Still September 2007
Morning:
Joy: waking up in the morning sun just in time for breakfast
Turmoil: Being woken up by the goats, chickens or a 4x4 running its engine behind your hut and gassing you at 5am .
Breakfast:
Joy: fresh bread and plenty of egg
Turmoil: Rice cakes, a mild appreciation first time around, but you don’t even want to waste your condiments on trying to make them taste better. Just condiment on its own is the way to go, preferably Nutella, though a few have been know to go straight for the marmite.
Dive:
Joy: your favourite BCD, weight belt are just waiting for you to use
Turmoil: no BCD in your size, all the weights have been used, and only the heavy white tanks are left
Joy: leave in TsonTso boat with Thomas as driver, all goes well have a fantastic dive.
Turmoil: Get Aloalo boat with big waves on a far far journey to find out that the waves are too big on the dive site to go it. Alternatively, someone has forgotten the Surface Marker Buoy, and the dive is aborted before you hit the water. Or you are at a great dive site and your buddy cant equalise so the dive is aborted for you both.
Joy: return from a dive to find the water is still on and the sun has been warming it nicely.
Turmoil: no water left, late for lunch, all good food is gone.
Food:
Joy: fish boc boc (small pieces of battered fish), beetroot, potato salad, grilled fish, fish or zebu kebabs, mashed potato and chips, soup.
Turmoil: skinny chicken (especially the neck), squid (not so good), prawns (especially bad for me, but others seem to love it). Fruit for dessert (a banana) after the same for 4 nights in a row.
Evening:
Joy: THB beer and peanuts watching the sunset
Turmoil: A rubbish long staff meeting, with arguments and annihilations
People:
Joy: Hanging out with the local lads, laughing, being generally cheeky and having fun
Turmoil: Having to instil the rules and protocols that international staff break all the time making me the bad guy again.
Night Night:
Joy: Being ready for bed before the lights go out at 10pm
Turmoil: Working late again and forget the time and end up lightless in the loo when the water has run out and no toilet paper.
Exercise:
Joy: swimming 2km across beautiful turtle beach and back, with a relatively calm sea and decent visibility to watch all the sea grass swaying with the waves.
Turmoil: having no time for anything other than work work work, and never able to get away to enjoy everything else Andavadoaka has to offer.
Transport:
Joy: Volunteers leaving and having a couple of days without having to be at everyone’s beck and call every minute of the day.
Turmoil: a camion journey to Tulear or return that doesn’t go well and involves no sleep and stressful planning for 48hours to ensure the safe return of volunteers and staff to Coco Beach.
Communication:
Joy: receiving e-mails from friends and family keeping me in the loop, love and support
Turmoil: send and receive e-mail nights as compiling and re-distributing takes hours and many a party night have been ruined by work commitments.
Mottos:
You will learn to hate the goats, chickens, cats for waking you.
Keep the toilet doors shut, the goats eat the paper, we eat the goats, not a good circle of life.
You will try to catch the goats but you will fail.
Most injuries occur walking back from the epi-bar!
You might like diving but you will miss Andavadoaka and the local people forever.
Alefa – Lets go
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