I still felt like a bother to most people and like I was getting in the way. No one showed any signs or told me that this was the case but my brain decided it wanted me to feel otherwise. I fought the urge to just ditch the barbeques and sit on my bed reading or maybe head down to the bay and relax on the beach, I wanted a change and I wanted to make friends. I won't lie, in the beginning drinking alcohol made it a lot easier as my mind wouldn't create so much chatter and would just live in the moment. After several weeks of getting close to people, I realized that we all have flaws, fears, worries, and doubts that try to hinder us as we live life. It was so liberating to be able to share my problems with people that I felt genuinely cared about my well being and I finally started to be the person I knew I wanted to be. Though it's a slow process and I still deal with some of these anxieties today, being surrounded by friends and being able to talk about my problems was the push in the right direction that I needed. It all started when I pushed myself into going to these barbeques because I focused on what I could gain from them instead of what I could lose. If I was a burden and bother to people then nothing would change and if I made friends and got my confidence then everything would change. So I just let go and went for it and I'm glad I did.
This picture just happens to be on one of those nights that I decided to just let go and join the group. We found an abandoned bathtub and Peter(far right in the tub) decided he was going to take a bath on barbeque night. So he prepared himself a hot bath by leaving a few canisters full of water in the sun all day and then boiled several pots of water to pour in later at night. As you can see, we weren't the type to let him have a bath to himself so we fit in as many as we could and made a party out of it!
Oh and for some reason we tried to see how many people we could fit into the community freezer. How drunk were we?
So after all the fun that barbeque night supplied, Friday morning rolls along and everyone sets into motion again, everyone sets off in their groups for whatever they had planned for the weekend. Even though the walk from base to the nearest bus station was about thirty minutes and a rollercoaster of hills, it wasn't so bad because this was the view the whole way there.
Mahé is a pretty small island and the only city on the island is Victoria which happens to be one of the smallest capital cities in the world. So as you can already guess, there wasn't a whole lot to really do except explore unless you planned to take an extra few days off to explore some of the other islands too. Some of the things you could do are:
Share a banana split with a friend.
Go see a temple.
Go for a swim in one of the waterfalls, which was a nice change from the usual hot saltwater.
See the difference between two different worlds on Eden Island. One side of the bridge was full of yachts and expensive shops while the other side of the bridge had small shops and houses that were falling apart.
If you're lucky you can go to one of the very few concerts held on the island with amazing friends!
Or the best part, which was relaxing on one of the many beautiful beaches that never cease to amaze me.
As this was a volunteer project most of us only spent a month on the project before going back home but there were a few of us, the interns, that stayed for three months and became pretty close to each other. We went on some crazy adventures, like renting mokes(mini jeeps) to explore all of Mahé.
Or the best thing we did(in my opinion), which was renting a catamaran to sail around the ocean to the other islands!
While on the catamaran we did so many amazing things that I'll never forget. One of the more amazing things was swimming in a marine protected area when sea turtles decided to come and inspect us!
Swimming along side a ray while we made our way to an island.
And that island was filled with amazing rock formations and these really neat waddling birds with really long tails!
Sadly I didn't get any video of almost three hours spent swimming in the ocean in near pitch black conditions because we were swimming in bioluminescent plankton and we were all too fascinated to get out of the water!
So the weekend has come to an end and it's time to make the trek back home. After getting off the bus and preparing to make the thirty-minute walk back to camp, I'm rewarded with this amazing view. It'll always be one of my favorite views for the rest of my life.
Next week will be all about diving diving diving! I hope you join me again for another look at my trip abroad and how it changed who I am! Thanks again!