Hit by swimmer's ear - ouch!

Today is day 11 and I definitely have not kept up with my blog or diary. We have had exams and lectures every day and there just has not been time between classes, dives and revision to write. Blogging is just simply impossible – the only internet connection that is available works on a wireless dial-up USB modem – and it does not really work at all. I can see my email inbox, but I have not been able to read a single email yet, haha! Uploading a blog post on Google blogger is just a mere dream…

I started getting mild pain in my ear two days ago – but I was too excited about the diving to react to it much. Yesterday morning it was just that bad I had to stop diving. Bugger. We’ve cleared most of the exams by now, except for the practical ones – which require diving. I missed out yesterday’s two invertebrate exams (“pointy” exam and invertebrate trail, today’s fun dive and today’s fish exam (“fish validation”). It’s not too bad, I can do them next week and I’m not the only one who has missed exams but it still makes me feel like I’m wayyy behind the schedule. Petchy even told me the schedule we have is “in the ideal world” because people always fall sick, in particular we tend to get lots of ear problems here. I would still rather be done with the exams now than having to do them next week. The plan for the next few days is to also go through Reef Check survey method, the CCC survey method and practice CCC surveys (Reef Check does not really require any practice since CCC survey method is far more comprehensive than RC).

Lecture & exam schedule

The rest wading in while I'm shore marshalling with my sore ear

Anyway, I’ve been trying to kill time by wasting it absolutely instead of doing much of anything useful. I started off pretty well yesterday with doing some revision on invertebrates and algae although I knew I was not going to be able to dive. However, I failed to do any revision on fish (which I really need since there are just too many silly little fish to remember. Just go on a reef and try to learn the names of the damsels, gobies and blennies that you see and you’ll know what I’m talking about… We do not of course need to know all of them, we only need to know certain target species . Still, trying to see which of the little damsels on the reef are target species, which are not and how many of them are out there is a rather annoying task. Fish move. Damsels move muchisimo. Counting damsels on a well populated reef is like trying to count ants in a busy nest. 

Exam time

Getting kitted before the in-water exams

 Apart from revision, I’ve also focused on playing useless games on my iPhone. I am currently particularly hooked on a silly frog game where nothing happens. You just bred frogs, take them to happily hop in a pond and breed them again. Colect little presents and decorate their froggie habitat. Take them to the pond again. Breed them again. Run out of space in the habitat. Nothing happens. But the frogs come in so many different pretty colours. Besides, could there possibly be any activity that is not better than studying for exams? :)

Frog game

I also tested out our laundry well today. As we do not have any running water, we either have bucket baths in our bathrooms or go to the well nearby to have a bath (yes, also a bucket bath). I don’t actually mind. The views from the well are quite nice. We can see the sea, the banca boat and the beach. I’ve had showers in much worse places than this one. The laundry washing point is next to the “shower” well so it also gets nice views. We can also leave our laundry with a local lady once a week. She charges rather reasonably for the washing. However, I figured that considering I only have a limited amount of clothes and only one bedsheet and towel, I might as well do my laundry myself since I can’t be without my towel or bedsheet. So, this morning I had a little stroll with a bucket to the well and washed all of my dirty clothes to the great amusement of the local teenagers. Obviously they do not see white people doing laundry by hand too often. They were almost as entertained as the two guys who were staring at me showering on the first day here. I did still get all of my t-shirts, underwear, bikinis and bedsheets washed, rinsed and hang up on the laundry line.

My bed doubles up as the laundry line today, haha.

We also went for a little stroll in search of the local rum (Tanduay) and apple vodka with one of the other volunteers. We are strictly speaking only allowed to the nearest village shop which is about 200-300 meters from the camp, up the hill. However, if that shop does not have the things you need (or if they are closed which happens about 5 times a day) you may need to get a little creative with the rules to ensure sufficient supply of goods (such as alcohol – what could possibly be more important on a Saturday night than that?) I even tried having a beer before the allowed time. CCC rules say we are not allowed alcohol before 5.30pm but because today is a cloudy afternoon I though at 4pm that it’s already beer time. So, as I realised it was only 4pm I found another cap from the used caps cardboard box (it happened to be a pepsi cap) and put the cap back on the bottle. Sigh. Now I’m sitting on the porch talking to Rosie about having a beer now, NOW, NOW, RIGHT NOW although it’s only 5.15pm. We just really need beer. Who invented this no beer before 5.30pm rule?

So, life here is rather nice and quiet. And beer deprived. But hey, even that’s an improvement from our little military camp in Eritrea that had a “no sex” rule. Here only beer drinking time is limited :)

That bottle of San Miguel with a Pepsi cap on it

PS. Did I yet mention that yesterday (when I was not diving due to the ear problem) there was a second sighting of a whaleshark on our house reef by one of the groups doing their inwater tests? Two sightings of whalesharks while diving in less than two weeks... again a few people getting their names on teh “whaleshark spotting wall” – but not me...

Drinks fridge

Bar rules