Yesterday Pekadai and Susan came over to have a look at a presentation Fia and I are working on, it’s all on environmental awareness and teaching the locals how to treat waste appropriately. Luckily they also brought stuff to cook dinner for us: fish, fish and fish… fish everywhere, in every form, for every taste; raw, steamed, grilled fried, sweet, salty, spicy, mild, everything… It was all superb… Susan’s restaurant in the village will surely be a success! Best of luck to them both!If I remember correctly the last post was about our one day trip to Sihanoukville… what an adventure! And it didn't end there! When we came back I had to stay out of the water for a couple days so I finished off my Dive Master manual and we started working on the presentation. On the night of my last day of rest I was going to sleep in my bungalow when suddenly I felt a sharp pain on my toe, I looked down but I couldn't see or hear anything moving. At first the pain was bearable, like a pinch, but soon after it started to build up, a lot! I really think it was the worst pain I felt in a very, very long time… bee stings and dog bites were pleasant by comparison. Sofia got the first aid kit and we tended to the sting as best possible, trying to suck the venom out, without any success. We called the resort owner, Vibol, and he told us it was most probably a scorpion sting… that it would hurt like hell for a while but nothing more… just my luck. XD The searing pain lasted for another hour or so, after that it started to come back down to human levels. Eating helped coping with the pain, and thinking back it must have been fun for Sofia to come back to the tent expecting me to be rolling around in pain and instead finding me sitting in a corner holding on to my food with one hand and gobbling down a pack of crackers with the other… lol. Anyhow, we sat down and watched an episode of Game of Thrones while waiting for the pain to subside, and went to bed right after, at 5am. The next morning we both would have liked to sleep late, but at 8.30am it was already way too hot to stay in the tents, so we had to get up. My foot was still sore and I couldn't walk on it until today (Thursday).
I still need to finish off all the practical part of my Divemaster course before we go to Koh Sdach, so today I’ll do the search&recovery scenario and possibly the scuba equipment exchange underwater as well. It feels so strange thinking about leaving this place in 3 days… I’m excited about Koh Sdach but im sure I’m gonna miss the simplicity and peacefulness of Koh Rong Sanloem a lot. There’s lots of stuff to be done before the next set of volunteers come in: we need to perfect the Marine Protection Internship program and revamp all the fish, inverts, substrates and dangerous marine life presentations. It’ll be a long, time consuming job, but I already have the final idea in my mind and I’m sure it’ll all be worth it. We also have to catch up with all the surveys we weren't able to do here because of all the drama, still 17 to go. Oh, and I also have to start looking for a job… ishhh. Fingers crossed!-
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I just came back from diving… I did my search and recovery scenario looking for a jar full of wafers underwater… Fia knows me too well already. =P It’s only been a week since I last dived but it felt so strange…like the first time all over again: a sensation of weightlessness and freedom like nothing else in the world… except skydiving maybe… I’ll have to try it out and let you know! We also did the equipment exchange; I think it went pretty smoothly, way better than when I tried it with Owen.. and with no headaches this time. I guess I really needed to take some time off and rest. It’s almost lunch time now, I wonder what they’re cooking since they have no food left in the kitchen… … maybe they’ll start feeding us dog meat soon =S-
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Oh, fried rice and veggies! I can’t wait to go back to that Israeli place on Sunday evening!
Time to eat! Talk to you all in 3 days!
