Well it's very different living in paradise on a remote tropical desert island than just being here as a tourist for a week or two. Basically it's only possible to enjoy paradise for no longer than 2 weeks, without doing anything. After that you loose your mind with boredom!(well I do anyway) Of course my reason to be here is to train as Dive Master, so I decided to get on with that as soon as I could.
Choosing a place to do my Dive Master...
Firstly it's hard choosing the right school to do your dive master training at. There's a lot of variables that come into the decision! But what it all comes down to is whether the instructor at the school you have chosen really knows his stuff and can teach you well. I've also been told working at a busy school (not a factory, there is a difference) can be good as it gives you an insight into what a lot of schools can be like, where you have to set up loads of equipment in half an hour. My school isn't that busy, but I chose my school based on a good feeling about my instructors, I felt they were passionate and loved what they did and (being Spanish) could also teach me their language. As it turns out Spanish people seem to find your lack of their language hilarious and don't like to correct you or help, but just look confused, laugh and make you feel bad for trying at all! Although I guess my pronunciation of Spanish with a French accent might be funny to them?!
So anyway here I am for 2-3 months at Little Corn Dive. I found a nice place to live with other divers (from another school) everything just fell into place so I just stayed!
I think at first, like the past week, I had serious questions over if I made the right choice, but as I settle into life here I feel I am in a great place, with lots of nice people to meet and make friends with:
Molly and Evan (my flatmates) playing around with Face Mats!
There's a whole community of European and American expats who live here. Whenever you travelled for a bit and you met endless people you say hello and goodbye to in a short time you get a bit tired of that, because you never get to know anyone, so it's good to stay a while and get to know a place and its people. I think at first I felt this Island had a great local story to tell but then I realized its expat people have a story to tell too, and I'm only going to get to know that the longer I stay here.
The Pink House
I decided to take a room in a house (for $300 a month, wow!) in this place called Beverley Hills, well that's what the locals call it anyway. It's high up on the hill overlooking the rest of the island with lots of nice big houses in a very quiet neighbourhood. Well quiet apart from the chickens and roosters who cock-a-doodle all day long from about 5am and the dogs (oh god the dogs!), who bark at everything that goes by, and at anyone who comes to the gate! They've only just got used to me so know not to come barking towards me as if I'm a burglar...atleast we are well protected from thieves though, which is why so many people have them in their houses here. To be honest it's less like living in Hollywood and more like living on a farm!
The pink house view from the garden
View from the balcony
Lovely tropical garden with Palm Trees
Hammock at the front, a great place to chill
Massive double hammock at the back
One of our guards, a huge dog called Simba! I think he is a German Shepherd dog, beautiful, apart from when he and his two other guards bark at every single person who walks past!
Living room!
View from church just by our house
Insects and Spiders
At night, say after 10-11pm when the house is quiet and everyone has gone to bed its cockroach time! It's like their allotted time to come out and take over the kitchen, infact if you're as bold (or rude in the cockroaches opinion) as to come in the kitchen at that time, and invade there space, they fly at you as if to say, "How dare you come in here after 11pm!". My iPhone screen is cracked currently because when I went to pick it up a cockroach jumped at me and crawled up my arm so I jumped and threw my phone on the floor!
Molly, the nice English girl in the picture who offered me the house and is a Dive Master at Dolphin Dive, kinda loves all animals big and small. She got a bit upset with me for drowning a cockroach the other day. You see I caught it in a bottle and then didn't know what to do, so I just filled it with water (because if you squash them they spread more) and threw it on the trash. I get she thought that was cruel but I do think it's a bit too far to give a big shit about a cockroaches though, the case in support of my argument presents exhibit one below:
At night the cockroaches come out, they are huge. I think they think they own the place after 10pm. There were many more present not captured in this picture.
See they come out at night and eat whatever is left out and leave disease and germs, they also break iPhones!
I never thought I'd say this though but I would actually like to live with a Tarantula, because atleast that would eat all the cockroaches and maybe the mice that poo everywhere. As it happens we found one the other evening on the back porch, right below my bedroom window! Molly found it under the dog mat when she moved it. She screamed and jumped up on a chair. I stayed back, and took pictures! Molly's boyfriend caught it in a bucket and then let it go far away from our house! I'm glad he did that but I also wonder whether it could have had its uses!
A tarantula decided to turn up in the back porch, to be honest I would rather have one of these living with us if it are the cockroaches and the mice!
And then there are the Geckos. Molly has names for some of them, I think ones called Lisa! Unfortunately Lisa met a sticky end when she got caught between a door hinge and we found her flattened one morning.
I don't know what this one is called but it was just running around on my window the other evening. I don't dare open my windows at night though, even though it's so hot, cause I have no idea what will crawl in! I've found cockroaches, crickets and mice poo in my room (as if a mouse would come in my room just to poo on the window sill and then leave!) and there are snakes here too! (the joys of living in a tropical climate hey!)
Gecko's everywhere! I'll call this one Bob!
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario