Friday, May 6, 2016

Baloo and Dominica

Our boat on a flat calm


“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”         ― John Lennon


Just to let the readers know, this blog was written a month ago and I have not had sufficient internet to post it before now.
Thanks and happy reading.

So here we are in Dominica, another Caribbean island, in the way that everyone speaks a lilting kind of English, has a laid back Rasta attitude, and is generally friendly. We have been here for just about 5 days now, and I am enjoying it, despite the fact that:

    A.  It is quite dirty
    B.  There is no place to really throw away trash, ergo the dirtiness
    C.  The local kids are SUPER pushy

Having Baloo here is awesome, of course. So far, one of the highlights of being here is:
Yesterday we loaded our dinghy with about 2 to 3 weeks of laundry and headed for the river. Now, make no mistake, there are two rivers here. One is super clean, has two pools for washing clothes and showering, the other looks like a swamp mixed with a nuclear waste dumping ground. The water is all murky and stagnant. Funny thing is, you just walk down the street a few blocks and you get to the other river, which is the exact opposite. So anyway, Dad spoke with an elderly local lady who said the clean river is where people go to wash their clothes, many of them not having washing machines. We took our buckets, and scrub brushes, soap and hair washing stuff, put it on our dolly, and went to the river. Now, I am not a big one on doing laundry, seeing as I always forget which settings are the right ones on the machine. Also I am not too good at hand-washing things, because we never have enough fresh water on the boat. Tell me, have you ever washed your clothes in a river, scrubbing them clean on a rock, wringing them out, and watching those clear drops fall like shards of glass,  and then drying your things out on bushes? Only a few of you probably have, the majority being yachties like us. The thing is, it’s such an experience you wouldn’t ever have in normal life. We dumped our entire bag of clothes into the bottom pool, the shallowest one, and set up our buckets for soaking. Dip in soap, scrub with brush, dip again, and chuck to the left so it can lie against the wall of rocks and all the soap would get pushed out by the water flowing downstream. Then, wring, wring, throw onto the rocks. Jabez picks them up, and sets them over the bushes. After a fashion, everything is done and we change into our suits and head to the higher pool, armed with shampoo, conditioner and soap. This pool is deeper, about waist deep, and cold. That was the first time I’ve washed my hair entirely in fresh water, since we got back to the boat 3 and a half months ago. On our boat you wash your hair in salt water, and rinse with salt water, then a fresh water rinse from a spray bottle. For those of you who have lawns, and use horrible and nasty pesticides like Roundup (don’t use it) think of those spray bottles. On the boat we have one of those and that is what you get to rinse with. It is filled with fresh water, not roundup though. It was a bit awkward, showering in that pool, seeing as there was a school right next door and children watching us from over the wall. They wash that way, but it is a bit of a spectacle if ‘strangers’ do it. After we were thoroughly refreshed, we headed back to the boat and hung everything up. Our boat was transformed into one giant laundry line. It looked like a second hand clothing shop, things flapping this way and that. Lunch was a help yourself deal, though there was nice fresh bread that Mom made the day before. In the afternoon, around 2ish, Igal, Matar, Telem, and the Nogster a.k.a Noga, came by and asked if we wanted to come ashore with them. We agreed, grabbed our shoes, kites and the rugby ball and went ashore. They are a family from Israel, 4 kids, living on their boat for the past 4 years; they crossed the Atlantic in February, and have been in Martinique since then. We met them, by total embarrassment. What happened was this:

Hmmm. You think there's room for a couple more?
The second day we were in Martinique, we saw some kids playing off the back of a boat with an American flag. We watched them go to another boat, a catamaran, and join some other kids. So we went over, and through much shyness and some stilted conversation, we went to the beach together.
I'm totally innocent here! Really!



Our faithful George

 Both boats were from Israel, and were speaking to each other in Hebrew, and since we didn’t know any Hebrew, YET, it took a while to get the conversation going. 
That is how we met Noga, age 11, a real little firecracker, and one of my youngest best friends.

 She is a mischievous one when teamed up with my brother, so watch what you drink. The two of them once slipped fart powder into Telem’s drink, but he figured something was wrong after a sip, especially when they were watching him like a hawk. Jabez calls Telem, age 14 now, Pastry Boy because, in Portugal, there is a suburb of Lisbon called Belem, which sells the best Portuguese Pastis de Nata in the world, you know, for Portugal.
Here I am burying the poor guy. Ah well.


At least he's enjoying it.

Anyway he and Jabez immediately became tight, after they figured out they like the same video games, i.e Pixel Dungeon, Dungeon Quest. Now we call them the Pixel Twins, because if you are looking for them, they are probably going to have their heads down, pixelating.

Matar and me working on an art piece made of glass


RESULT!
 Next is Matar, age 15, another of my best friends and part time confidante. Also, he reads a lot so I get tons of good recommendations on books.
Noga, me, Matar (a.k.a Drac), and Jabez

 Finally Dolev, 17, our guru for anything IT. Also not afraid to take a dip at times. Taking a dip usually involves pushing someone into the water and then cannonballing next to them. Michal and Igal are the parents and they all live on Baloo, the name of their sailboat.
Telem, Jabez, Noga, and me.


 So anyway, that’s that story.


Baloo




We were heading to a field, next to ANOTHER school. A big field this was, Master Yoda agrees. We set up our kites, a gift from our friend James (best. present. ever) and were immediately overwhelmed by local kids asking things ranging from, “Can I fly your kite?” to “Where are you from?” to “Is your kite for sale?” You see, kites are a luxury item here, and I don’t think many people have that luxury. Jabez’s kite looks like a kite surfers, all fabric and string.
Colorful

 Mine on the other hand is what you might think one would look like, with plastic pieces in it, so I am a little worried about how long it will last if it keeps nose-diving into the ground every time the wind drops.
Quite graceful, dontcha think?

 It’s also light and easy to get in the air but more difficult to keep there, because it turns more easily. Jabez’s kite is  easier to control up in the air, but can still whap you kind of hard when it comes down. You can even lie on the ground and fly it. We took a break and played a bit of rugby and tackling. I poured water on my face because it felt so hot you could fry a steak on it. At 6.30ish we headed back, because the sky was darkening. We had a quick stop off at the river to cool our faces and then went back. No one was at our boat so we went to Baloo, and ended up eating there, pita pizzas of our own creation. After a very exhausting day, we returned home and conked out.  

Epilogue…
Throughout the entire time we were with this beautiful family, I was never once bored, nor could none of us come up with something to do. There were always genius ideas and some not so genius ideas. There was always laughter, smiles, jokes and fun. There were pokes and bothers, inside jokes, tickling, and very little sadness. I had 3 of the best months of my life with them. I just want to say thank you. I really enjoyed our time together.

P.S. There are some photos missing here of our friends, but I cant load them. Another time, another blog.
xx Anneleize

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