Where are they now? Crissy

My dear friend Crissy has left CA and her postdoc position studying deep sea squid behaviour, in favor of a position in the real world, promoting marine conservation, out there in the frontlines.
I'd love to know more about what Crissy's up to, but as always, she's extremely busy.....what I do know is that she's based in Bali, Indonesia working for Conservation International. Which involves all kinds of exciting fieldwork, such as flying ultralights through flocks of hornbills, for example!

I'm confident that we'll manage to catch up at some point, but until then I'll just make do with just knowing that she's out there somewhere doing her thing...

Ten Reasons why I like living in Rurutu: #6

Fresh fish, and it can't get much fresher than this - straight off the fishing boat.

In Rurutu we get less tuna, and more wahoo (an excellent steak fish), and of course there's also mahi mahi another meaty fish with delicate white meat. But there are also the smaller fish that we eat - carangue, and parrotfish from the lagoon, or flying fish that are caught as they fly out of the water with 'butterfly' nets! Fresh grilled flyingfish with coconut milk and taro is pretty hard to beat, unfortunately it has a lot of bones, but the flavor is really excellent. I've always wanted to go out fishing for flying fish, it just sounds kind of fun to scoop them out of the air....

There's really nothing like a good bit of fresh raw fish, here's a delicious plate of wahoo carpaccio with a papaya dressing....et bon appetit!

Parents-Teacher's meeting

I went to Matotea's first parent-teacher's meeting this afternoon. It's funny there are just these little things that make me feel weirdly grown-up, and going to your daughter's parent-teacher meeting is definitely one of them, even if it is as laid back as ours. Matotea's teacher Monsieur Helden is a very gentle and slightly effeminate young man, the tahitian word is mahu, he's always beaming enthusiastically and is seemingly unflappable in the face of his throng of pre-schoolers. Matotea adores him, in no small part because he speaks some English, and I have to admit he does seem quite adorable. She's thriving at school and is now more talkative than ever, even if she does have the odd fall-out with her nemesis Florida, another of the girls at school....I'll have to get some pictures of her at school before the end of the school year!

Fiu

It's been a while since I've dedicated some time to the blog, and while nothing really major has happened, I still feel like I need to write up something. I'm feeling a bit lost, because my camera is having some mechanical issues at the moment, and as there's no camera repair shop here on Rurutu, I'm not quite sure what to do, I'm getting towards the conclusion that I should buy another one, whilst waiting to send this one away to be fixed.....in the meantime no pictures for the blog, and as if on cue Heimana is doing all kinds of new and exciting things (I'll blog more about that soon). Frankly, I'm not sure where all the time has been going, we've just been busy with everyday kind of things. Having young kids and a guesthouse feels a lot like Alice and the Red Queen (running to keep in the same place), there's always so much more housework to be done! Whatsmore, most of it is the kind of mundane busywork I'm really not that fussed with, except that we run a guesthouse! Add to that the kids being sick, poor Mato and Heimana are getting over hacking coughs, and Mum's trying to recover from the associated sleep-deprivation! It's no wonder I'm feeling a little bit fiu (a great Tahitian word that kind of covers the spectrum of slightly fed up to full blown depression) at the moment. What I wouldn't give for a few hours of quiet yoga practice and meditation.....maybe I'll just make do with this blog winge and cleaning the kitchen floor instead!

The Gospel Arrives in Tahiti!

This year I didn't get to celebrate St.David's day, as we were busy doing stuff in Tahiti, and anyway there's a serious lack of daffodils! Even the more Tahitian holiday of march 5th, was a total washout in Tahiti, heavy rains drowned the celebrations for the "Arrival of the Gospel". More than 20cm of rain fell within 24h in Tahiti.....leaving central Papeete in the drink!

Oh and yes, you heard right, the day commemorating the arrival of the first Protestant missionaries is a national holiday here.

(Johnnie Williams, the famous Pacific Missionary, buried here in Samoa, but his legacy
has left an indelible footprint on the Polynesian culture across the Pacific.)