Nothing special.

I run everywhere. I constantly stare at tables, wear flabby shirts, talk to myself, and I now answer to Augustin. I am a waiter.

My kitchen days are over, meaning no more free food, big knives, or magnanimous hacking at shellfish. I’ve forever hung up my food-splattered kitchen uniform, and I’ve been given the waiter’s Hawaiian shirt. Except its XXL. I’m sure it was used as a sail for some galleon before being handed over to me. But whatever, It’ll stop being funny in a few months. I hope. I’ve also got the ‘Augustin’ nametag, cuz they don’t got no Alex’s. At first I just ignored people when they called for me, but now I’m starting to get the hang of it.

It’s a lot more hoity toity than kitchen work, which I don’t like. You gotta know everything about wine, be all formal with ‘desirez-vous’ this and that. Everyone’s a lot more uptight about everything too. “The knife placement is all wrong, it goes a millimeter to the left” “You use the Bordeaux glasses for the Chablis grand cru 1978’s second harvest” and “Alex! Take that corkscrew out of your nose!”.

But it is also a lot more fun. You get to talk to the guests. You make friends with them, and I’ve gotta say, the Italians are the best. They’re always the friendliest, nicest, and most curious. But man, its hard to remember whose who. So you make up names for them, or remember their weird traits- like the Russian mafia guy, billboard forehead, Italian hippie, Jacob’s creek. It always starts out the same, why do you speak fluent Italian/English? then: what brings you to bora? And inevitably they either know someone or know someone that knows someone that’s done hotel school blady bla.

Pop.

I opened the door to my bungalow today and standing there in front of me was a tall guy in a miniskirt and heels. I blinked and he didn’t go away. So I shook his hand. Meet Tamera, the new intern.
He/she? is replacing my roommates which are just about to leave. This should be interesting. So first, lets get something straight… It’s a girl, in a guy’s body. Guy’s body. So will somebody please explain the boobs?!?! I swear, this guy’s got boobs… I’ve been trying to figure it out all day…he’s not fat enough to actually have boobs, they’re not socks, plastic surgery is basically non-existent here…for the love of god, breasts just don’t grow on guys! Maybe I’ll ask him one day. That’ll make for an excellent awkward moment.

“You have boobs.”
“Yes.”
“But…you’re a guy.”
“Yes.”

“Sometimes things happen” – Yamini Kashimshetty

Well, today something did happen. I got ransacked. Pilfered. Robbed. And the worst part is that I know who did it but I can’t do anything about it.

I went to the beach in the morning before work. The same beach I’ve been going to for the past 2 months. The deserted beach on the side of the motu that has only one family living in its vicinity. I brought my discman along, as I often did before. So I listened to some music, read a bit, got really really hot and decided to take a swim. So I stuck my discman in my bag and put my bag in the hut on the beach. I went swimming right in front of the hut, and looked over at my bag every once in a while, but nobody was around so I wasn’t worried. I came back from swimming, reached inside my bag, and my discman was gone.

The weird thing is that the thief had carefully opened my bag, taken the discman out of its case, closed the bag, and then made off with my CD player and my Sennheiser earphones which were my graduation present from my parents.



I looked around and there was nobody in sight. I went towards the shack on the other side of the beach and there was a guy about 25 years old there. I think I was too much in disbelief to be mad. I should have probably screamed my head off and scared him into giving it back. I asked him if he’d seen my discman. “3 young kids took it. They ran off that way.” How convenient.

I told him my predicament, that he was the only person on the beach, and I’ve never seen any kids around here, and that I didn’t want to blame him without proof, but from what it looks like…

He was just working. 3 young kids. He was just working. I scanned the area, felt a couple of bags, there was nothing that resembled a discman. He could have hidden it anywhere. Now I start getting pissed, cuz not only does this little shit steal my discman, but then he has the nerve to stand there and lie to me about it, knowing very well that I can’t prove anything. We have a few more exchanges, I tell him that if he didn’t take it, then he wouldn’t mind if the police came and took a look around.

Then he started getting defensive, I gave it a bit more time, we argued some more… nothing. By then it was almost time for work, so I menaced him with the police one last time then headed back.

But it’s not only the fact that it’s good money gone down the drain. But also that for the next 4 months, I can’t listen to music. And that I’m in a feud with the family that practically lives on my beach. And that whenever I go back to that beach I won’t be able to enjoy myself cuz I’ll be constantly looking over my shoulder towards that shack on the side of the beach.

I’ll social commentary you!

I always thought that religion originated from ancient tribes’ need to explain and feel able to control natural phenomena and disasters. They created gods that reacted to their actions, therefore attributing themselves the ability to ‘control’ nature. And then it evolved into intricate rituals and rules which eventually formed the basis for today’s modern religions.

But was religion-or the worship of a greater power or being- also consciously created because of the need to have a goal in life (such a reaching heaven) -thus giving daily life a greater meaning- or was this a by-product of its evolution?

So when Krunk blamed god for an eruption that toasted his entire village, did he just want a scapegoat? An explanation? A way to have power over uncontrollable nature? Or did he desperately want to give his life meaning, such as the goal of pleasing god so that his village wouldn’t melt no more?

Requins

It just isn’t that scary without the music. This morning I decided to go to a new beach cuz I don’t want the old beach to become too ordinary… so I went to the complete opposite side of the motu; there the water’s a lot shallower- about half a meter at its deepest, and is full of coral; making it almost like a maze. It’s the place where the motu is closest to the outlying reef, so I decided to snorkel out there today and see what was so great about it.

So I’m about half way there, admiring all the fishes, Ooh…fishes. Fish-es. I turned to my left and about 3 meters away- Ooh, it’s a shark. and then turn back to the fishes. And cue the jaws tune. See, without the warning music, it’s just a big fish, until the information reaches your brain, you do a double take and your eyes get about as big as grapefruits, or paumplemousses- whichever sounds sillier.

I watched it while it swam off in the distance, and it was actually pretty cool. It was a small black tipped shark- probably around 70 or 80 cm long. Its amazing that they come to such shallow parts, cuz that water wasn’t more than 30 cm deep. It made another pass right in front of me, the closest it came was about a meter away, but it completely ignored me and swam off to the left, with a bright yellow fish silhouetted against its chest. Then, of course, my mask fogged up and my stupid snorkel tube broke, and I stepped on spiky coral and got bitten by mosquitoes… but at least I had a close encounter with a sharrk.

Ok, so this is a ray. But I already posted a shark photo and one’s all I got. So say hi to ray the ray.

I AM LIVING WITH CRAZY PEOPLE

…and its not so bad. Ok, they’re cazy, but that’s beside the point. They’re good company most of the time. Unless they’re crazy. Which is beside the point. #1’s name is Vahinerri. (best said while sneezing) She’s’ from the tuamotus, which is a whole bunch of atolls. So she’s pretty much used to living on a motu like this one. She’d go to the beach more often, but its too far for her. She’s crazy cuz she rearranges the whole house at least once a day. If she wants me to change channels she drench me in water until I do; or until I short circuit and explode. Then she has the TV all to herself. AND she doesn’t like ‘family guy’… she must be crazy.

The other one’s Belinda. Which proves my theory right. Cuz the really hot ones are always stuck up. Some of it is probably cuz she knows she’s hot. But a big part is cuz any guy would (and do) bend over backwards for her; so I guess she’s used to being handed the world on a silver platter, whether she’s asked for it or not. Still… she never says hello, goodbye, thank you, didn’t apologise when she made us miss the boat Saturday night, complains about everything, and never comes out of her room. Bla.