Complaining About Paradise??!!

Tadd doing the washing up outside our bure... Home sweet home



After less than 24hrs Mike left to go back to his lovely modern home in Nadi... and we were left to pick up the pieces of our so-called "dream job."

It's not all bad for sure... the weather is often nice... and other times it's insanely hot... or pouring with rain (I never knew Fiji had a rainy side... did you?)... oh, and that's not to mention the almost-cyclone we had come thru... (Tadd was away) it was pretty freaky... I had to walk around with my hands over my head to protect myself from all the falling coconuts!!

Then after the first round of rain.. the sun came out... but the wind continued to blow... I definitely don't want to be there through an actual cyclone!

Tadd has now fixed up the bure a bunch... we have a place to cook with one gas burner... we seem to be free of larger rodents, but still hear the rustle of the smaller, cuter variety, and have to hope that the geckos don't choose to use the toilet over our heads during dinner. We have a mosquito net over the bed, so I no longer have to go to sleep and wake up to that horrendously annoying "nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn" sound the mozzies make right before they land and devour me! We have a table and chairs indoors and a table outside with our cool tiki torches. And most of all... most of roof is rainproof... we think!

Working has been interesting... it turned out that the reason Barbara seemed a little off... she was likely drunk... apparently when she first arrived on the island for work she locked herself in her bure and drank so the staff didn't really see her.

Most of the boys we have on staff are working on becoming divemasters... when they bother to turn up, or can drag themselves out of their kava hangover (kava - the local root drink that passes as grog). They are getting a lot better now that we have talked with them and they see that we are staying around...

The exception to this is Jioti... our boat captain... Tadd had to go off for a couple of weeks to teach at another resort...meanwhile Jioti went off for a night or two in the city... he came back falling-down, stupid drunk... and propositioned his boss... yes that's me!! This is nothing new after all those years working in Ecuador... but still not cool...he ended up getting an official warning from Mike (this included the threat of taking him to the police per Fijian law)... so I was a little surprised when less than a week later he once again came back drunk, while I was out diving with guests... and he locked himself in the office of the dive shop... barracading himself in... where various people had left their clothes...well... it was his home after all.. ??!!

Jioti has since quit on us... in the middle of the work day... although no one but us seems to think this is actually a permanent situation... tough luck Jioti!

Tadd has now thrown himself into training up the guys when I'm unavailable to help him... they are gettting into it, so this offers satisfaction... so for now, we'll see how it goes... it's Christmas soon and then we'll have some time off in the new year!!