The Most Stunningly Beautiful Girl...

The most stunningly beautiful girl I've ever seen in real life, I met at an internet cafe in Zanzibar town.
There are certain places whose names evoke the mysteries of the far corners of the world and the fabulous riches or exotic beauty our imaginations hope to discover there. Bora-Bora, Bali, Persia, Rio, Fiji, and Zanzibar are some of mine, (notice how many end in vowels?) Just the way the names sound rolling off my tongue promises wondrous adventures. We can all think of places that excite our minds and tempt our senses, I bet yours have exotic names too.
Zanzibar had been an Indian Ocean and Far East trade hub for spices, gold, ivory, and slaves for 800 years before the Portuguese stumbled over it in the 16th century and it remained a crossroads of commerce under all the countries that have controlled the island ever since. Stonetown, the oldest part of its largest city and port named Zanzibar town, is a maze of skinny, winding cobblestone streets whose Arabic style buildings seem to rise up and almost meet overhead, dimming the passages below. Scooters barely squeeze by the merchants displaying their goods on low tables and rugs, but every so often, you wander into a sunny courtyard or tiny green park.
With my diving finished for the day, and seasalt crystallizing in my eyelashes, I stopped into a tiny internet cafe for a glass of fresh juice and on hour or two of contact with the modern world. . I remembered I had until a 31 Dec. deadline to complete a DAN Instructor update online and I worked my way through its 75 pages, trying and mostly succeeding in not getting caught too blatantly visually eavesdropping on the surfers next to me. Of course I had noticed her when she stepped through the door, even the fans pushing the warm air around the room paused their sweeps for another look. I concentrated even harder on my own screen as she sat down next to me, testing my strength not to gawk at her like every other guy around her was doing and probably had been doing since she hit puberty.
That's why I jumped when she tapped my arm, "Are you a Dive Instructor?"
So I'm not the only one who looks on other people's screens! "Yes," I replied, "at least until I quit my job to go traveling. Are you a diver too?"
She has her Open Water and is friends with a girl who teaches at a dive shop in Ras Nungwi, the island's northernmost point where I'd been trying fruitlessly to find a room for weeks. It turns out her friend is pulling her hair out, trying to handle a group of 130 Swedes visiting for the New Year who want to get certified, (no wonder I can't find a room there!) and is desperately looking for help.
"Shoot, I wish you'd found me yesterday," (truer words have never been spoken,) and visions of a place to stay, free diving and a chance to teach the Swedish Bikini Team will remain forever unfulfilled - I had just bought a plane ticket to Arusha for the next day. Even though I very regretfully declined and couldn't help her friend, we kept chatting and after I finished the update, (I think. I hope DAN will let me know...,) I found myself in the cafe across the street, listening to her sultry voice and trying to place her enticing accent. She has long wavy dark hair insouciantly (I've always wanted to use that word,) gathered up in a clip, dark-golden olive skin, and a big glint of mischief and intelligence shining from her deep brown eyes. I realized that without a doubt, Nadine is the most stunning woman I've ever seen outside of a magazine or movie screen. And she eclipses most of them, too.
Ahhh, Zanzibar... we trade backgrounds and stories. Mine, you know. Hers? Single and dumped like me. "Mostly from the UK," with an Irish Mom and Pakistani Dad (now I get that accent.) She's spent the last six months here in Zanzibar volunteering with HIV+ children, (a saint too!) She's impressed by my GVI project and the AIDS volunteering I did with Triad Health Project back in Greensboro. Next stop? Amsterdam with friends just fell through, so it's off to Buenos Aires on her own to work on her Spanish and learn to tango. "Hey, I just did that!" She wishes she were going on a safari too, and tells me how much I will love Rome and Barcelona - another person in love with that city, what is it about Barca?!
For an hour she's been ignoring her chirping cell, but I need to catch a share Dala Dala across the island at 5, and her friends are waiting... So with the goodbyes I get the European cheek kiss, but three times - left, right, left - what does that mean? I thought it was just two? Then she asks if I have a cell# while traveling but I don't so I give her my email instead, (so if this post suddenly disappears - you'll know why.) As I cross the street, I look back to a warm smile and a fingertip wave from the hand holding her cell to her ear.
Ahh, Zanzibar...
Nakupenda,
Clement

"I Like To Move It, Move It..."

Every time I think the word "Madagascar," I mentally picture Gary Ridley singing the Disney song "I like to move it, move it..." in that funny voice on the Costa Rica trip and crack myself up. The name Madagascar also conjures up images of exotic wildlife prowling lush green jungles. Since it's estimated that 85% of the island (the fourth largest in the world,) has been deforested by humans trying to scratch some wealth from the land, that might not be the reality on the ground anymore but I managed to encounter some of what remains in the parks and reserves of Andasibe and the Perinet.

My buddy Zeph/Jeff collected me and all my stuff at the Sakamanga at 7AM and after dropping my excess dive gear at his home, we headed east on RN7 (National Route 7 - paved and two lanes, mostly,) for three days of trekking, nighthikes and hopefully, some amazing wildlife encounters.

The 130km journey wound through the mudbrick villages and rice fields of modern Madagascar and there were some startling reminders of what that entails along the way. Scorched hills and muddy rivers showed the result of slash and burn agriculture. Bare peaks and open pit mines reflected the the local population's scramble for wealth on this resource rich island.

Saddest of all was the hourlong backup where everyone left their vehicles to watch while the local gendarmie cleaned up the 36 bodies from the previous night's bus accident. It had overturned on a dark curve and rolled down a 30m embankment into a flooded rice field below. As I stood back and watched the gawkers running and jostling for the best view, I couldn't help wondering if CNN had picked up the tragic story like they sometimes do. I decided W's blather, Hillary's latest non-answer and spin, or Mitt's hair had probably gotten the airtime. Standing on that crowded yet lonely hillside,I don't think Ive ever felt more disconnected from home...

LIke all tragic traffic jams, this one eventually cleared and just a couple of hours later, I was hiking up a hillside finding brilliantly colored chameleons, geckos, and butterflies. Well, to be honest, my guide was finding them and I was frantically snapping pictures while trying to figure out how he was spotting them all when all I could see was a tall wall of thick green foliage.

That night, I took a night walk through the rainforest guided by Prosper, a Park Ranger friend of Zeph's. Although we only found just a few chameleons and geckos and only one fat-tailed lemur, I count the two hour trek as a success mostly for its challenges. First of all, it started raining, (shocking - in the rainforest!) about five minutes after we left the Ranger Station and just didn't let up the whole time. No problem, I was using a waterproof flashlight and put on my rainslicker. Of course, the flashlight died just over halfway through our walk, (damn rechargeables, I don't think I stayed up that late reading the other night...) At one point, I felt something strange on my lower lip against my teeth, and I cautiously probed it with the tip of my tongue. "Cool and slimy - must be a piece of leaf," I thought, but when I tried to brush it away, it held on to my lip! "Oh Shit! A Leech!!" I realized as I tugged it harder and harder, "I've got a leech in my mouth!" A strong pinch where it had attached to me got it off and I flung the twisting bloodsucker into the jungle. Back at the Ranger Station, Prosper used a lit cigarette to remove the three on my legs and arm. I never mentioned to him the one I soundlessly yanked off my lip - I was just glad I didn't scream like a girl.

The next morning, light was just beginning to show in the east when I was awakened by the haunting calls of the Indri Indri, the largest of the lemurs, who are territorial and like to let the neighboring groups know it nice and early so no there's no confusion. As I breakfasted on fruit and croissants on the terrace of my lodge, I could watch the family moving through the treetops as they called out to each other. Now THIS is the Madagascar I was dreaming of! The rest of the days were a blur of parks, reserves, and a four hour hike led by Prosper's brother, named confusingly (or maybe not,) Prosper. The wildlife seemed intent on finding us and I saw five different species of lemurs, some bright new chameleons and all kinds of cool birds and insects. But we needed to go to an enclosure to find the seriously endangered Fossa. Though they don't look as evil as in the Disney flick, they were a very impressive animal - kind of a cross between a big cat and a monkey. There are pics of all of these on my Flickr page...

Back at the lodge, I played two hours of ping-pong with Zeph, then had a Christmas Eve dinner with a Belgian family I'd just met. We drank THB beer and played pool until they kicked us out and shut the bar. They were divers, too and showed me the most amazing photos from their trip to the Galapagos last year - a white whale shark!! I never heard of such a thing, and if I hadn't seen the pics, I probably wouldn't have believed it.

After breakfast on Christmas morning, Zeph drove the four hours back to Tana, where he had invited me to have dinner with his family. Along the way, he pointed out some Zebu to me. They are essentially a big ugly ox with a really tall hump and some exotic horns, and he promised me it would be part of the meal - obviously hoping for a reaction.
"Already had some," I coolly replied, describing my meal at Sakamanga.
"Not the traditional way my wife makes it," uh-oh, what was I in for? Among the Malagasay dishes using rice, chicken, fruits, manioc, yams, beef, and nuts was Bouche du Zebu, (Zebu mouth,) prepared with onions, peppers, and vinegar. Afraid to ask what specific part of the mouth was used, I tried it and found it interestingly firm and really tasty. This trip is definitely about trying new things...
Then Zeph and his two college aged kids dropped me at the crappy hotel I booked near the airport, (bedbugs!! And who charges a dollar for two pats of butter?!?) and very early the next morning I was off to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, on my way to Zanzibar!

All for now - Tatty Christmas!
Clement

Mythical Madagascar

"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive"
-Robert Louis Stevenson

The Seychelles are technically in Africa, but I didn't feel as if I'd really arrived on the fabled continent until I left the airport in Madagascar. Although many of the people still resemble their Indonesian ancestors who settled here long ago, the shacks, red dust, raw smells and teeming population of this huge island are plainly something new and different.
While I genuinely like Madagascar and hope to come back to explore it more fully, many of my experiences here are, at best, ambiguous and trending to the negative.
Back in the airport, I stood in the immigration line listening to some poor man who claimed to be from Tanzania but had "lost" his passport, as he tearfully begged the uncaring airport authorities not to be sent back to Dubai. As most of the watching crowd laughed, he knelt on the floor and sobbed on the shoes of the customs bureaucrat, and I wondered "What was he so desparate to escape?" Visions of abusive virtual slavery in the home of some Arab oil-prince flitted through my imagination. What fears motivate a grown man to sob and grovel on the floor in front of hundreds of callous strangers? He seemed completely petrified of returning to the Mid-East. Unfortunately, life is not like the movies with a resolution to everything and I'll never know the answer as I hesitated to get involved and soon my golden US passport carried me through the gates to the country beyond. Maybe I'm just a sappy liberal American, but I hope he's OK.

In the Disney flick, the lemurs and foosa all speak English, but in reality, Madagascar and its capitol Antananarivo ('Tana,) are beaucoup more French than the Seychelles were and my admittedly weak language skills got a high-impact workout. I stayed at the Sakamanga hotel, an unexpected cool and quirky midrange midtown place with funky rooms, decor and a neat vibe. It's owned by a neat older French couple and winds back through its own alleys and courtyards full of hidden treasures. I just wish their internet stayed open past 8.
http://sakamanga.com/ - stay there if you ever go.
Widely scattered over 12 steep red clay hills with reminders of its politically turbulent recent (2001) past everywhere, 'Tana is a crowded and bustling but definitely not modern city. Many of the streets are cobbled or packed dirt, most of the buildings seem to date from the colonial period, (which wasn't that long ago, come to think of it,) and very few are more than five or six stories high. The street toddlers - too young to be called kids - make the beggars of Asia seem like prosperous yuppies, and the smells and unspeakable debris from the local markets were enough to drive even me inside to the local restaurants for every meal. There I found French menus and meals at low prices but I should have wondered, "What is Zebu? I thought beef was le boeuf...?" I'll reveal the answer later...

I spent a day wandering the downtown area and local markets - doing errands, changing some money and making travel plans. Big Tana drawback - in Asia, there was a used book store on almost every corner and a book-trade shelf in every guesthouse. In Mad., I only found one bookstore, and it was Catholic where the only book in English was on local saints of the 19th century. Lonely Planet?- Forget it, I'd have to rely on the web...

Fat chance, there seem to be only two internet cafes in town and the radical one closes at 8PM, 6 on Sundays. It turns out the military semi-dictator, finally turned out of office in 2001, (but he's hoping for a comeback,) didn't believe in the web and the current president is trying to catch up.

Like I said, I really liked the eclectic Sakamanga - every room (I had three different ones in three nights,) was decorated differently and they were thoughtful enough to provide candles for the more romantic guests. Or so I thought, by the third night there, I realized the candles were in response to the daily evening 30 minute shower, which resulted in the daily evening multi-hour blackout. There's nothing like being jolted awake at 2AM when the ceiling fan and every light in your room simultaneously kick on.

I set up my Madagascar adventures with a cool local guide named Zephyrin, (Jefferson,) and we spent my last full day in Tana checking out the local history, palaces, and some markets scattered around the city. I capped it at a very nice French joint named Villa Vanille, (guess the menu focus,) with an awesome meal and carafe of Bordeaux. I caught a French family of six making fun of my language skills as I ordered from the French-only wait staff. But they can "Baisez mon cou" as my Grandpa used to say - the girls had faces only a Thoroughbred could appreciate and the boy's ears stuck out so far, they could hear things happening behind them better than in front.

Despite it all, Madagascar was really starting to grow on me and I eagerly looked forward to the next day's adventures in the jungle rainforests of the Perinet...

Au Revoir,
Clement

The Seychelles Wrap-Up

As I sit here in Africa, (Africa man, can you believe that? Africa!) sipping a Tusker, watching Celtic v. Hibernia on the bar TV (weird, I know,) and sweating my ass off, (of course it's hot - it's Africa!) I'll try to wrap up my Seychelles experience for you.

But 1st - three important bits of info:
# of dives so far on RTW trip - 99
# of books read on same trip - 67
# of cold showers on the trip - I don't wanna think about it!

It's been over a week already, and I'm still finding it hard to believe GVI actually kicked us off the base. Oh, I know we had to leave, but still - we were all having so much fun..., how could they?

Here's a quick Seychelles story. I'm still not sure about the locals. A few Seychellois are really friendly, but the majority seemed pretty distant. I just don't think they know what to make of us volunteers. Are we tourists? - No. Permanent? - No. Spending lots? - Only on internet time, Seybrews and milkshakes. We're some kind of weird in-between people... The closest contact, (literally,) is on the bus into town. The local buses are very busy and crowded - SRO on just about every trip. The bus company could double the buses to take up the load, but at 3 Rupees a ride (30 cents,) why would they? The rickety buses wind their way up and over the mountain, riders swaying back and forth on every curve, and getting packed tighter and tighter with every stop. But despite the solidly packed aisles with straphangers the entire length of the bus, I never once saw an older lady forced to stand. Even the thuggiest LA gangsta wannabe automatically stood up to give his seat to the the print dress and straw hat wearing gray-haired lady as soon as she paid her fare. I felt like I might have made a small difference when I noticed the small smiles from the locals who noticed the times I was able to stand to offer mine. It's the little things we have in common that bring people together...

The Seychelles experience?? I had a fantastic time. Not that the diving was great or the accommodations all that plush. The islands are certainly very beautiful, the green of the mountains, the turquoise seas, and the dazzling beaches are the stuff of romance movies. But the reefs are still very damaged from the '98 el Nino and will most likely never compare to those in Indonesia or Fiji. Still, there was cool stuff to see and my experiences with whale sharks, mantas, sea turtles, lionfish eating octopus, and dolphins will always bring a smile to my face. What really made this volunteer experience so terrific was the people I got to meet and work with - learning reef life and research methods from the staff and interns, making close friends with a great group of like-minded volunteers, and sharing the joys of the ocean realm withthe local children we taught every week.
My best memory? It's tough to choose between whale shark dives, raucous parties, turtle tagging, table dancing (don't ask,) bread from scratch, hours long card games (Shithead, Asshole, Hearts, Truth-Or-Dare Spoons, Shit-Fuck-Damn, where did we get these names?) watching people line up for thirds for my jambalaya, soccer err - football games, and an amazing week on Curieuse, Praslin and La Digue. In the end, it was easy - having a Momma Hawksbill lay her eggs in my hand Thanksgiving Morning. Wow - definitely life-changing.
Oh yeah, and I like lentils now too.

Jambo & Nakupenda,
Clement

The Results Are In...

If you hadn't already noticed, the polls on the "To Face Or Not To Face," poll are closed. And in a convincing display of commitment to new ideas and technology, Facebook won with over 60% of the vote. I have kept my promise and set up a page and have been having a great time with it. I just cannot wait until I get to somewhere where I'm not paying for each minute of internet time (here in Nairobi, it's $2 for 15 minutes!) "Sigh," I miss The Cove. Anyway, if you promise not to display too many compromising photos of me, come find me on it by my email address: clementberard@yahoo.com and I'll e-hug you, e-buy you a beer, or e-throw a snowball at you!
And for the two of you who didn't realize that choice C in the poll - "Naaah, you're too old..." was a joke - grrrr.

Tomorrow I'm off to Zanzibar, (confession: I could write that a thousand times and get the same silly smile on my face each time...) for a week of sun sand and diving.

I owe everyone a final Seychelles post and a nice long description of Christmas in Madagascar with Zebu meat delicacies by the fire. I'll try to find a cheaper internet cafe in Zanzibar to get it done.

Tatty Christmas (Malagasay)
et Bonne Annee!
Clement

Fun Dives!

Hello from the Seychelles!
I'm down to less than a week to go here on the GVI volunteer project and it's hard to believe that ten weeks can fly by so quickly. It's been a wonderful experience, making new friends from all over the world, diving and doing research almost every day, and learning all about a country I'd never visited before.
Some of the coolest things I've picked up are the little things - how to cook for 30 people, bake bread from scratch, how good a hot shower really feels after a month of nothing but icy wet blasts, and how to hover upside-down two inches from a coral while writing on a slate. Also I'm finding facebook really addicting...
Our research seems to be done - we've completed the surveys on all the dive sites despite the monsoons blowing out our diving for almost a week - and it's all fun dives from here on out. On Friday, my buddy Chris and I found a school of about 30 mobular manta rays and 5 spotted eagle rays and followed them for a while. It was a sprint to keep up with them even though they were lazing along, swooping up food in giant graceful loops, and I was huffing and puffing when we gave up the chase due to dive time limits and ascended to the surface.
Yesterday, was another fun dive and while we did see three sharks, a giant stingray, two bumphead parrotfish and a turtle, we spent more time as a group messing around with each other. At one point in the dive, I don't think anyone had a complete set of their own fins - every time someone stole one of mine, I'd just grab one off the foot of whoever happened to swim by. I got tankhumped and did some myself and I laughed so much into my mask, I must have snorted half the Indian Ocean!
We have one more day of diving left tomorrow, then we have to clean up the camp and pack to leave Wednesday. We've been together so long it seems kind of unreal...
I'm supposed to be doing research on Madagascar right now (I'll be there Thursday, so you'd think I might be working on it a little harder,) but here I sit, writing this entry and procrastinating. Just not in the mood, I guess...
Ho-hum, maybe I'll go buy a chocolate milkshake!
Bye for now,
Clement

Seychelles When The Wind Is Blowing...

I know I've been writing lots about how hard we are working here and all the good data we are collecting. Plus the nestings, and the taggings, and the snorkeling with whale sharks, yada yada, etc., etc., etc...

Well, I may have to correct that impression a bit.

Last Friday the day started off with a fun dive, and then we had the afternoon off. This happened because we are all doing such a good job that we were way ahead of our research schedule and had gotten lots of the research sites completely finished. So we threw an 80's party (I was sporting the preppy look - an Izod with the collar up, sweater over the shoulders, and jeans.) Then we had the weekend off for all the usual shennagins.

Monday was kind of windy but we followed the usual routine, and I did two dives in the afternoon as the weather worsened.
The first was an the 10 meter LIT Transect where I have to write down in a code what is under a tape meter every centimeter of the way. On a good day at a simple site, I can do three in about 45 minutes. This day I struggled to finish two as the surge sucked us back and forth over the reef.
My task for the second dive was to lay a 50 meter tape and track every species of hard coral, sea cucumber, octopus and lobster within 5 meters of it. As I hovered above the rocks and reef, struggling with a balky measuring reel, surging with the waves, I felt my leg crunch into something and looked down to discover a shin sprouting urchin spines like a black porcupine! Thankfully, it was a black spiny sea urchin and not the deadly (yes, deadly,) poisonous flower urchin, but still I looked like a pincushion and blood began so seep out the base of the 25 or so sticking out of me. It didn't hurt nearly as much as other divers have claimed and I calmly started to pluck the skinny black spears back out being very careful to lift them straight out and not shatter them underneath my skin. My buddy Dan finned over with a concerned look behind his mask and I gave him an "OK" sign followed by a loud grunt to show my frustration. He was nice enough to take the reel, so I had a hand to hold my leg still while I plucked and hovered and tried to avoid further surge damage. Finally got myself sorted out and finished the "tape," and we even spotted a turtle as we headed back to the boat. I used a leatherman tool set of pliers to get the last of the spines and liberally coated everything with Neosporin!

By Tuesday morning the seasonal NW Monsoon winds had been blowing constantly for a couple of days, but we went out on the first dive, as scheduled. As a nice present, the wind had swept a big school of stinging jellyfish into our bay so the two trips to haul all the gear, tanks, measuring and safety equipment the 150 meters out to the boat were really exciting! The Indian Ocean was even rougher as we sailed to the dive site, whipped by spray and drenched by the waves coming over the bow. Vis at the site looked terrible, and by this time the waves were running three to five meters high so when Luke the boat captain cancelled the dives, we all breathed a secret sigh of relief. So we bounced back to our bay and made two more trips to haul in all the gear through the jellyfish filled bay again. With the day's work cancelled, we had the day free and everyone took off to town to enjoy ourselves.

Wednesday, the winds were worse and we had some slashing rains off and on. With the dives cancelled we were all free to run into town again.

Thursday, same wind and same rain. With the dives cancelled we were all free to run into town. Again.

So now it's Friday, it's windy and rainy, and all our work is cancelled until Sunday and we are all in town on free time. AGAIN! I think we are all getting a little bored, but I'm looking forward to going to the movies tonight. "I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry" is playing at the local uniplex, and I haven't been to a real theater since July. So I get to see a flick - in a theatre!!!

Saturday wound up being another day off, can't remember what we did, maybe went to hang out on a beach or something. The wind died a little and the sun was out, so that must be it. SInce I had the time, I made Jambalaya and it was a huge hit - everyone loved it and there were several requests for the recipe. I had to use local peri-peri hot sauce instead of my usual Texas Pete, but I was really happy withthe results, too. Thanks from all the volunteers for sending the recipe! Laissez les bon temps roulez!

(I'm finishing this a week later - the weather finally improved and we got in the water again on Sunday.)

That's all for now, I had an amazing dive this morning which I will try to write about this weekend...

Love to all,
C

Once In A Lifetime Experience!

Hi there blog buddies,

I thought I'd share an amazing day in the Seychelles with you... It actually happened over a week ago, but with the trip to the satellite camp, the lack of internet, just generally being really busy and my excitement over the turtle encounters it got pushed back. (To be honest, I might have lost a day or so to a hangover after an 80’s party, too.)
And that’s a real shame because it was one of those experiences we all dream about having – and I got to live it. To me it’s second to the turtle eggs in the hand thingie, but I’m weird – I’ll let you, the reader, decide which was cooler.

After two dives at a site called Therese South (did two 50m transects for hard coral diversity and invert counts,) we were riding the GVI Diveboat, Manta, back to the base but suddenly noticed what looked like strange wind patterns on the water. It was actually several schools of thousands of fusiliers darting around just under the surface, and where there are schools of fish feeding on plankton, there are often whale sharks. After a quick look around, sure enough - we found one. So we threw on the closest snorkel gear handy (I wound up with someone else’s mask, but thankfully, my own wonderful fins,) hopped in and swam with it. They move slowly and gracefully, but when you are close to 10m long, slow speed is still way faster than the puny humans struggling to keep up. I was thankful for my good fins as we followed along, guessing which way they would travel when they dove and cutting the corner on any turns to keep pace. I found that the whale shark often came up just in front of the pack of feeding fusiliers, and tried to get ahead. It worked way too well several times and I had to dodge out of the way of the large mouth scooping up food. I couldn’t believe how long the encounter was lasting, and I kept checking my watch in disbelief as the time passed 5 minutes, then 10, 20, 30…

Just when I was getting really tired (YOU try sprint snorkelling with one of these beautiful creatures for that long!) another showed up, and then minutes later, another!! Three whale sharks and they wouldn't go away! I would hop from one to the other when they passed close to each other, looking for distinguishing marks, trying to catch a peek underneath for the sex, and just enjoying the awesome display. I almost got run over so many times, I couldn't count them. One of them almost bumped the boat which was just floating and waiting for us to come back onboard – fat chance! They are such huge gentle creatures, just cruising around scooping up massive amounts of plankton, barely caring that we were just a meter or two away. It must be the way it feels to be one of those little white birds perched on the back of a water buffalo. After an hour and a half (!!) swimming around and after them, WE got tired and dragged ourselves back onto the boat to head in for lunch. Can you imagine letting them swim away because you've had enough? What an experience! We laughed exhaustedly in wonder all the way back to base. There are pictures, I just haven't gotten them onto my hard drive yet - maybe I'll get them up here soon, if the internet gods allow it. Someone also got some video of me trying not to get run over by one of the whale sharks - I'll have to bring it home to show you...

I think that brings me up to date for the blogging – in other news, I only have about two and a half weeks left here, and that is making me really sad. Plus the planning for Madagascar is going really slowly (Hello in Madagascar – answer your f***ing email!!) And Canon has still not fixed my camera yet so I’m worried where it will catch up to me or if I will be without my supercam for the rest of my travels, grrrrr. Sorry, just letting off some frustration.

Ciao until next time!

Stay Wet and Warm,

Clement

Turtle Pics

Hey, I had a fast connection today, and managed to upload a pic of me and a hand covered in turtle love juice. Icky and super-cool at the exact same time! Happy Thanksgiving!


I'll try to add a couple more and then do a blog about a whale shark encounter








Here is a flattering shot of me counting the eggs - note the look of concentration as I try to keep track of all the slippery ping-pong balls dropping through my fingers. We always try to guess how many she will lay - Price's Right style - so there were beers riding on the count! I think this one laid 165.





Here is another closeup pic of a nest, right before the Mom started to cover her clutch with sand and beach debris. She really tried to do a good job and there was sand and palm fronds flying everywhere for a long time! This nest contained 123 eggs and was the last one we found before returning to the main camp on Mahe. The Mom actually flicked several coconuts on top of the hidden nest to really make it hard to find. She got done as the sun was setting and it was hilarious watching her take the most difficult route back to the water - over logs and bouncing around some large boulders, instead of the straight-line, direct all sand route to the ocean's edge. Maybe they try to leave confusing tracks?

Seychelles Thanksgiving

Happy late Thanksgiving everybody!

Last week I got to work at the GVI Satellite Camp on Curieuse Island. Just off the much larger island of Praslin, (home of many resorts and picturesque beaches,) Curieuse is only occupied by a ranger station with a tortoise sanctuary, and one local family, and the Sat Camp. The island was a leper colony, and the ruins of their settlement are scattered around the island - it sounded like the setting for a gruesome horror movie, but was actually very quiet and wonderful. GVI has renovated one of the abandoned buildings with two bunkrooms, a kitchen (sort of,) and a great front porch where we ate and hung around in between projects. It's even more basic than the main camp - balky generator for about 4 hours a day if it's running, water that needs to be boiled, and the obligatory cold shower.

It sounds tough but I had a blast all week long. There were five of us, (Erika, Mike, Sarah, Vicki and me,) led by Luke the Aussie Staff Member and we took a ferry from Mahe to Praslin where Charlie who runs the camp picked us up in Dexter Crabtree, GVI's RIB. It's a short sail across the channel to Curieuse, and we were settled into the house in no time. I lucked out and got the bottom bunk, no midnight dark climbing for me!

Our week consisted of daytime beachwalks, snorkels, and a couple of afternoons of coral research diving. We walked all over the island, along most of its beaches (climbing some great hills and through mangroves to get there,) looking for the telltale sign of turtle tracks coming up out of the sea. A track up and back meant she had tried to nest and we would look to find it and mark it for future action. Best of all were tracks with no return set - that meant she was still working on her nest! Being very quiet and careful not to spook her, we would watch her digging, then when she went onto her egg laying trance, we'd sneak up behind and try to count the eggs. After digging a little opening behind her tail, we'd carefully insert a hand underneath and into the chamber she had dug, trying to feel the eggs dropping across our fingers and counting each one. Of course, like all the best body processes, there was lots of what we called "turtle love juice" along with the ping-pong ball size eggs, but I tried not to think about it. It sounds gross, but is one of the most amazing things I've ever experienced! I cannot begin to describe how enthralled I was, lying there Thanksgiving morning with my hand under a hawksbill's cloaca, counting the sloppy eggs as they trickled between my fingers! Wow! Wow! And again Wow! That's how I spent Thanksgiving.

The other really cool project we did was turtle captures. We went snorkeling off of Dexter, and when we found a turtle, we just grabbed it by the shell - behind her head and at the base by the tail - careful to avoid their bites and holding on with all their flippers thrashing, and steered them back to the boat. Once hoisted aboard, we measured them 20 differdent ways, weighed them, and tagged them or recorded their tag numbers if they already had one. We caught six, (one short of the GVI record,) and I personally got two! I also caught one of the heaviest at 27Kg, he was a big struggler and I was wiped out by the time I got him back to the boat.

On Turkey Day, Erika (the other American, from SC,) and I were in charge of the meal, but it was a group effort and I was personally thankful it came off really well. We had Barbecued chickens (no turkey here,) mashed potatoes, papaya salad, glazed carrots, flatbread, rolls, apple turnovers, roasted pumpkin, pumpkin crumble, and a bunch more dishes I cannot remember right now. All cooked on a two burner propane cooktop and an open fire. Try that at home.

Before eating we went around the table in the typical tradition, and everyone shared what they were thankful for. I was thankful for my family and its newest members, the chance to travel and the experiences I've had, and finally all the wonderful new friends I've met.

My Curieuse week was one of the best of my life: we saw nesting turtles every single day, I got to feel them lay eggs in my hand, I got seven dives, we caught six turtles, and I hiked and walked all over an almost deserted island. Now I'm thankful for Paradise.

That weekend, I joined Vicki and Erika and we rented a house on the nearby island of La Digue where we enjoyed a beautiful weekend away - acting like tourists.

Happy Thanksgiving!
-Clement

How To Recommend A Good Book

I’ve written before (back in September, maybe?) about Derek and Melinda from Colorado, the couple I met on the ferry from Lombok to Bali. We spent a long afternoon together on the three hour crossing – which took seven hours. I’ve been noticing that when you start a conversation with any fellow foreign traveller, a few topics always come up. Of course there are the “Where are you from? And where are you going?” questions and if you’ve been away from home for more than a month, “What food do you miss?” The talk I always love to have is “What good books have you read?” and it was no surprise when Derek and I started comparing books we’d been through on our travels. I’m not sure if long term travellers tend to be readers at home, or if they are just taking advantage of their free time on the road to indulge in books. My thought is that people who take the time to poke around distant corners of the world have an open and curious mind, something book lovers also have, so it’s no coincidence when you find both traits in one person. Fortunately, if someone is going to stuff a book or two, (with their relatively high weight to size ratio,) into a bag to drag around the world, they choose good ones more often than not. So there are some real gems lurking on the shelves of used bookstores and the exchange piles in hostels and guesthouses. Oh, there’s plenty of crappy straight-to-paperback books floating around, but I’ve been very pleasantly surprised at the variety and quality of lit I’ve been finding.

Since I’m such a bookworm, (semi-closeted,) and often find myself talking lit with all kinds of people, I know that sooner or later, we are going to trade reading recommendations. But there are so many books and so little time, how can you decide which ones are worth pursuing? To answer this dilemma, I’ve started to rate fellow readers to decide how seriously I will take their advice and try to find their “great read.” I admit it’s a very subjective process with all kinds of difficult to define values and seemingly unrelated whims involved. How do you know someone is a real reader or just a literary tourist? Education, background and the way they speak about books I already know might clue me in. I look for clues in the other choices they make in music, art, movies and food. Sorry, but I’m not going to try very hard to find a book recommended by a Britney Spears fan who would never try anything as “gross” as sushi. Not that I don’t want to, it’s just that there are so many others I’m burning to get to. Mostly, I try to divine by the passion in your voice and the glint in your eye while you describe how the author spoke right to you, whether I might be moved also by the read you’re recommending. Ultimately, I judge the endorsement by the reader, and I have to categorize somehow. Lowest is the “take no action unless I find it for pennies at a yard sale,” group. Some I might seek out at the library or try to borrow if I spy it on a shelf somewhere. (And yes, when I visit your house and seem to be idly browsing your bookshelf, I AM judging – sorry. Don’t you know you are what you read? Why else would you keep that complete Shakespeare from college? I did.) There are just a few people in my highest rated category – some who might love reading books as much as I do and probably have better taste and a more discerning eye, too. If they plug a book, I’m at Borders that day or Amazon.com that night ordering it.

Derek was in that category just two hours after I noticed the Colorado patch on his backpack and started up a conversation. He couldn’t say enough about a book titled ”Ishmael,” and its author Daniel Quinn and if I had been staying anyplace long enough, (or if Amazon could have shipped it for less that $60,) I would have gotten it immediately. It just sounded like a book that would touch me and look at the world in a whole different way. Derek made the book sound,… important. But I resigned myself to waiting and ordering it next year when I get back home, (well I’m technically homeless, so just someplace where I can get a reasonably priced delivery.) Sure, I wrote the info down in my little notebook and kept an eye peeled for it on every bookshelf I scanned, but I was not hopeful. I mean, come on? What are the odds?

Well, I should have put a lot of money on it. Skip forward a couple of months and I’m here in the Seychelles on a volunteer project, sitting around talking meaningful books with someone I’m starting to realize has pretty good taste in lit – Vicki, an Australian surfer and world trekker type who currently lives in Barcelona. Reaching deeply into the cargo pocket of my shorts, I drag out my battered little reminders notebook, now splayed by moisture damage and also singed by the subsequent attempt to dry it on a lamp (long story.) I flip back through the stained pages to the note I added on that ferry from Lombok, “Have you ever heard of some author named Quinn?” I venture.

“Do you mean “Ishmael?’” is her surprised reply in an accent I wish I could somehow write, “I love that book. In fact I carry my copy when I travel! It’s right upstairs!”

“You’re shitting me, I’ve been dying to read it!” but it's true and 30 seconds later, her copy is in my hands. Two days later, I’d finished it for the second time and had to just stop and think about it for a while. I didn’t even feel like starting another book for several days. It was amazing. How I’ve never heard of this book, published back in 1993, until this summer astounds me.

It begins with a classified ad:

“Teacher seeks pupil.
Must have an earnest desire to
save the world. Apply in person.”

The first person narrator, a little jaded and upset at the thought of finding exactly what he’s always been searching for in such an unheralded place, answers it. He’s expecting a scam or a practical joke, or at least to find the address overrun by “… two hundred mooncalfs, softheads, boobies, ninnyhammers, noodleheads, gawkies and assorted oafs and thickwits…” but instead finds exactly what he is looking for from the teacher, an enormous full-grown gorilla named Ishmael. The rest I leave to you to discover.

I’ve read many great books, and they don’t have to be world-shaking to be great, some are just amazing stories with vivid characters, extraordinarily well-told. But there are some that touch me and mean more. These are the special books, ones I give copies of away to people I love and then buy myself another copy. What these authors shared with me is sometimes plain to see. “On The Road” revealed the nature of true friendship to me. “Catch-22” made it plain the world is senseless and not to be taken too seriously, that’s there’s always a catch (quite a catch,) and we can’t let ourselves be driven crazy by it. “Eat, Pray, Love” gave me a way to step outside my emotions yet still feel them, and comforted me that someone else shared my doubts and felt as lost and small as I did. “Zen, And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance” contains not just instructions on bike repair and a story of a man travelling with his son, but a blueprint to handle life on all different levels.

If “Zen” is about how to live in this world, “Ishmael” shows us a new way to look at it, and a way to change it, or at least live here in a different and better way. It’s a whole new kind of book for me, one that pushes me to take a step, make a difference, and try to change things. I really hope you get touched by Ishmael the way I did, and if not, at least like the story and tell someone about it. Who knows? It might put me in your top book-recommender category.

Thank you, Derek. And thank you, Vicki.

Live as if you belong to the world.

Yours,

Clement

The Nature Of Change

I've been doing some thinking and lots of writing lately, I was sitting at a borrowed laptop when my mind wandered a ways and this spilled out. Maybe it's TMI or overly introspective and naive. But here it is...

Things had been changing in my life that I could not control. Changes are constant in everyone’s life and I can accept that they happen – sometimes for the good and about as equally for the not so good. What the changes happening to me were don’t matter here, but they all seemed to be, well, let’s just say not good at all. And to make things worse, they were the kinds of changes and setbacks I couldn’t do a thing about. I felt as powerless as a broken down boat tossed on a stormy sea – blown this way and that by winds of change and threatened by the growing waves pushing me onto some implacable rocks. There seemed to be no solutions and I was getting more and more out of control until it struck me – what is the sailor’s last resort when his boat is foundering and the situation seems hopeless? “Abandon Ship!” It seems crazy to jump into stormy waters, leaving the ship behind. But the ship was sinking, and swimming on my own, while seeming more dangerous, offered a better chance at making it to safety. “Yes, abandon ship,” I thought, “Embrace the change. Go on and make even more changes. Change everything, shake it all up and see what sorts out.” I was at a point in life where I could use some changes, but I needed some I could control. You know, go to some new places, meet new people and do some different things, at least for a while, and see what happens.

I spent some time thinking about the nature of change - how it happens, the ways it affects people differently, and how to stay on top of it when, despite all my efforts otherwise, it pops up and surprises you. I discovered nothing earth-shattering, but in a broad way, I decided this: Change happens every day - most of it out of my hands and the only way to deal with that is to give up human illusions of control, and be calm, flexible, and accepting.

Instead of fighting the changes, I accepted them. I sold my house without finding a new place to live. With no place to put it, it was a little easier to sell, give away, and trash all the furniture, clothes, and things I’d accumulated. I quit my job of five years without having a new one waiting. And hardest of all, for the second time I had to let go of someone very special to me who decided her future lay elsewhere.

There is a certain calm to be found when what’s done is done and all there is left to do is wait for the result. Like when you just handed in that huge project and you’re waiting to see what the professor or boss thinks. When you are standing there with a bat in your hand and the owner of the shattered window is looking out at you with your ball in their hand. Imagine that feeling multiplied by your house, job and all previous plans for your future. There is a calm that arrives when there is absolutely nothing you can do to change the course of events, and I felt at peace about it. Some might call it equanimity. I call it terrorized calm.

Part of me still strives to change things around me, though, and I decided to accept that too and see how to make something positive out of it. “What next?” became “Now that I’m free, what have I always wanted to make happen?”

Since I can remember, I’ve always been drawn to water and wet activities. Pools, swim teams, sailing, snorkelling, canoeing, rafting, life-guarding, scuba diving, beaches and tropical destinations beat like a pulse through the story of my life. I had lessons so young that I cannot remember a time when I couldn’t swim. It should come as no shock to anyone knowing me that, about six years ago, I found my happiness as a Dive Instructor. While I quit my job I was only quitting where it was happening, I don’t think I’ll ever quit diving and teaching in some form or another. One of my realizations was that I really like certain kinds of change - changing things for other people by helping them achieve their personal goals underwater. Positive change that they as students controlled and I controlled teaching it to them. “Hmmmm,” I thought, “What else can I do that involves water and change in a positive, do something for others kind of way?”

The second passion in my life is travel. Industrialized world, Third World, kitschy tourist or deep soul-moving, natural beauty, if it’s something I haven’t laid eyes on before, it’s probably on the ever-changing mental list I keep of places to go see. Diving has taken me to some of the most amazing places on the planet – places I thought I’d never get to see with magical names like Buenos Aires, Bora-Bora, Antarctica and Galapagos. And I still hadn’t been diving much in the Indo-Pacific yet – Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Seychelles, Maldives – all more mystical names to see and experience. I decided to take some of that house money and make the most of being homeless and jobless and become a citizen of the world for a while, diving almost everywhere along the way.

(The trouble is that as each one gets checked off that mental list, at least two more are discovered to replace them with. You’ve probably heard of Palau and Micronesia, but there’s more. Heard of Lembeh? Pulau Tiomann? Ningaloo? Saba? Yap? Ryuku? Sipadan? How about the Similans, Chuuk, East Timor, Bequa or most recently, Aldabra? Me neither, until I met someone who has heard something good about each of them. And that’s just part of the “to dive” list. You can add all the rest of Europe, S. America, India, the Middle East, the parts of SE Asia I didn’t get to. Hell, just prescribe me an atlas, I’ve got the travel bug!)

Just days later I met a girl buying fins for a dive trip that she seemed really excited about. Not just any dive trip - she was joining a volunteer Marine Conservation Project in the Seychelles for a couple of months, and was really looking forward to making a difference. Something clicked in me at that moment and I went home that night, did some research, and thought about what had struck me. I caught her excitement and by the next day, I had called or emailed several people, sharing what I had found (and a bit puzzled that they didn’t all get as amped up as I did.) Within a week, I had put in my two week notice, come up with a travel plan, contacted Global Vision International and mailed them a deposit. I even found a home for my dog while I was away. Now I was the one changing things.

GVI offered 31 flavors of change. It’s a chance to visit somewhere totally exotic for an extended period of time so you get to know it differently and better than as a visitor. Work with other volunteers who share my concerns for the planet and oceans. Contribute scientifically to something greater than myself. Live simply (and maybe rough it a little,) making a change from my Western luxury-driven existence. Do something positive for the environment. Meet locals and work with them to further the protection of coral reefs. Give up work, home, and for a time, family and friends while discovering something about me. Change my climate, continent, hemisphere, altitude, diet, and time zone, too.

Now that I’m here in the Seychelles, five weeks into my ten week expedition, sitting here sweating at this keyboard and going way off the topic I thought I’d be writing about, I realize it’s been everything I’d hoped for plus some unexpected things too. (I can name 14 families of hard corals and 47 genera, too. In latin! Can you?) But the most important one I’d never thought of and really surprised me. One of the first nights here, we had a camp-wide meeting and went around the room, telling the brief story of our lives, how we had come to be in that room at that moment, what we hoped to get out of our experience and what we were planning to do next. What struck me the hardest was how many of these people I’d just met were struggling with the same things I was! Unsure what to do with the life they found themselves living. Vaguely thinking that despite achieving many goals, something wasn’t quite right, but struggling to find a new direction. Drawn here to do something and make a difference, even in a small way. Looking for a change. Wanting to change things themselves. Making a change instead of letting life’s changes just happen to them. Like me, they had embraced outside change in order to effect a change within. Suddenly, I realized I’m never really alone and I felt very warm and comforted.

I don’t know where this all will lead. I don’t expect to achieve some mystical “Siddartha”-like state as a result of my travels and experiences. But by discovering the huge variety of life in all the places I’ve been and people I’ve met, now I own a bigger set of tools to deal with any changes that come along. My next step in life? Unknown. Job. School. Travel. Start a business. All good possibilities. Run away again to find some combination of the these? Who knows? But wherever I go and whatever I end up doing, I’ll embrace the changes that come along.

Seychelles Thoughts, Events & Musings

I haven't done one of these in a while and my little notebook is filling up with little ideas, so I'll share some little bits with you.

Day to day, even though we keep really busy here on the expedition, I still have some random thoughts and funny things that happen to me. I try to write them down when I can, but I’m sure the best of them just slip away before I get around to it. So these will have to do.

Sharing An Earbud
What is it that is so cool about sharing an earbud with somebody? It just gives me a tremendously warm feeling, and I’m not sure why. I have a splitter, but I left it at home so when I say share, I mean two people with one ear on the music apiece. I've done it a bunch of times, on local buses, on a plane, taking a nap, while reading a book and at the beach. Is it the secret sharedness of being the only two who can hear what’s playing? Could it be the conspiratorial way you have to lean in a bit to keep it from popping out of your ear? Maybe it’s sharing with someone a song or singer you think is cool, or a chance to discover some new music you’ve never heard of. Coming from a culture that looks at a car as a reflection of the personality of its owner, I always feel like what’s on my iPod offers an even deeper look into who I really am. So it’s a little scary to open up and share it, especially on shuffle, when any of those guilty pleasure songs you are embarrassed to love might pop up on shuffle. Ricky Martin, anyone?

Goldfish care package
One of the volunteers here, a girl from California named Hilary, gets care packages from her Mom. The other week, it contained a package of Cheddar Goldfish. Not the big milk carton shaped size unfortunately, just the normal bag, and they were gone in minutes. I got my share;) but had to fight the English volunteers for it after they got to try them for the first time - they don’t have them in the UK! Sometimes it is the little things that make you re-realize we are actually from different countries. Just another taste of home I’d been missing without realizing it.

Hurtin’ Flip-Flops
I was walking around Victoria, the Capitol City of the Seychelles a weekend or two back and was feeling some serious pain between my big and first toes. Both feet. Now what could be causing that? I took them off and looked. No rocks, twigs, glass or thorns. Nothing caught in there at all. Just two angry looking red spots deep down in between the toes. What the…? Then it hit me. I haven’t worn shoes in about two and a half weeks, duh. Then I thought, "Wow, that's pretty cool..."

Bats
There are some serious fruit bats living in the Seychelles. But they are different than the bats I’m used to and not scary at all. First of all, they come out in the daytime so you can see them a whole lot better. They don’t flit and dart around in that sneaky scary way, but just cruise along, coasting on updrafts and just flapping every so often, kind of like seagulls in a good breeze. They have big light brown bodies and black wings and in the daylight, actually look kind of like little foxes – they’re pretty cute. At least until you walk under a tree and there’s one hanging upside down there, just staring at you from a foot or two over your head. Then I jump.

Nightlife
The group here is definitely not afraid to whoop it up. When we get time off, any excuse will do to have a party or run off to town to the local bars. I've raised a glass cheering on the Rugby World Cup semi's and final game (S. Africa won over England - no surprise I was rooting for the underdogs,) dressed up as a Caesar Salad for a Halloween party, and shutdown the local nightclub at 5AM. Funniest of all, I've been playing all kinds of drinking games when we hang around the base on nights that a taxi into town just seems like too much trouble and expense. Who remembers Thumper, Asshole & President, (even the Brits call it that - shouldn't it be Asshole & Prime Minister?) and Truth or Dare? I've dug into my memory and introduced some wildly popular games to the group - remember these classics: Flipcup, Spoons, and Mexican? Viking didn't catch on though. We;ve played a couple hands of 99, too, we'll see how it goes..

Blackout peeing
We’ve had some blackouts here, maybe once or twice a week for a couple of hours. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the weather, it actually seems much more likely to happen on clear sunny days than other times. When it happens at night it’s really fun, we break out the candles and flashlights (torches for the UKers,) and act like nothing is different. Until bedtime, when the lack of ceiling fans while you’re lying under mosquito netting is a sweltering unpleasant combo. In the middle of the night, I had to take a leak, so still half-asleep, I quietly felt my way to the boy’s bathroom, carefully checked that the seat was open and then peed guided only by sound. Straight into the water would make some loud and echoing sounds, so I politely tried to find the quieter range above the waterline, but not peeing on the bowl where it would splash all over my shins and the floor. Guided only by my ears, I found that almost silent sweet spot and did my business, correcting my point of aim slightly to stay there as I finished. Then I washed up and tip-toed back into my dorm, very proud of being such a good quiet roommate,… until I tripped over someone’s suitcase in the dark.

Coconut kicking
I was walking home from the bus stop in Port Launay this week after a trip to town to check some emails. It’s about a half hour stroll and very pretty, nice high ridges and sheer drops with wonderful views of the jungle, mountains, beaches and islands as it winds up and down some pretty good hills back to camp. Well, it would have had good views if I’d gotten on an earlier bus, one that arrived before sunset. Picking my way along on a moonless night trying to avoid those sheer drops was a bit trickier. The starlight was strong enough in many spots to make out the edges of the road, but when it cut under the thick green foliage, I was practically feeling my way along in the pitch dark. I had the bright idea to take off my flip flops (they were hurting anyway,) and get a better feel for the road barefoot. The pavement was rough in the middle, with a smoother groove on either side where most people drove down the center of the narrow lane, then at the edge was some grittier, pebbles and sand before the rocks went up on the high side, or dropped down on the low side. I figured if I stayed in the rougher center strip, easily detected by the soles of my feet, I’d be safe. And if I stepped into a smooth part, whichever foot felt it first would tell me which way to veer to get back in the middle. Makes sense, right? It worked well, with only a couple of moments of confusion and fear of the drop, and I was very glad that I’ve been barefoot so much otherwise the bottoms of my poor feet would have really been sore. When the road flattened out and the canopy spread back as I came through the gates to the base, I was feeling really good and my stride picked up a little as my confidence got a boost. After conquering such a long walk in the pitch dark without a problem, I was kind of proud too. Until I kicked that coconut lying in the middle of the road.

Thanks for reading, I miss you all and can't wait to hear from you!

Love & Stay Wet,

Clement

What are the odds?

What are the chances of this happening to you?

I got an email this week from a Julian Hewitt, and opened it expecting to hear from another volunteer here at GVI named Julian, ( whose last name is Crawley, but my brain missed the difference.) When I read it, and cleared up my own confusion with the names, it was from someone wondering about this post I made back in August:
http://clementsworldtour07anewbeginning.blogspot.com/2007/08/thailand-observations-and-musings.html

His wife had googled his name and discovered my post about the Julian Hewitt who left his boarding pass in a book I found in a book-trade pile in Koh Tao. It turns out that he has the exact same name as the guy who left his ticket stub in that book I picked up AND had been to Thailand AND had been on a flight with that same flight number! But he flew in 2007 not 2002 so it must be ANOTHER Julian Hewitt. Weird. I wrote him back to see what book he might have been reading and to find out more. What do you think - does he have a doppelganger roaming around somewhere? I think it's creepy-neat to imagine there is someone else on the planet, sharing your name and maybe some similar experiences. What if you came into contact with them? I can envision the Twilight Zone episode where that person tires of their own life and tries to take over yours...

Hmmmmmmm...
Clement

Change Of Plans - Spain!

Whoops, I forgot to mention this - I've added Spain at the end of my trip! I have friends living there now and since it's the southern part of Europe I'm hoping it's a bit warmer than the rest, (yeah, right.) I've been enjoying warm weather since spring hit DC last March and am NOT looking forward to the cold stuff - it's about 87 in the Seychelles today, and sunny of course. So now I've got ten days to visit Madrid, Barcelona, and anything else that strikes me. Maybe Seville? Valencia? I'm open to suggestions! My original plans are in a July post if you want to look back and laugh. Like I did.

If I've learned one thing this journey, it's that the best laid travel plans disintegrate on the ground so I'm putting myself in the hands of those showing me around. Just like I love being the best tour guide in DC, locals always know the best things to visit and the better ways to do it. I'm most excited about Barcelona - I'm not sure if it's the way those that have been there get wistful about it, what I've read, or just my imagination, but I'm a little afraid it's a city I will fall in love with and never want to leave. But that's even more of a reason to visit in my book!

So now I get home in February and then I'll figure out the rest of my life... Yaaay, I've put reality off one more month!
Wish me luck!

Buenos Tardes,
Clemente

Oh well.

Couple of "Oh Well" things...

Internet here in the Seychelles is really slow at best. I sometimes get lucky with my flickr uploads but blogger pic uploading just plain sucks. So don't expect pics on this page, just navigate to my flickr page
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clementpics/sets/
and check the sets.

Also, my new wonderful camera is in Singapore getting repaired. It turns out that Canons are really great cameras as long as you don't drop them on a cement floor. Who knew? Anyway, I'm using the old camera again, (and bitching about it, I assure you,) so there aren't as many pics to put up anyway.

Had a great weekend, played all day yesterday and went for a three hour plus snorkel today and saw 3 turtles, big schools of fusiliers, two moray eels, a bumphead parrotfish, some cuttlefish and lots of barracuda. Managed to get a pretty good sunburn on my elbows, too... Must have missed a spot with the SPF 50!

More on the cooking front, my team has kitchen duty tomorrow and I'm going to make bread. From scratch. Wish me luck, my first attempt last week tasted great but was really doughy. I'll try cooler water and see if the yeast works a little better... I also made stir-fried veggies for 30 at lunch and it turned out great. I'm even eating eggplant (gasp!)

Oh yeah, even though my opinion might not be popular: vegemite and marmite are nasty. Anf porridge is really oatmeal, so there...

And last of all, I just finished "Ishmael" by an author named Quinn. Another shake up your brain, soul, and life book. It's about human and world history and our place in it... Lots to think about in this one and I strongly recommend it. I'm actually going through it a second time just to make sure it sets in. It's the kind of book that makes you not want to pick up another book anytime soon because it will seem so bland and meaningless. Like having a major gourmet Italian meal and then looking at a saltine for dessert. Get it and read it.

Love y'all,
Clement

Recipe Request And Update

Hello friends,
I am having a great time on the volunteer expedition - saw another whale shark this week and turtles several times despite spending most of my underwater time with my nose in the coral. We are finished with the training phase and are now contributing actual research and survey data to GVI's research partners. It really feels good to be work diving and contributing something. Outside of the volunteer duties, I also was invited to help teach some local kids to dive this morning. So I lost some hours off my free time but who cares? The kids are so excited and into it that I didn't mind at all and cannot wait for next weekend. It was a challenge listening to the kids and understanding them through their Creole accent...

I have a special request from you - we are divided into four teams and rotate a day of kitchen duty every few days. I am far away from my "Heaven On Seven" Cajun cookbook and want to make jambalaya for 30 in the next couple of weeks. Does anyone have a good recipe (simple, please - not a lot of great market options here,) that I can scale up for the other volunteers and staff? Just send it to my email with Jambalaya in the subject heading - thanks!!!

In other news, we had a big Halloween Party last night and we partied late and long and loud... I went in a toga with lettuce leaves pinned onto it all over me - get it? Anyway, there is now a big new bunch of Mexican and Flip-Cup fans in the Indian Ocean!

All for now,
Please write and send me recipes, too!
Stay Wet,
Clement

Overdue Seychelles Arrival Update

It was an interesting long journey from Bangkok to the Seychelles, it seems the best way to get here is through the Middle East! After a leisurely morning getting some last minute things done in Bangkok (one last massage, banana pancake & shake, sheets, and a haircut – 1^st one since July and I was really overdue!) I headed to Bangkok International airport (again,) and soon enough it was wheels-up for Doha, Qatar. The plane was almost empty (lots of room, yaay,) and landed after dark but the temperature was still over one hundred degrees and I was thankful for the air-conditioned bus waiting at the bottom of the stairs from the plane. I had a 7 hour layover and since the gate area didn’t open until shortly before boarding, I roamed the airport to pass the time. People-watching was a blast and I entertained myself trying to figure out other flyers’ back-stories. Wherever you go and whatever airport you happen to be in, business people all have the same look – weary and unhappy but smugly superior to all the tourists they act forced to endure. When people began to cluster in the area of my flight’s gate, I also tried to figure out which of us were bound for the GVI Project like me. The target would be solo, youngish, college graddy looking, with an excited, ready to try anything air, and practical clothes. Backpacks would be a mandatory accessory. Soon enough, a young, blonde, fresh-faced California-Girl type sat down next to me and pulled out a Sudoku book. Check on many major probable categories and it wasn’t long before we struck up a conversation, and sure enough, Sam from Malibu (but with an Aberdeen, Scotland accent,) was a volunteer too. The flight was packed, but we blatantly seat-hopped to sit together and talked for what seemed like the whole flight.

The plane landed on Mahe Island, Seychelles at 6-somehting AM and I caught my transfer to the Coral Strand Hotel where I spent a couple of days diving and hanging out on the beach before getting picked up by GVI. One by one, we gathered others from our group and by the night before the big day, there were 18 of us going out to dinner together and excitedly trading names, stories, and wondering what was in store for us the next day. Amazingly, I shared a hotel room with another American named Howard – a brand new Wake Forest Grad and DC native – small world again! One of the volunteers, Julian, was returning for the final 5 weeks of his 15 week project and the poor guy was nice enough to try to answer all questions thrown at him.

Early the next morning, taxis brought us to the Base for the project where we claimed beds in one of the three dorms, and got busy hanging mozzy nets and finding our way around. The site lies between some large rocky hills on the shore of Bay Ternay and used to be a camp for Seychellois teens, but now houses a couple of research projects and a military guard-dog training camp. Only a little bit is used for these purposes and there are abandoned, spooky looking buildings busily falling down all over the picturesque valley. It’s a 5 minute walk to the closest beach, and there is an amazing bay 10 minutes up the road, too. Palm trees and flowers grow everywhere – it’s a camera dreamscape any way you look.

Next we met the staff, got the tour and some guidance and it has seemed like a blur ever since. Daily teams cook all the meals, clean the whole camp, fill tanks, and work the boats in between classes and diving; plus there are weekly duties like checking safety equipment, shopping, and compressor, boat, and vehicle maintenance. As of this moment, not quite two weeks in, I’ve had 5 coral classes, a turtle class, 2 health and safety classes, a reef threats class, a reef protection class, a class on neighboring islands, an oceanography class, reef survey methodology classes, plus a morning and nightly briefing every day. Oh yeah, and a fire drill. Today I became a certified Coral Reef Research Diver – woohoo, another card. For those not already certified, there was a PADI Advanced Open Water Class and an Emergency First Responder Course that I didn’t need to take, so I’ve been one of the lucky ones with some free time. There are about 25 volunteers and we are split in half into Coral (me,) and Fish specialists and the amount of knowledge we needed to absorb in a hurry to be useful to the research was tremendous! Within a week, I’ve learned to spot 14 different families of hard corals and ID 47 different genera within them – in their Latin names! I can tell my Acanthastrea Mussidae from my Psammacora Siderastreidae, can you? To be allowed to do the research, we had to pass a test by a score of 95% or better. Most everybody fails it a couple of times – last phase only had one pass the first try – but four of us got it first time out and now we are doing our spot-check dives where the staff points out corals underwater and we hover as close as we can and figure out what it is. I got 25 in a row right yesterday until a tricky species of Montipora Acroporidae tripped me up. Next up are some soft corals, zooanthids, corallimorphs and anemones along with invertebrates like sea cucumbers, octopi and lobsters.

In case you were thinking this is some kind of vacation and I’m living it up out here, let me take you through my day today. I got up at 6AM, assembled my dive gear before breakfast, then went to the AM briefing. After the Methodology class, I was out on the dive boat for a 45 minute dive practicing laying two different kinds of transects, following patterns, and recording data. After hauling our gear back and cleaning everything, I helped people study for their 2^nd Coral Exam, did some laundry and then it was time for lunch. Right after, I had the wonderful job of Boat Bitch for the third dive. A quick lesson on the chain of command aboard ocean-going vessels: the captain is God and there are mates beneath him, then petty officers and crewmen with a skill, then next are the ordinary seamen and finally the cabin boys. Beneath them is the Boat Bitch. Well, on our little diveboat, there is only the skipper and the BB… I’m making it sound bad, but it’s actually usually lots of fun getting all the gear in place for the divers, taking down dive data, hauling anchors and safety gear and doing whatever the skipper needs. Today was the exception. As soon as the divers hit the water and I got my sunscreen applied perfectly, it began pouring down rain and the wind blew it all sideways under the boat’s awning. We still needed to do some repairs to the engine hydraulics and pump out the bilge (manually, of course.) By the time divers began to come up an hour later, we were soaked to the bone and freezing, but laughing about it through blue chattering lips. I manage to “fall” into the warm ocean several times and the long swim to the beach (so the boat isn’t high and dry at tomorrow’s low tide,) after we offloaded everything was kind of pleasant due to the 82F water temp. While the other volunteers were taking their 2^nd tests, I put gear away, drank three cups of hot tea and played a couple of hands of Hearts until dinner. It was lentil curry and rice (meat is only once or twice a week,) then we had some paperwork and PM briefing for tomorrow’s events. At 8, I borrowed the computer of my dorm mate Holly, and wrote this piece so I can upload it this weekend at the internet café in town, and soon, it will be bedtime when lights go out at 9. Tomorrow, I’m on tank fill duty in between two turtle snorkels and spot dives and a coral class.

If you are starting to suspect I love this you are very right! I’m having a blast! It is such a great experience and I’m lucky to be here doing this – it’s good for the earth and good for me, too. I’ve met all kinds of cool people on the project, from DC to South Africa and all kinds of places in between The group seems to be gelling pretty well and I genuinely really like just about everybody here. The GVI staff is enthusiastic, helpful and great and makes our participation seem important and valued. It’s not all work though, there have been some days off and they seem to include lots of the local beer and rum. Last weekend I watched the Rugby World Cup in town with a bunch of staff and volunteers then we hit a local dance club and tore it up until 5AM. Sunday was a beach day and I played volleyball in the water with some local kids and volunteers for hours. We even have a couple of soccer, (ahem – football,) games every week so you know I’m in heaven. The first time we played was sure a shock for the European volunteers when the team with the three Americans on it won 6-2! While I was far from the best player on the field, I got two goals, two assists and afterwards I was so proud when another volunteer asked me, “Who knew you could play like that?” Today’s game got rained out, but I have hopes for tomorrow or Thursday…

While most of the diving has been limited to coral spotting and I almost never get my head up off the reef, I have still seen some cool stuff. There are lots of nudis around, I’ve found turtles three times (including a beautiful Green turtle,) seen dolphins, and been snorkelling with whale sharks! The neatest of all was when, on a morning dive, we saw an octopus swim way up off the reef pursuing a lionfish! After an epic but one-sided struggle, the 8 armed victor settled back on the reef for its lunch and another octopus came over to check things out. I could have watched for an hour, but we had coral work to do, damn!

This coming weekend, we have both days off and half the volunteers are doing their Rescue class in Beau Vallon, so the rest of us are trying to find lodging nearby and have a nice break from camp life. Hot showers! Things are pretty crowded in the area because there is a Creole Festival going on, but I’ve got my fingers crossed… If you are reading this, it means I got somewhere with internet so maybe I got lucky.

OK, it’s getting late (9:50!! – and I used to be a nightowl,) so I’m going to finish my book (Vonnegut’s Thank You Mr. Rosewater,) it’s really good and calling me.

Stay Happy And Wet,

Clement

Bangkok - Part Deux Et Trois!

(It's been awhile since I've put anything up so I'm going to post this now, and then add pics in the next day or two, when I post about my volunteer project in Seychelles, so check back!)

I have made Bangkok sort of a hub for my SE Asia wanderings. Central, fun, cheap and modern - it has worked out great stopping in here for a day or two between expeditions. The first time back, before Cambodia, I replenished toiletries and bought my super new camera on the advice of Theresa, whose cool cam I'd envied in Koh Tao and Sulawesi. (For a demo, check out my flickr page and notice the quality of the photos from that point on...) This recent time I've also gotten a lot accomplished.

First off, I took two days of Thai Massage lessons. The academy was very thorough, I got all kinds of illustrations of the body's energy lines and what parts of the foot can be massaged to affect all the specific parts of the rest of the body's organs. I received a bunch of demonstration massages, watched some and got to work on the masseuses who had free time. By the end of the second lesson I was exhausted! I don't know how those slim, tiny girls have the strength to give massages all day, my arms and shoulders were aching - I needed another massage!

For my last full day, I decided to play tourist and booked a day-trip. On the schedule were a famous floating market, a visit to The Bridge Over The River Kwai, and the best was saved for last - the tiger temple!

I got an early start on a full mini-bus (only American again, of course,) and after two hours got a transfer to a longtail boat which took us to the market. It's a riot of color and noise with sales people parked in tiny skinny boats all along the sides of the canals, hawking a thousand different nifty souvenirs. Even better were all the little old ladies paddling around in tiny canoes selling fruit and cooked food. Many were even cooking right in their boats and I stopped to sample all kinds of new Thai treats.

Then we were off to the famous River Kwai Bridge, where the Japanese put thousands of Allied POWs to work as slaves to build a railway connecting Thailand to Burma. The officers and guards were brutal and ruthless and thousands upon thousands died completing the project - which was prompltly and repeatedly bombed by the Allies. The whole affair was just another example of the beastly way the Axis acted in WWII and would have been forgotten but for a successful movie and a catchy little whistled tune. It was interesting to see and the cemetary was respectful and moving, though the museum was kind of a disappointment.

Last of all, we took a two hour visit to a Buddhist Temple that has tigers roaming all over it. Well, not exactly roaming, but they definitely have a lot more freedom than you see in a zoo. The monks walk them on chain leashes like some overgrown striped Lab,... one that can rip your arm off if it feels like it! They had several tiger cubs around and they are really playful, I had one gnawing on my hand for a minute and I can tell you, it's not exactly like playing with Voodoo! There were also herds of wild pigs, antelopes and some cattle and water buffalos too. The monks really had to hold on tight when the tigers were led near the herds.

After a long minivan ride home, we all went out on Khao Sahn Road for my last night and then after a banana pancake and a quick hairtrim the next morning, (which was waaaaayyyyy overdue,) I headed to the airport (again,) for a long day's travel to the next stop on my adventure - the volunteer expedition in the Seychelles!

Some final Asia thoughts:

Sometime last week in Bangkok, right after I hopped off a river taxi and headed to my next discovery with barely a glance at a map, swerving through the packed crowd, crossing a crazy street while dodging wrongway scooters effortlessly, and checking out street vendors for that little bite of something I craved, a sudden wonderful feeling came over me. "I love it here," I realized. The crowds, smells, noise, language, strangeness, and mayhem had become second nature and I realized I am thriving in a very alien land. I felt really at home while being comfortable with the fact and knowing that I am very far from home.

My travel epiphany is that home and happiness is where and what you make of it. There is so much to the world, more than one person can ever hope to see, and that's OK so don't sweat it. Travel is not about where you go, the point is you see what you can and don't worry about what you might have missed, meet whoever you can and really pay attention to that person and learn a little something about their life and their world, see what is in front of you instead of missing it while looking ahead. THAT is the point. As it's been well and often said before - Life is a journey. And I'm really learning that it's all about the Journey, not just the destination...

On a lighter note, one of the best things I've learned is a way to fool the electric system in hostels. On the wall of almost every room, right next to the door is a plastic housing that you must slide your room key into to activate the electricity in your room. When you leave and take the key, all the power shuts off including the fan you are using to dry your recently hand-washed clothes. Simple solution - fold up some currency from the previous country (so no loss if it gets stolen,) in the shape and thickness of your key card and voila - dry clothes!

All for now, Ciao!
Clement