On the Townsville, Chapter Four

I just read over the first chapters of On the Townsville and couldn't believe how long they are and how much unnecessary detail is included in each story. So my project for chapter IV is to become a better self-editor. Here we go:

Island Man Sam

A few young Americans were recently hired and have created a frat party vibe in the restaurant. Chris and Shane in particular are a hit with the ladies, as we get lots of parties of young women -- bachelorette dinners or just girls' night out -- and they're so drunk and so excited by these cute, young, flirty men with yankee accents that they're barely able to contain themselves. They get their pictures taken with them, they write their phone numbers in lipstick on the table -- there was even an attempt to stuff a tip down Chris's pants. It's mayhem.

The tables were turned on Sunday, however, when there was an all-afternoon-and-evening reggae thing with a really good live band. I hadn't understood the hugeness of the event and suddenly found myself running drinks and getting cat-called like a cocktail waitress in a night club. The frat boys didn't have any problems because all the drunk women had their eyes on the waiter-trumping musicians -- or on themselves, as they were so clearly enjoying being 'crazy' and 'original' and dancing their rhythmless hippie dances in flowy pants and beaded head scarves. As the only female staff person, however, I got a whole lot of attention from the slobbering, moronic, drunk-off-their-tits men who seem to populate the Townsville social scene. Embarrassingly, one of them told me I was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen and I was all giggly and blushing until Shane pointed out that the guy was literally drooling into his schooner of Victoria Bitter and could barely sit upright on his barstool; looks like I'm starved for compliments these days. I'll take what I can get!

The sad news is that Doug, one of the managers, is leaving. He's worked for ages in hospitality and has owned a restaurant for six years, so he's ready to move on. (This is obviously very hard on Jim, the other manager, who has been Doug's business partner, roommate and best friend for six years; it's pretty much like a divorce.) Doug is originally from Trinidad and is a gorgeous little leprechaun of a man; everyone is sad to see him go.

But since Doug is leaving Townsville, and since I'm looking for a place to live...

Wait for it....

Katy and Jim!!!

I packed on Wednesday, rode out to uni on Thursday morning, rode back home to finish packing, rode BACK to uni for my afternoon class, and then my friend Sarah came with her car and helped me move into Jim's swanky bachelor pad -- before I rushed out to work. An exhausting day, but after a little housecleaning and putting my stuff away, I just sat and enjoyed the peace and quiet. Maybe this afternoon I'll do the same thing, only in the pool! Huzzah!

It's not as great as I originally thought because he's bought a condo and will be leaving April 10th, but that gives me two weeks to find something more permanent, and during those two weeks I will be in a clean, nice-smelling, quiet apartment in a ritzy part of town with an ocean view and the mountain behind me. Most importantly, during those two weeks I will get some sleep. No more all-night parties with drunk British back-packers snorting horse tranquilizers off the living room table. No more drunken, raging, 3 a.m. lovers' spats. No more smelly little dog yapping me awake every time a car passes on the distant street. No more wet, moldy towels on the bathroom floor; no more ants all over the counter because nobody can be bothered to rinse the barbecue sauce off their plates; no more strangers going into my room and taking my pillows to use as couch cushions; no more pee on the floor or on the toilet rim (the wooden toilet seat snapped in half two weeks ago and has not been replaced). No computer? No land line? I don't care. I just need some sleep.

I will definitely miss my nightly routine of sitting on the front step and looking at the stars with Joogsie's head on my lap and my home-made juice popsicle dripping on it. I will miss my comfortable, forty-minute bike ride, as it now takes over an hour and includes two steep uphill climbs (though with the fun downhill swoop that follows) and I'm feeling the burn.
I would have missed Rico's home cooking, but it never ended up happening; when I tried, after a disastrous attempt to cook chicken for myself, to strike up a partnership wherein I buy the food and he, the professional chef, cooks it, he thought I was asking him to make a big dinner for us all some time. The more I tried to explain, the more he thought I was pressuring him to step up to the task and he tried to set a date so that I'd leave him alone. I guess it was never meant to be.
(I've collected some easy recipes from the chefs at work, so maybe this will be the year where I finally learn to cook properly for myself...) (Probably not, but maybe.)

So there it is: I'm staying for two weeks and wishing it were longer, and the apartment hunt is on.

Netball

I'm not coaching as much as before, as it's hard to get there in time after school. I'm also not umpiring, as so far they've managed to find people and [knock on wood] they won't need me. What I am doing is playing every Wednesday night, among amazon-sized women who just reach over my head and drop the ball in the net. What I am not doing is improving; I played a lot worse this week than last week -- but I'm hoping it's just a juice-belly thing and not a trend.

I sure get a lot of exercise, though, hopping around trying to steal the ball off of people who are two heads taller than I am; luckily it's a friendly league, so it's lots of fun and I get to try different positions every quarter. Interestingly, I'm a much better attacker than defender; maybe because I can deek around and find my own system, instead of having to block someone whose bra clasp is at my eye level. Sometimes I even get the ball in the net! Really!

Magnetic Island

It's no secret that my favourite demographic is middle-aged men, probably because I am pretty much middle-aged myself and I like their rhythm. Should I pretend to be hipper than I am? Why deny the glaringly obvious?

A friendly dining foursome very quickly became my favourite table and I sat down with them when my shift was over and had a drink. (Raspberry cordial; my fave!) We'll call them the Spy Guys because they work for some top-secret organization and can only tell me certain details. Planes are involved -- they are pilots and engineers -- and they're here for four months. That's all I know. Maybe something with the government? or the military? They are being lodged in gorgeous apartments on the boardwalk, so it's someone with money. (They have promised me that they are not involved in bombing North Korea or similar; I have to take their word for it.) (And I obviously can't publish any pictures of them, so you'll just have to look at what I've got and imagine it with four Aussie blokes with really white feet.)

They came back to eat again the next night and invited me to spend a day with them on Maggie Island, which I hadn't yet had a chance to visit. (When I had free time it was raining; when the rain stopped, I had a job.) Off we went on the ferry and I am disappointed to report that I got boat-sick. On a ferry. Just the last two minutes pulling in, which is apparently a notoriously bad section, but still; it was pretty lame.

Once we got to shore, we rented some funny little barbie jeeps and go-Karted around the island. We all know about boys and their toys, but with a group of men whose lives are spent designing, fixing, testing and flying planes, you can imagine how much fun they had racing up and down the mountainous coast. ('Racing' might not be the right word, as the cars couldn't go much faster than 50 km/h... everything's relative.)

Other than my being a boat sissy, it turns out I am also a wallaby sissy. The island is famous for its wild wallabies who live in the rocks and come out to eat out of people's hands. Up I went with my palmful of seeds, and out came the wallabies -- including this rough-and-tumble one who had clearly been around the block a few times. I suddenly had visions of giant rodents gnawing at my hand and I couldn't take it. I threw my seeds on the rock and was out of there in a flash, then sheepishly took a picture of someone else feeding them so that I'd at least have the memory.


Grade Six

And finally, I did my first teaching practicum and it was a lot of fun. I have three more weeks with this grade six class (after a two-week university segment -- blech) and then will come back in October and spend a month with the grade sixes on the other side of the pod. Both the teachers are fantastic and I think I'll learn a lot.

Now here's the complaint. (You didn't think I was just going to be unabashedly positive, did you?)

Wallaboo State School, not Catholic or private. Funded by the good tax-payers of North Queensland and teaching a state-wide, if not nation-wide, curriculum in order to make good citizens who will contribute to society. And yet, what is this block on my weekly schedule -- does that say 'religion?' Is that possible? Carol, my prac teacher, assures me that it is non-denominational. And come to think of it, that's pretty neat, to be teaching a comparative religion course in grade six. It's a 'values' class, and I think that having a block of time to discuss values and morals and social things like that is really important. Good on you, Wallaboo, I can't wait to see what this Thursday class will be like.

The day arrives, and with it comes Gavin, a huge, blond, highly entertaining Baptist preacher from North Carolina who has been living here with his missionary wife for seven years. It was a forty-minute session, and I can't remember most of it because I was so fully in shock that I didn't understand what was happening for at least the first half. (Is this performance art of some kind? When is he going to break character and talk about how dangerous it is to have loony Southern preachers set loose on elementary school classes?)

As the shock wore off, however, I heard that:
-we sin all the time, we're probably sinning right now, but we're covered because Jesus died for our sins -- remember when he was spreading his arms out on the cross? That was him saying 'I love you THIIIIIIIS much!', just like Mommy and Daddy say to you, boys and girls;
-God wants blood in return for sin and sometimes cutting a lamb's throat just isn't enough;
-there's nothing we will ever be able to do to live up to what Jesus did for us.

Then, after choral-calling back ('Who loves you?' 'Jesus!' 'And why did He die?' 'For our sins!') the students coloured a picture of Adam carrying JC's cross for him while Gavin invited me to Thanksgiving with his family. (You're not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy...)

Sandy, the next-door teacher, added to my disbelief when she sat down with the two classes for their daily novel-reading. In response to a comment that I didn't hear, she asked if anyone knew how old Jesus was when he died. When the kids started guessing, she said she hadn't asked for them to guess, but had asked if anyone KNEW. Because there is documentation, there is an official age, it is a fact to be acquired. I thought she must be talking about the flesh and blood Jesus and whatever historical documents and back-tracing she had heard about, but she continued, 'he was thirty-three. It is documented; it is written in the Bible. It's a fact.'

See, now what am I supposed to say? How is it possible that she is officially announcing to a double group of eleven-year-olds that the Bible is a factual document, while at the same time warning them about using Wikipedia for their countries project because you can't always trust its sources?
This is PUBLIC SCHOOL, for Christ's sake! It's a FACT that he was thirty-three because it's written in the BIBLE???!!! Is it a FACT that some people lived to be six hundred years old and that Noah built an enormous ark and filled it with animals? You can have whatever beliefs you want at home and at Sunday school and you can be scared of God and filled with sin-guilt and have crucifixion nightmares; that's your cross to bear. (Tee-hee.) But public, tax-funded school? I can't stay in this country.

So much for self-editing. Wish me luck in the bachelor pad -- maybe I'll be such a good roomie that he'll want to take me along to the new condo... Who wouldn't?

Kathryn

On the Townsville, Chapter Three

Chapter 3: Gainful Employment and a German to Boot

The Strand

Hey everyone! I've been to the beach! There was a day where it didn't rain -- crazy, I know -- so my London, Ontario friend (and Railway Estate neighbour) Nicole and I walked to The Strand -- then kept walking because we had to get to the stinger nets -- and Nicole-of-Irish-heritage was roasted before we even got across the bridge. I also got too much sun, but I seem to have more of a base tan than I thought, possibly because I have so desperately willed it to be so. (Though my butt hasn't gotten any smaller, so this might not be a sound theory.) And I only got the shoulder burn because the water was so gorgeous and the day so perfect that I couldn't bring myself to get out of the ocean and cover up, for fear that I would never see the sun again. (So far, my fear is completely justified.) So it was worth it.

The problem with getting a burn on your shoulders, of course, once the rosiness fades out, is the inevitable dead-skin peeling that follows. Frankly, Nicole's was worse than mine and possibly the grossest thing I've ever seen -- don't tell her I said that -- but mine was definitely noticeable and highly unattractive on Friday when I volunteered at a netball tournament. The kids, who have had the fear of cancer drilled into their little heads, were openly disapproving of my irresponsible sun behaviour. They would never allow any part of their body to stay out in the sun for longer than it takes to get from the car to the front door; by Australian standards, I am a terrible role model. (One six-year-old said to me, "melanoma is not a trifling matter." They're good with the sun smarts; maybe need to work on not making people feel like jerks.)

Volunteering

Netball, you ask? Well. One Friday I suddenly had an overwhelming (and largely unprecedented) craving for a hamburger. Jenny took me down the street to a little grocery store/diner and while we waited for our burgers to cook, we saw hundreds of kids and their parents in a field full of basketball courts. I thought this would be a great chance for me to get a first volunteering project going (we need fifty hours for teachers' college), working with kids and getting some exercise. And they obviously needed all the help they could get; the poor bastards couldn't even afford backboards for their nets.

I found the president of the association and discovered that there's a sport called netball, which is like basketball but you can't move with the ball. Kind of like basketball-meets-ultimate-frisbee. And no backboard, which means that pretty much nobody ever scores. Every player has a specific title and has to wear the jersey with the corresponding letters: Goal Attack, Goal Defense, Centre -- and others, but I can't remember them, and they don't matter because the kids all clump together and run after the ball, regardless -- and each position can only be in certain zones.
You can pivot, but only on one foot. Once you catch the ball, you can take a follow-through step, but a second step will disqualify you. It's very fussy and detailed and I can't really keep track of who's supposed to be where, so obviously they've asked me to be an umpire. I suggested that it might be a good idea for me to get to know the rules a little first, maybe watch a game or two, do some scoring at the next tournament...

So. I'm co-coaching a team of 11-year-old girls and I ran the concession stand on Friday, which was a lot of fun. (Once the kids had finished lecturing me about using minimum SPF-60, checking the expiry date and buying some long-sleeved cotton shirts, they were fun to hang out with -- which kids usually are.) They're going to give me a rule book this week and they're really wanting me to umpire at the next tournament. It's kind of ridiculous, but then it's nice to feel needed. What would they have done if I hadn't turned up? Do they realize how unlikely it was for me to have a hamburger craving? Do they have any idea how LUCKY they are to have me?

The House

Several changes here on Second Street. The first is that we went bed-hunting because we had a new roommate moving in, and Jenny found an almost-new bed for only $50. Then when we went at the end of the day to pick it up with her dad's truck, the people said we could take the other one as well, since no one had bought it. So instead of a crappy little wire-frame bed with boards digging into my side all night, I now have a posturepedic, top-of-the-line bed that would be the most comfortable bed in the world if only it didn't have wheels that roll across the floor every time I shift positions. (I never know where I'm going to wake up; usually it's on a jaunty diagonal with my head wedged under the doorknob. But no matter -- nothing wrong with shaking things up a bit.)

The idea was actually for me to get a futon and then I'd give the new guy my bed, but the futon was sold by the time we got there and I decided to jump on the good mattress, even if it is a single. Doubles are more comfortable, sure, but let's tell it like it is: the only extra bed space I'll need this year will be if I decide to make a collage and I need room to spread out my magazine clippings. I've checked out the scene, I've done my analysis, and it doesn't look like I'm going to have to put up with anyone's snoring, unless you count Joogsie the cattle dog. If you catch my drift.

The new roommate, meanwhile, has moved in. His name is Rico, which makes sense, as he is -- wait for it -- German. Hm. Tricky. He claims that his mom just like the name, which is Italian -- which is not true (about the Italian, I mean, not his mom; I don't know that I'm in a position to judge how she feels about one thing or another), but then it's possible that he meant to say Spanish. He speaks very little English -- maybe 32 words? rough estimate? -- and it isn't always easy to get information across. (Needless to say, explaining "Rico... Suave..." was a long, tortuous and ultimately unsuccessful undertaking.)

Super nice, though, that Rico. I like his commitment to life. And really friendly, which is sometimes a pain in the ass because you aren't always in the mood to sign-language your way through conversations (and I use the term loosely) about where you were last night, but of course I have no business being impatient, considering how supportive and encouraging everyone was when I was working my way through broken Spanish. Let's hear it for karma.

My favourite thing is when he talks to someone on the phone and I get to hear him function in German. Remember in Waiting for Guffman when Corky says something about Germans with that "muck muck muck muck" thing -- and you think, "that's not what German sounds like, you nutter!"? Well, whether it's a Dresden thing or just a special Rico thing, that's what he sounds like. You hear all the "shtein" and "schwarz" and "aufden" type sounds that you expect to hear, but then there's a whole lot of "muck muck muck muck muck." It's pretty exciting.

Also, he's a chef and has promised us a home-cooked German meal one of these days -- he claims to have really enjoyed the lentils-and-dumplings I prepared but I think it just made him want meat.

My least favourite thing, however, is his earthy European approach to personal hygiene. He rides his bike to work, spends eight or nine hours in a hot kitchen and then rides home, all in the context of muggy, stormy, 35-degrees-celsius Townsville. Maybe you should take a moment to imagine how much sweat might be produced under these circumstances. Okay? Now do you think it might be a good idea to have a shower? Thirty seconds, forty seconds, no big deal. But let's get some soap involved here, ya? Nein. Not so much for Rico. His course of action is to take off his shirt, scratch a lot (though this is by no means restricted to sweaty moments) and plop down on the couch, while his sweat seeps into the cushions. Needless to say, that couch and I have become estranged. Who needs contaminated cushions when I can just as easily sit on a hard-backed chair, right?

The sweat, the pee on the bathroom floor, the jar of cigarette butts on the deck -- these things would be annoying enough in a happy home. But these last few weeks Flomby has become a live-in boyfriend, even showing up when Jenny's not here because he wants to watch cable tv, and Jenny's party-hardy British friend Maggie has been desperately trying to get everybody to go clubbing with her, so there are people here all the time. Loud, smelly, crass people. All the time. It was getting so that I was taking long, complicated detours on my bike ride home because I was so reluctant to walk in the door and find people sprawled all over the furniture with the smell of beer and greasy food in the air and the tv blasting "Girls of the Playboy Mansion" or "Britney: The Life Behind the Scenes" or "America's Hardest Prisons," as my regression into the student life I wasn't willing to live in the first place continues.

School is so shitty (yes, for those of you who have asked, it is still awful and clearly will be for the rest of the year; I have resigned myself to this fate, as I have made my bed and must now lie, squirming and clawing my eyes out, in it) that I really need home to be some kind of sanctuary, and these days it is anything but that.

However. While I feel a bit as though I've been duped, paying a higher rent so that I wouldn't have to live residence-style in a house full of dirty, messy idiots and somehow ending up doing just that, and while I will keep my eye out for any available single rentals (they don't really exist in Townsville but I'm hoping the karma thing works both ways), I think things will be better when I get involved in more volunteer activities with interesting people, as a big part of my crisis was just being in such a shallow, knowledge-free environment. I felt myself getting stupider by osmosis, between the vacuous readings and discussions at school and this household's appalling absence of basic facts -- including, but certainly not limited to: where is Haiti? Doesn't Canada have the same president as the States? Who is Al Qaeda? What is communism? What exactly is colonization? (I AM NOT EXAGGERATING - these are actual questions. I am an amazing, all-knowing genius in this house.) Hopefully, a bit of intellectual stimulation will come my way. Clearly not at university, but maybe elsewhere.

My New Job

And the other thing that made the last few days better was that I was working. This is good for the bank account and for the morale, and since it's in a restaurant, it keeps me on my feet. I saw a posting on the career website at school and thought I'd drop by to hand in my resume, since my work permit had finally come through. The manager didn't even look at my resume, but complimented me on my green eyes and asked me to come in for a trial the next day. My trial became "you're hired. Here's your section, and we need you to run drinks from the bar, too, and can you stay tonight and work a double shift?" In like Flynn, my friends. In. Like. Flynn.

The restaurant - which I will call Island Man Sam - is an open, breezy restaurant/bar on the beach - with a great view of Magnetic Island - really busy most of the time, and the clientele is laid-back and friendly because they've just wandered in from strolling hand-in-hand along the beach or playing Aussie football in the park. The staff is great and surprisingly affectionate towards my Canadian self (though that might get old) and the manager is not as sleazy as he sounds, but rather funny-sleazy. He's from Chicago, he's good-looking and he likes the beach and the ladies. Funny. Sleazy. I like it.

I am pleased to report that the Townsville policy of "no shirt, no shoes, no problem" -- which includes the grocery store, where people just wander in, barefoot and wearing only a pair of shorts -- does not apply at Island Man Sam. There's also really good live music and the food is yummy. The shirts we wear are an unfortunate and unflattering grey-beige polyester, but you can interpret your denim bottom however you choose, so it's okay. And I'll do exciting hair things to make up for it: a fun project. (Let's play Barbie!)

And when the rain stops (they swear it will be any day now), I can go to the beach before work. Everybody wins. (Well, I win.)

So there you have it: the ups and downs of Townsville. I think, on the whole, that we're moving in an upwards direction; interesting things are appearing on the horizon, just under the rain clouds.

Kathryn

On the Townsville, Chapter Two

Hi everyone. Life here in Oceania continues -- and will be broken down into sub-sections for easy audience navigation. Read whatever interests you. But maybe at least read the beginning and end of each section, so that if I ever mention something in conversation you will have at least a passing idea of whatever I think you know off by heart, and my feelings will be less hurt. But that's just a tip.

Technical

I'm writing this from the home computer, as Jenny got a screen last week, just in time for me to get started on the six assignments I had to do over five days -- funnily enough, and it really was funny, the computer blew out just as I was about to finish the third one and I lost my work and all access to whatever had been saved. Ha! Hilarious! (Luckily, or perhaps geniusely, I had already e-mailed myself the first two in order to print them at the school library, so I only had to redo the third one [and of course the other three] in the computer lab.)

Now we have the computer back. They're saying it had nothing to do with the storm, which makes me feel better about being irresponsible and doing computer work when it's raining. To be fair, though, it poured rain for three days in a row -- the only other time I've seen wind like that was during tail-end-of-hurricane storms in the islands, the difference being that this time I have the added bonus of a coconut tree banging on my roof all night and scaring the bejeesus out of me -- and I had to get these assignments done and needed access to the computer because half the readings were online. It's all very tricky, this modern university cyber-life.

Physical

Jenny got me her grandmother's bike for what she said would be a fifteen-to-twenty-minute ride to school. She and her boyfriend Flomby (based on a complicated last name) geared up on the Sunday before my first day and we all went together so they could show me the shortcuts. It took us fifty-seven minutes to get to the university entrance, at which point we were so sweaty and miserable that we didn't even go into the actual campus.

We took a different shortcut on the way home, Flomby's idea, and added fifteen minutes to the ride, giving me plenty of time to resign myself to a year of waiting at bus stops and paying $4.72 each way. (I see your poorly-subsidized Toronto transit and I raise you: no schedules, no bus shelters -- despite frequent and long-lasting tropical storms -- and unregulated fare increases!)

But I left super early my first day and it only took 45 minutes -- it's cooler in the morning and there's no one on the path to slow me down -- which I have worked down to 37 minutes on a good day. (Though now that the river is severely flooded and there's no path, I have to find ever-changing alternate routes and my timing is off.) I bring clothes, shampoo and a towel and have my shower on campus, which is fun because then I cruise serenely into the education building and everyone is amazed at how fresh and clean I am after such a long bike ride.

I've broken the trip into segments, which means that I feel a sense of accomplishment about nine times each way, and I obviously have songs for each segment -- I will include some of them in the post-script for those of you who want to sing along (Mom, I'm counting on you!) -- which makes for a fun ride. (With the daily route changes, I am constantly having to come up with new songs to adjust to the new scenery and street names; it keeps me on my toes.) So I'm getting heaps of exercise, saving heaps of bus dollars and having heaps of quality Kathryn Time to boot. (Aussies say a whole lot of "heaps" and "actually" -- I dig it.)

Among all this positive forward-movement, though, disaster is bound to strike. There have been two terrible bike rides since I began this whole adventure.

1. I stayed late at the computer lab to get some work done, not leaving until about 6:30, which is officially dusk. (They don't have long summer nights in the tropics, which is too bad; who doesn't love a long summer night?) The best route I could figure out was along the streets that run parallel to the river, most of which were not yet flooded. As I rode, I noticed how many mosquitoes were out and briefly allowed myself to think that there's nothing worse than mosquitoes. Then, suddenly, the sky went dark and I wondered how it was possible for night to fall so quickly. I looked up and saw what looked like a black blanket flying through the sky -- a blanket with wings and furry bellies and pointy teeth; a huge, fast, screeching blanket of doom.

Ah yes, I thought, terrific. The bats are out.

Some of them are little, like the ones at home (I've only ever seen them in Katie's backyard in Mississauga but I'm sure they exist elsewhere) whose place in the sky I have learned to accept. But most of them -- and when you're dealing with thousands of bats, most is a lot -- are enormous. I had previously likened them to flying chihuahuas, which was bad enough, but the big ones are more like flying raccoons. Huge. They look like those winged monkeys in The Wizard of Oz (and I look like mean Mrs. What's-her-face on my old lady bike with a basket -- the irony is not lost on me.) And since they were out for dinner, and their dinner was swarming around me (if there's one thing mosquitoes love, it's me), they kept swooping down and pinging my helmet with their hideous, terrifying wings. I was sure that a mosquito would land on my face and one of these flying monkey-chihuahua-raccoon monsters would dive in to collect. And then all the money I spent on coming here would be for nothing, as I would spend the rest of the year in therapy, curled up in the fetal position, whimpering.

I made it home, slightly hysterical, and gradually talked myself down. I was fully calm by the time my mom called, and remained so until I saw a big, hairy snout push in through the doggy-door. I almost had a heart attack, but when I realized it couldn't fit through the little space, I laughed at my foolishness and went back to the conversation, becoming increasingly convinced that it was just Joogsie, the cattle dog, who has that same coarse hair and always wants to come inside. After we hung up, I turned off the light and started to cross the living room to get to my room, when I heard rustling from the garbage corner and saw that the back door was open. I prepared my stern, "bad dog" face and turned on the light, only to see -- wait for it, wait for it -- a boar. A wild pig, munching away at an apple core. In the kitchen, ten feet from where I was standing.

Who knew I could move so fast? I leapt up on the counter, maybe screaming or maybe not -- my heart was pounding so loudly in my ears that pretty much anything might have happened and I wouldn't have heard it -- and when the pig started doing this weird jig with his back hooves, along the same lines as the funny little skunk warning dance before you get sprayed -- I reached around for a pot and banged it with a spoon until he left. (When he was gone and I was standing, stunned, fighting off my convulsive shudders, Jenny, the famously heavy sleeper, came out for a pee break and said "what are you doing in the kitchen?")

Do you want to guess how well I slept that night?

2. On Thursday, when I was about thirty minutes from uni, I rode over something and got a flat tire. I spent the rest of that ride -- and then the ride home -- pulling over every six minutes to pump up my back tire and then pedalling like hell as it deflated. So Friday I took the bus to school so that I could buy a bike on my way home. (I'd heard they were super cheap at K-Mart.) We had our last lecture of the week and then a "mid-term exam" (after one week of class... they're cramming a full semester into six days, which has been hectic but it's good to get it out of the way), so we were finished by 1:30 -- perfect time for K-Mart. Except that it was one of those storms again, so I hung around at school and waited for a break in the rain before going to a bus stop.

There is no bus schedule, as I mentioned, but also no system -- or at least none that I have figured out yet. No matter which side of the road you stand on, they tell you "oh, you need to be on the other side." The 1A turned me down on both sides of the road, something about looping around -- so who's going to K-Mart? Can anyone let me on a bus and get me out of the rain? I gave up and just got on the bus that takes me home, the 2, except that he was somehow re-routed and went completely in the opposite direction -- obviously -- so when we passed by nowhere-on-the-2-route-except-for-today K-Mart and the rain had let up, I decided to go ahead with the bike shopping, since I was already so far from home.

It was fairly fast and painless, as cheap as promised, and they let me take the floor model so I could just ride it home and know that the brakes worked, rather than assembling it myself. I had forgotten my helmet, which is strictly against the law, but I thought I'd take a chance this one time. I was also wearing a pretty dress and flip-flops, and had two bags with me, neither of them backpacks. (Too late, I remembered with dismay that the new bike wouldn't have a granny basket.) But whatever. Onward and upward, just get home and the next ride will be better.

I had about two minutes of riding, enough time to wonder what the hell the springy seat was all about, before I heard a giant "ka-KRACK" and about a gazillion tonnes of water dropped from the sky. I was immediately and completely drenched, head to toe, with rain whipping into my eyes, flip-flops too wet to grip and cutting into my toes and dress clingy and completely see-through. For all intents and purposes, I was riding around in my underwear. I haven't been honked at like that since Guadeloupe! And little old ladies giving me dirty looks, the hussy flaunting her lacy bra for all of Townsville to see. Did they think this was planned? Did I really look satisfied with how things had turned out? Yes, you're right: I sat around and waited for the rain, then hopped on my bike for a forty-minute ride along the highway in impossible clothes for riding, with heavy, textbook-laden shoulder bags bouncing around me and no helmet to keep the rain out of my eyes. It was all an elaborate plan. You figured me right out, you sneaky devils.

I pulled over a few times to see if I could wait it out, but ultimately, you can't get more soaked than soaked; might as well get it over with. But yay! I have a new bike! It's called Turbo-something (couldn't read it properly through the sheets of rain) and I think I might be able to make the bouncy thing work for me. I gather it's a shocks system, and considering my sore butt, it's probably a good idea.

Education

I have gone on for too long! I realize that this is not normal. I have a problem. But everyone's been asking about school, so for those who want to know (and who like reading excessively long e-mails), it's pretty much as expected: teacherspeak and buzz words -- we are not students, but "pre-service teachers;" we do not make rules, but rather, "we grow children; we fertilize children" -- lots of touchy-feely and too many damn Canadians in the class, most of them sorority girls who are here because they couldn't get into teachers' college in Ontario. Not the cream of the crop, but then you don't really need the cream of the crop when your lectures are titled "What Makes a Good Teacher?" and "Why Do We Teach?" Apparently, all you need is people who feel totally comfortable saying "I think we should conversate," "our group was the first to presentate" and "between you and I," and who end most sentences with "and stuff like that."

Unfortunately, my Mexican friend dropped the course because her written English didn't meet the mark, but there are lots of friendly and nice people in my class, especially the Aussies. Our teacher for this course was really good, too: funny, smart, interesting and thoughtful. She never pretended the fluff was more than fluff, but she pulled some good ideas out of it and just made it all much more palatable than I expected. I'm not sure if she's teaching us again but I hope not, because I want to hang out with her and I don't want it to be a conflict of interest!

Next, we have a week of "Professional Development" workshops and field trips, then the official semester starts (which means other students -- not just our program -- will be on campus and all the uni activities will start) and I think there will be some useful stuff, preparing us for actual teaching. Lesson plans and subject-teaching, for example. And then, of course, we're in the schools, which is what it's all about. Kids are just so much better to hang out with than grown-ups, you know?

So I'm determined to make the most of this year and not expect my courses to be particularly stimulating. There are wallabies all over campus (small kangaroos -- amazing) and when it isn't raining, it's quite beautiful -- mountains in the background and gorgeous greenery everywhere -- so I'll have to remember that that's why I'm here and teachers' college is kind of crap by definition.

And I have a personal project, based on an epiphany I had during a time management/stress workshop. The presenter was telling us that there are those people who are super organized and need to know where they're going, and those who drift happily and will see where they're going when they get there. And I realized: I am a neat-freak and a compulsive list-maker -- I'll even add a to-do item after I've done it, just for the satisfaction of writing it down and checking it off. Presumably, if we follow the model, I am the type of person who needs to know where I'm going. But then, I have no idea where I'm going! I can't stop drifting, I'm never satisfied in one place, I don't know where I want to live or what I want to do. I compulsively need a plan, but I am unable to stick to one. No wonder I get panic attacks! Eureka!
I don't know how to fix the problem, but I feel that putting my finger on it was a key first step. Onward and upward.

Later, mates.

Kathryn


p.s. Here are the musical highlights of my ride to school:

By the golf course, to the tune of "Three Blind Mice"

Rich white men, rich white men.
See how they golf, see how they golf.
They don't bring their wives and I guess that's okay;
There isn't a more boring game you could play;
They all look the same and they're here every day, these
Rich white men.

In the forest, to my own tune:

The one-minute forest smells so nice:
Fresh and clean like springtime spice;
The one-minute forest's so green and lush --
I wish that I could feel my tush.

(It's fairly far into the ride...)

By the river, to the tune of "Down to the River to Pray"

As I ride down by the river to school --
Wearing ugly helmet, not so cool --
I see my future calves of steel; good Lord, show me the way.
Oh muscles, don't stop now -- don't stop now, no, you can't stop now.
Come on muscles, don't stop now,
Down by the river to school.

On McQueen St, to the tune of "Dancing Queen"

I'm on McQueen; I'm frankly no longer seventeen.
On McQueen -- no worse than other streets I've seen, oh yeah.
It's a sham, but here I am,
Learning the QCT Standards, [Queensland College of Teachers]
Oh, keep your head on the scene,
You're on Street McQueen.

And when I finally get on the university road, to the tune of "Day-O":

Home stretch, home stretch:
Almost there and I can't feel my ass.
Home -- me say home, me say home, me say home, me say home, me say home stretch:
Almost there and I can't feel my ass.

Get up early and I grab my bike. (almost there and I can't feel my ass.)
In my country we drive on the right! (almost there...)
So many cars have almost run me over. (almost there...)
I'm still alive thanks to my lucky clover. (almost there...)

A hideous bunch of juicy bruises, (almost there...)
While beside me, fast car cruises. (almost there...)

Home stretch, me say home stretch (almost there...)
Home -- me say say home, me say home, me say home...


When I'm on Queens Street I sing whatever Queen song comes to mind, usually "I Want to Ride My Bicycle," which is just so appropriate to what's going on in my life. Or "Fat-Bottomed Girls," also appropriate but in a less satisfying way. "We Are the Champions" has been overused and "Somebody to Love" just bums me out.

On the Townsville, Chapter One

Hey everyone,

I have arrived in Australia, safe and sound, and will answer all your e-mails in one swoop. (Limited internet time until my housemate's computer screen is up and running and I don't have to sit in cyber cafes that charge too much, which is currently the case.)

And so here begins the Australian series of Kathryn updates. If you are on this mailing list, it is because you have expressed interest in hearing my travel details; this may have been a mistake on your part and you must at no time feel obligated towards me or my rambling letters. If it's clogging your inbox, you just let me know. (Unless you're in my immediate family, in which case you can just suck it up; that's what family is for.)

For the record, from what I've seen so far, there probably won't be a lot to write about. I might have to resort to making things up to jazz up my life here, which is looking pretty farmy and low-key. Let's bring you up-to-date:

I have become obsessed with living in the tropics since Guadeloupe and decided to do my teachers' college in Australia, where it's warm and sunny all the time, rather than Toronto, where it is not. I chose Townsville because it is tropical and because James Cook University had the best information package of all the universities. And was the cheapest.

My trip over here was pretty crappy. My already-delayed Toronto-L.A. flight (ice on the wings) had to perform an emergency landing in Las Vegas when the man next to me, with whom I had spent the first half of the flight chatting, suffered something between a seizure and a stroke. Everyone was really grumbly and angry, since obviously it's very inconvenient to miss their next flight and why couldn't he have just waited and almost died once we'd landed, the inconsiderate bastard. (For my part, I was shaky and traumatized and nauseous for the next few hours and was ashamed to think how much my medically-competent brother would have handled the situation.)

Obviously, I missed my next flight, and since people who have no idea what they're talking about love to pretend that they are highly informed, I was sent from terminal to terminal and told that I had to be there at 4:00 a.m. when the Qantas counter opened for business. Needless to say, it opened at 2:00 p.m., so my night on a hard bench, freezing cold with the air-conditioning blasting on my face, turned out to be just for kicks.

But who cares, because I made it here, and the hours of sleeping in my seat and shivering through the night screwed up my internal clock and eliminated my jet lag. I am now right on schedule and am my usual sleepy -- but fun! -- self.

The house is beautiful: it's a Queenslander, which means that it's up on stilts and really open and full of windows. My housemate, whom I will call "Jenny," is really lovely, very open and easy-going and welcoming. The dogs I was so excited about are kind of stinky and loud, but apparently they kept a snake at bay a few nights ago, so I appreciate them in a very big way. The town seems pretty slow and boring so far, but I'm hoping that things will pick up when I start school and meet people who aren't exactly like the parents in Muriel's Wedding. (More people will probably show up if the rain ever stops -- the good news is that there's no drought in Townsville.) I have successfully activated my bank account and shopped for lots of good fruit and peanut butter -- I'd forgotten what it's like to not have Franck/Mom/Club Med cooking for me and I'm in kind of a panic. I would like to start making some big money so that I can just eat out. All the time. No exceptions.

As for my life at the beach, it turns out that: not so much. You see, most of this area is full of large and deadly - or small and deadlier - stingers (jellyfish, I gather), so you have to go to this one netted-off spot. This fits in nicely with the salt-water crocodiles that Barb and Pierre-Yves told me about the eve of my departure and the endless series of deadly snakes. (Incidentally, you'd be amazed how many things look like snakes when you're paranoid and walking alone; I keep breaking into a run and then realizing that it's just a piece of hose or tire or someone's flip-flop. If anything here kills me, it will undoubtedly be my own sissiness.)

Remember how my feet never smelled bad in Guadeloupe or DR, despite my living in sandals and walking everywhere? Turns out that's not the case this time around. As I just discovered, right here in the cyber cafe.

What else is there, let's see... well, I passed three dead bats on the side of the road on my way into town today. Bats whose bodies are about the size of giant water rats, which are also a famous feature of Townsville. I think you can imagine how pleased I am to discover that my one and only true phobia is here in double, including one that can FLY through the AIR and SUCK MY FACE OFF. I say, bring on the deadly snakes, and keep their bellies full of rodents. (Do I sound flippant? I am not flippant. I am terrified.) What I've decided is to just trust that everything will be okay and that night sounds -- such as whatever scrapes endlessly on the roof and whatever hisses outside the bathroom window -- should simply be ignored. If anything comes up, I'll deal with it then; I can't keep imagining the water rats and breaking out in panic rashes. Especially since I'm bloated and blotchy from the humidity to begin with and don't need extra uglies to add to my hideous "adjustment period." I must also trust that the rivers I walk by to get pretty much anywhere, and that are plastered with "Danger! -- Achtung! -- Crocodiles" signs, are only dangerous to swimmers. Jenny assured me that "those toothy buggas" never scamper up the bank for a snack, despite what I have seen on every nature show featuring crocodiles. (Townsville theme song: Never smile at a crododile, never tip your hat and stop to talk awhile...) She also claims that red-back spiders can only kill children and that they would never be somewhere that you use regularly, such as your bed. Definitely shake out your shoes and don't explore old cupboards with your hands, but other than that, no worries.

So what will this year be like? Hard to say. Possibly a terrifying nature adventure, most likely just low-key. I had planned to fall in love with a beautiful, dark-skinned marine biologist named Ben and begin a life of traveling from fantastic island to fantastic island, tracking the dolphins and recording manatee behaviour. I think, now, maybe, it won't happen that way. I guess I'll have to just roll with the punches and make friends with lots of big white guys named Bill.

I decided against risquee series titles (too many obvious Kathryn Goes Down variations) and couldn't think of anything cute with the Wizard of Oz, so On the Townsville it is.

It is quite pretty, the streets lined with palm trees, and when we went out for Thai my first night I found the main out-on-the-town strip really nice. So even if it's not quite what I expected, it's warm (bloody hot!) and nice and clean. I just need to get my hands on a bicycle to get around more easily, and then things will be much more interesting. And if not, Jenny has a giant tv with lots of channels, so I can just watch M*A*S*H* and rent movies and get a library membership and make it a year for introspection. Do a lot of crunches and work on my Spanish. You know, a Me year.

My project will be to spot a croc and send you a picture. Game on!

Hope things are good Up Over,

Kathryn

Kathryn Goes Republican, Chapter Nine

This is it, folks, the wrap-up. (There isn't really room for sentimentality in these updates, but if I sound cold then rest assured that I'm feeling excessively sad about having to say good-bye to the people I've come to love so much and I think the whole situation kind of sucks.)

FOOD

I have taken on a new position at Hotel Fun: I am the head of Market Research in the restaurant. It's not TECHNICALLY a real position here, I will admit. And no one else really knows about it. But I think it's an important job and I'm doing really good work and coming up with terrifically important results. I can tell you which is the best dessert each night (Tuesday's chocolate-coconut cake and Sunday's raspberry millefeuille go on to tie for first in the category of Overall Best Dessert) and how many chicken fried tacos is too many (three). I can tell you that guacamole and nacho chips is not, ultimately, your best choice for a pre-show dinner and that raspberry-geleed chicken may sound good but is actually dag-nasty. I can also tell you how much chocolate powder you need to add to a latte to make it drinkable by me, but I admit that there is little outside interest in that particular field of study. (Incidentally, the answer is two-and-a-half teaspoons, which makes the whole coffee-drinking activity rather pointless.)

Here's something else I learned, though I think everyone who set foot in the restaurant on August 1st has the same information: Swiss raclette is the single stinkiest thing on the planet. They had a big party for the national holiday and the whole restaurant and surrounding area smelled like a dead animal of some kind, combined with rotten feet and possibly poo. Unbelievable. And I spend a lot of time with a G.O. named Petit Suisse, as I translate the coffee game for him every afternoon (bar game that can be trivia, group Scrabble, name-that-tune...) and write out the sports activity board every evening. He was in charge of this Swiss dinner and I think he didn't wash all of his clothes that night, or he had carried the smell home with his bag, or I don't know – but the guy stank for three days and he kept giving me big thank-you-for-your-help hugs (which smell boozy and smoky to begin with) and spreading the smell. I would go into the bathroom and scrub all my exposed skin with gallons of soap, but I still had to leave early to go home because I couldn't stand it anymore and had to change out of my contaminated clothes.

I can also tell you that yoghurt grows on you. I don't like yoghurt, never have, but I'm a girl living in a tropical country and spending too much time in wet bathing suits, so I have to be careful. Eating yoghurt is the best way to get those good acidophilus bacteria cells into your stomach to fight off the bad ones, is what they say. (Why can't there be acidophilus in Nutella, hmm? How hard could it be to pull that off?) And so, motivated by my acute fear of yeast infections and following the prevention-not-correction theory, I've been eating yoghurt twice a day for the last month. It was a miserable beginning but I eventually found this mixed-berry one that was less awful than the others and started hiding a couple in my little Baby Corner fridge every morning. Sometimes it has lots and lots of fruit chunks in it, which I take as good omen for the day. (Sometimes it's just smooth, which is such a crushing disappointment that I have to pep-talk myself out of my inevitable berry-less slump.) And now I can't get enough of it. Plus, if I just tuck a yoghurt in my bag, I can leave the restaurant and eat somewhere quietly and I don't have to eat with G.M.s. Maybe that's why I suddenly like it so much, is because I associate it with solitude.

DISGUSTING PEOPLE IN MY LIFE

The assistant to the head chef in my restaurant is Halim. How can I describe him? I can't. He is revolting. He's slimy and creepy and just the way he looks at me is enough to bring vomit up in my throat. He's gross with pretty much all the women, but has taken a special shining to me – lucky girl – and is always after me. (Alas, there is nothing surprising in this, as the creepos have always come knocking on my door.) Whatever you're picturing, it isn't gross enough.

Meanwhile, my best buddy here was Raul, a chef who transferred from Ixtapa. He's super funny, kind of looks like a hedgehog – a Mexican hedgehog, which is even better – and helped me keep my sanity around jerks like Halim and the crazy head chef, Bayram. (I hope to meet really nice Turkish people soon because the five or six I know here are hideous and I am developing a serious prejudice.)

Raul obviously didn't get along with Halim, the one being a cute and funny hedgehog and the other being a power-hungry lunatic, and it only made it worse that the two of us were so close. Halim was unabashedly and publicly bitter, saying fantastically childish things like "well, if it isn't the lovebirds" when he'd see us talking and going on and on to the kitchen staff about how I really lowered my standards when I chose Raul. (He was convinced we were dating, obviously, as he is unaware that it's possible to be friends with a girl without constantly doing disgusting things with your tongue when she walks by.) We linked arms once in the kitchen area – where both of us work and are allowed to be, and away from all the food – and Halim freaked out and said "no more fooling around! There have to be limits!" and threatened to ban me from the kitchen if it happened again. (Oh no! Not be able to come and make eight different kinds of vegetable purees for all my asshole baby-parents? But it's my favourite part of the day! Please don't ban me from making purees!)

Needless to say, Raul got transferred to Turks and Caicos last week. Ultimately, it's better for him because a) any Hotel Fun is apparently better than here, and b) he's got a really good head chef and is happy with the move. (Except that his chiquita bombon isn't there.) (That's me.) And I'm leaving this week anyway, so while I am INCREDIBLY SAD to have to spend my last days without my favourite friend, I'm glad that he ended up with a better location. However. Halim now seems to think that, with Raul out of the way, the doors are open for him. His latest attempt at seduction was to show me (and the guys in the kitchen, whose names he doesn't know even though he's been their boss for eight months) how strong he is by putting his finger on the table and smashing it with a can of beans. I thought I was going to throw up, and that was before he said "and if my finger's this hard, just imagine the rest of me."

He's continued with his leering and lip-licking and other generally lewd behaviour (he can only go so far, as he has a warning from Bayram, with whom I issued a formal complaint – though that doesn't mean much because the only two people sleazier than Bayram are Abdel, who hates me, and Halim himself) but today was the first time he came right out and asked me on a date. He was alarmed that I'm leaving so soon and asked me to go to Mangu, the infamous local nightclub, with him. He said that he'd talk to Bayram and get me off of my morning restaurant shift so that we could stay out as late as we wanted. I couldn't help myself: I laughed so hard I had to lean against the wall for support – which he tentatively took as encouragement, possibly my being blown away by his charm and good looks, but then he understood that, as hell has not yet frozen over, I would not be attending Mangu in his company.

Then there's another kitchen person, Jocelyn, who arrived a few weeks ago and moved in to the room that shares my bathroom. The first day she smoked and I went to tell her that it came into my room and she'd have to stop. I was expecting a fight but she was all apologetic and said she wouldn't smoke in her room anymore, so I figured that was that. Except that she's just kept smoking, pretty much all the time. My room actually isn't too bad; I only smell it every once in a while. But the entrance, the toilet and the shower smell like a bar – what am I supposed to say to her? Isn't it kind of bizarre to say "oh, I'm so sorry! I had no idea! I'll stop right away" and then just keep doing it? I guess since I'm leaving so soon I'll just let it go, rather than issuing a complaint and getting the chefs de service involved. (They all smoke, without exception, so I don't know how helpful they'd be.) What's good is that now I don't owe her any respect, so I can play my music as loudly as I want and slam the door on my way out every morning at 6:50. Maybe I'm a coward, but it makes me feel better.

SPANISH

Meanwhile, I think it might not be so good that I'm learning my Spanish here. The conjugation is all weird and they make a lot of grammatical mistakes in a very casual way. They don't bother with "vosotros," but say "ustedes" for all second-person plural. And they aren't fussed about gender: they say things like "todo la vida," which I wrote last time because I'm used to hearing it, and when I doubted myself I asked Raul. He said of course it's "toda," but I've asked Dominicans since and they still go with the masculin. It seems to be that people can personally interpret grammar as they please, so you're just as likely to hear "tu estas" as "tu esta" and "tu estan." And don't even go near the past tense. I'm going to need to sit with a grammar book and undo all of the things I have in my head, in case I want to go to another Spanish-speaking country and don't want people to think I haven't learned anything.

Incidentally, the Quebecois are easy-going with gender and grammar as well. ("Je va voir," "Te-vas-tu au piscine?") It works in their accent because it's part of the deal, but I have to be careful not to be influenced by their funny words and stick them in my French, as in my accent it will sound: wrong.

ANIMALS

I have noticed an increasing number of rat traps around the back room of the restaurant, where I have to go all the time for my baby food and milk boxes. Sometimes the cheese has been nibbled; clearly the rat traps are highly effective. (I've suggested peanut butter but they're determined that rats only like cheese.) So now I have little waves of panic every time I open that door. Dios mio, please don't let me see a rat with my baby food.

And I have no problem with lizards or with their poo, which I understand is a necessary part of life. But the other day I pulled back my covers and there was a big lizard poo ON THE SHEET. Isn't that weird? I make the bed normally, as in tightly, and I can't imagine how or why a lizard would be crawling in the sheets and pooping. Maybe it was on the outside and bounced in when I moved the covers? Or maybe it was while I was sleeping and I didn't notice it while I made the bed – which is kind of weird, too. I like lizards. I don't need them crawling around my body while I'm sleeping.

VILLAGE LIFE

The chefs de service have bicycles, which is how you can tell them apart from the rest of us sorry bastards – that and their giant, giant heads. So the latest game in the village is bicycle-thieving – how funny is that? People steal a bike from outside of wherever it's parked and leave it somewhere on the other side of the village. It can't be easy because we all know who is and isn't supposed to be on a bike and if you get caught riding around, you're in big trouble. So kudos to whoever is clever enough (and juvenile enough, quite frankly) to be pulling this off.

Remember that tooth-sucking thing that Guadeloupans do to show you their displeasure? That thing that makes me want to stab my own eye out? It turns out that Haitians do it too.

I'm trying to take pictures of all the people I care about before I go, and I don't have a digital camera so each picture actually matters. (I know I have to specify because there are maybe two people reading this who still use a real camera – my problem would be easily solved if I could go home and erase everything I didn't want.) The thing is that people around here love being in pictures. If you take a picture of someone, someone else you don't even know will come over and ask for you to take one of them – why, exactly, I'm not sure. They'll never see it. I'll throw it out. But oh, they want me to take their picture. And they don't want to be in the group photo, either; they want a full-length shot, preferably leaning on a tree. So I have to be super crafty about it and isolate the person whose picture I really want. Also, if I ask someone to take one with me in it, I automatically have to take one of them - I've learned to just shut the lens cover and then "take the picture," which they don't notice but which has probably saved me a roll and a half so far.

French men: they're all about wearing a t-shirt and a cute pair of khaki shorts, looking all beachy and fun, and then loafers. Some with pennies in them. Why?

The other night, after the first few numbers of the Mini Club show, with six hundred children onstage, backstage and around the theatre and their bajillion family members in the audience, there was a power outage that lasted over thirty minutes. We couldn't let anyone leave because it was too dark and we had to wait it out – and ultimately went on with the show, which then ended after 11:00 p.m. – so I will just let you imagine the hell and chaos of that many children, pumped up on performance adrenaline and stuck in a hot theatre in the dark for half an hour. If ever I am sent to war, I will consider myself prepared.

The latest joke in the restaurant is to stand on someone's foot when you're both talking to a GM so they have to act like there's nothing wrong. It might only be funny because everyone's so tired and so sick to death of being eternally friendly to rude GMs, but no matter; it cracks me up. The foot-stander makes the conversation drag on as long as possible, which is in itself a difficult skill and very funny, and stands there, kind of swaying back and forth on the person's foot – hoo-wee. Hilarious.

Funny kids in the restaurant:

1. Two eight-year-old boys came up to me the other night and said "table for two, please" and then sat and had a quiet dinner together, like old friends. (I took away the wine bottle and one boy said "do you have any cognac?")

2. The restaurant entrances are always decorated to fit the dinner theme. On Tex-Mex night there's a whole sombrero-and-cactus scene, with hammocks, Mexican ponchos, stuffed iguanas and a sunset in the background. Last Wednesday I noticed that there was a boy standing in the middle of it all, leaning on one hip and alternately pointing a finger out at passers-by, finger-gun style, and taking a break to finish his ice cream cup. "What are you doing?" "I'm being a cowboy."

The camareros have said they're going to miss me when I go and asked for a picture of me that they can blow up into a life-size cardboard cut-out and prop up in the restaurant entrance/baby corner intersection where I stand for hours a day. I think it's the best idea ever and I'm trying to make it happen before I leave – though getting Abdel's "okay" might be tricky. One of the camareros said "but it won't be squishy like you" and I didn't know if that was a cute thing to say or just really, really irritating. Squishy. Hmf.


HARRY POTTER

I mentioned to my G.M. friend, John, that I was afraid some punk kid would casually give away who dies at the end before I'd had a chance to read it, as happened at drama camp for the last major death. So what did he order for me from Amazon when he went home? Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! Hooray!

I always read them in one sitting and was nervous about breaking it up and losing the precious Harry Potter atmosphere that I love so much, but it was actually fun to read in bits and pieces when I had time and have something to keep sneaking home to. I was halfway through when I had to do the circus show and I couldn't concentrate because I was obsessively thinking about horcruxes and hallows and duels to the death. I am pleased to report that exactly what I thought would happen is what happened. I am less pleased to report that she did a "nineteen years later" epilogue, which is the thing I hate most in books and movies. Don't give us a cheesy wrap-up, let us figure it out for ourselves. You know?

And I was greatly envied for having received the best on-record G.M. gift, but it only confirmed people's ridiculous idea that I am having an affair with a 50-year-old New Yorker who was here with his teen-age daughter. Though I also had someone ask me if it was true that I had had a fling with Abdoul and that's why we weren't on friendly terms anymore – what can you do. People will talk and it will be ridiculous.

PARENTS

Just something I learned about parents: they really are blinded by their love for their children. A kid was standing in the middle of the restaurant, staring into space and holding a chocolate-covered fruit-kebob without a plate or a napkin, while people bustled around him with their food. His mother saw me watching him – I was wondering if there was something wrong and I should go wake him up from his dream – and came over to tell me that he's quite a thoughtful boy, sensitive and even brilliant. And not because she's his mother, she assured me, but just because that's the way it is. ("Je constate, c'est tout.") Then she called him over and when he got to us, he saw some of the chocolate drip down onto his filthy, mud-caked sneaker. He bent over, wiped it off with his finger and ate it, too quickly for his mother to realize what he was doing or to stop him.

And there it was. I thought: I'm standing here with a total moron of a kid, a complete space cadet with no manners and no sense of hygiene, and his mother, witnessing the same behaviour, sees artistry and thoughtfulness verging on brilliance. There you have it.

CONCLUSION

I know it was long, but it's been a while and it's my last one. I'm trying to have the best time ever this week and I'm eating so much fruit I'm afraid I'm going to get sick. (I know how sad I'll be when I get home and the pineapple is twelve dollars a pound and pale yellow, not to mention the bitter mangoes. And can we even get papaya?) I'm also trying to spend as much time as possible with the people who have been so kind with me, these camareros that I love so much I find my heart aching when I think about it. And I know that there will never be any way to describe them without sounding predictable and cheesy - they were just so warm! - but they were so wonderful that I hope I'm able to pay it forward someday. Too bad the people in charge here are such royal asses, since there are so many good people but you're too pissed off and overworked to appreciate them.

Thanks for following along and see some of you soon,

Kathryn

Kathryn Goes Republican, Chapter Eight

I'm winding down my time here – leaving sometime this week-end or just after – and my list of "Things to Mention in my Update" is too long for me not to send out an e-mail. I think I will use subject headings because that makes the whole thing tidy and pleasing.

RIVER DAYS

We went back to the Maimon a couple of times, where I experienced the deepest peace and tranquility I have felt since my arrival in Punta Cana. Clear, warm, beautiful sun-sparkling water, good friends, mangoes and sugar cane to munch on – and not a GM in sight. Paradise. The only thing to slightly dampen the perfection of those days was the knowledge that they would soon be over.

I spent a lot of time working on my underwater handstands – which are now so good that it's downright suspicious how bad they are on dry land – and somersaulting back and forth, to the endless amusement of my friends. They are, it would seem, incapable of doing a somersault in the water, however clever or generally able-bodied they may be. The kids playing in the river also couldn't figure it out: they'd say "Katy, mira asi! Mira asi!" and kind of wiggle around a little under the water, then come spluttering up and ask me if that was it. Eventually I started saying "good! you did it!" because they were getting so disappointed. (Quote of the day from one of these boys: "Katy, are you a gringa?")

Yesterday we got to the Maimon and found that it was muddy and dirty, whereas the nearby Boca de Yuma was not, and at first I was sad not to spend my last day off in my favourite river. Then I went for a quick squat-and-pee in the long grass and only realized afterwards that the group of German tourists on the bridge could see me – and, indeed, several of them were watching me, interestingly enough – and I felt really uncomfortable and was only too happy to get back on the bike and boot it out of there.

And this time, I was the one driving! Emmanuel has been trying to get me to learn to drive since my first river day, and I keep saying no, I am perfectly happy to just hold tight and enjoy the ride. But the others go home early to catch the bus to work and he's right that I should know how to drive in an emergency, when it's just the two of us in the mountains.

(He bizarrely used the example of a bear attacking him and wounding his leg, though your chances of finding a bear in the Dominican Republic are almost as slim as your chances of finding a Dominican man who is faithful to his wife; don't count on it.)

So whenever we're on quiet roads – where there's no chance of somebody avoiding a pothole and driving straight towards us at top speed – I drive for a bit. It's never a very smooth ride, let's tell it like it is, but I get the job done. Bring on the bears.

We often stop in to play pool, though it's hard to know when they're going to be open because they don't even pretend to respect the hours of operation they've posted on the door. The neighbours sitting around don't tend to have much information, but will talk you in circles about the fact that yes, sometimes it's open, and you should come back, we have no idea when. (Carlos: "Sometimes I hate Dominicans.") My biggest challenge is figuring out how to say "wow, I can't play billiards for shit" in Spanish – no luck so far.


We also stop in every week for a visit with Emmanuel's family, including a bunch of children who are so excited by arrival that they run around, jump off of the fence, hide their faces, come up and throw themselves in my arms and then run off screaming and giggling – it’s wild. Apparently they talk about me all week and are so worked up by Monday afternoon that they just sit outside the house and watch the road, waiting for us to arrive. And then they're terrified of me! Only one girl has the courage to talk to me, though she can hardly answer my questions through her uncontrollable giggling. One little boy was so excited yesterday that he peed. Wild.

Emmanuel takes a different route back to Higuey each time to show me the countryside, on dirt-and-rock roads that make for a bumpy, if beautiful, ride. He has suggested that I shouldn't complain about getting a free bum massage. (I'm always pleased when bums come up in conversation, since they're called "pompi" and it's my favourite word here. I try to talk about bums as much as possible.) Yesterday's ride was the roughest yet and at one point I think I almost died: I accidentally chose to let go of Emmanuel and root through my bag at the exact moment that we bounced through a giant hole and bucked up on the other side. I flew up so high off the motorcycle I almost didn't land back on it – what can I say, I needed some lip balm – and when I did land, I can assure you that I felt it. As did my pompi.

The bus ride home was long and difficult, as there was some kind of strike action over making the bridge wider. It involved machine-gun-toting police and excited cameramen (giggling as they ran along with the crowds), as well as some kind of spray that the protestors were getting in people's eyes (especially in the eyes of other protestors; this group seemed to be lacking in organization). We sat dead still at one point for almost thirty minutes, which is an eternity when you're on a packed bus, in the afternoon sun, with the windows shut against the mystery spray and the rocks being thrown at said bus, with a hot child on your lap because there's no space anywhere. And as far as I could see, they were doing construction on the bridge to make it wider. Why all the fuss?

STUPID BABYSITTERS

We have crazy, impossible parents here – I won't even go into it – and had to hire extra babysitters because so many families want full-time care. (Hotel Fun parents don't actually like their kids and have no intention of spending any time with them: when mini-club is over for the day, they have a babysitter waiting at the hotel room.) The babysitters we already had are awesome, really sweet girls, smart and capable. (They're the ones in the picture.) I assumed the newly-hired ones would be the same, but have had so many problems since they arrived that I wonder if there's any point in their being here.

One girl stands out as being even dumber than the others, the one who couldn't figure out on the schedule if she had to come in at 7:30 a.m. or p.m. (This is a regular work-hours schedule, a chart with the sitters' names at the top and the hours down the side, starting at 8:00 a.m. and moving down the page until 1:00 a.m. I put a square where they're working and write the hours again, but apparently that's not enough for Fiordalisa, who didn't know what I meant by 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. – that's the kind of understanding we're dealing with here.)

I write their next day's schedule on a paper for them to take from the binder so that I won't have to call them, and I've started bringing it into the restaurant with me because I always see them in the Baby Corner at dinner. On Sunday I saw Fiordalisa and told her that I had her paper and to come get it when I got back with the baby food, unless she missed me, in which case I would put it back in the binder. Seems simple enough.

I didn't see her, I figured everything was okay. Then, at the end of the circus show, when I was at the front of the stage, in the spotlight, in front of our 600-person audience, wearing my nightgown, with Bazz taking my hand to lead me back to sleep – CLEARLY in the middle of something – I felt someone tapping my leg and saying "psst, Katy!" Would you like to guess who it was? Why, Fiordalisa, of course, looking for her paper. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: Hotel Fun.

Kathryn

Kathryn Goes Republican, Chapter Seven

I have today off and decided to just stay in the village and sleep, which means that I am both enormously refreshed and severely depressed. Staying here on your day off is a bad idea. I have a buddy this week, though, a funny New Yorker who's here with his daughter – and whom everybody thinks I'm dating, which is so widely impossible that I can't even defend myself – so I'll be able to stomach my GM contact over dinner, as I'll go to our usual table for two and hear the latest in the news and whatever stories about his father's Greek restaurant he feels like telling. (He's leaving tomorrow and has been really fun to hang out with, so I feel generous with my free time for a change.)

I'm looking forward to getting back on track with my Day-Off-Local-Adventure next week, though, as they are so much more fun than anything I can think of to do in the village. Two weeks ago the boys took me to another river – this one with both rapids and giant, calm pools – and I knew it would be a good day when I got off the bus in the morning, turned around and saw the four of them pulling in to meet me on their motorcycles, Swingers-style. (For any of you who don't know what I mean, I won't describe it because you really should have seen Swingers by now.)

We started with a thorough tour of the city, stopping at the houses of various friends and family members so that I could be paraded around, their prize foreign girl – and they all love the Blue Jays, which makes them the only people I've met here who aren't hostile about Toronto – until we finally busted out onto the curvy mountain roads, stopping a few times to pick fruit or say hello to the cows on our way to the river.


Having initially been terrified of anything to do with motorcycles and my being on them, I am pleased to report that I am a bike convert and want nothing more than to spend all my days riding around the mountains, preferably with a long scarf so that I can stream it out behind me, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert-style. (Again, I won't explain further; see "Swingers," above.) That being said, it took me a while to get completely comfortable, as illustrated by how quickly I earned the nickname "Watch-the-Road!", inspired by the boys pulling up beside me to say nice things or make funny faces, which I JUST don't think is appropriate behaviour when you're on a quickly-moving vehicle.

To be fair, though, we were never moving that quickly. I rode up to the river with Emmanuel, who was extra careful to keep his speed down, to the point where the others had to keep pulling over to wait for us – the mango and cow stops, you see, being only because they had nothing better to do. Sometimes he would speed up a little tiny bit – he must have been losing his mind with frustration! – or swerve to avoid a pothole, and once he told me that he was torn between wanting me to feel safe and secure and wanting me to get a little scared so that I'd hold him more tightly. Cheeky!

Then, when I rode back to Higuey with Dujaric, who is shorter than Emmanuel and over whose shoulder I could see the speedometer, I saw that when I felt that we were going unreasonably quickly, we were actually moving slowly towards sixty – which means that Emmanuel must have been driving at approximately twenty-three kilometres an hour and our forty-five-minute drive to the river should have taken eleven minutes, including the mango and cow stops. Sorry, boys.

There was too much rain to go to the river last week – all dirty and super-fast-current – so I went into town a little later and met up with Dujaric, who has the same day off as I do. (The others just come out for the morning and then head back for the 2:30 bus to the hotel for their afternoon/night shift.) He took me out to the country to one of his favourite beaches, only on the way we stopped in at the houses of all his relatives and friends. My favourite thing was how the women always said "oh, a skinny blond!" (which, I'm sorry to say, is just not true!) and then asked me how many Dominicans I'd slept with because they wanted to know if sex really was better with their men than ours. (Awkward silence ensues...)

When I couldn't take being stared at any longer, we drove out to the beach. It was pretty wild, like the Guadeloupan beaches with mountains in the background that I loved so much, and dark packing sand, perfect for being buried alive. I think we literally spent two hours burying and unburying each other. (I also had the stupid idea that we should rub sand into our skin as a natural exfoliant, and five days later I'm still finding the grains in my clothes at the end of the day. And my skin doesn't feel any softer, for the record.)


We spent so much time buried up to our necks that we suddenly realized it was almost 5:00 and I was going to miss the last bus back to Punta Cana, so we booted it back to the city – and I loved it! It turns out I'm a speed demon! I needed to get past the shaky part, where I think maybe I'm scared, to realize that I'm not scared at all and I want to go faster, faster, faster. (No, Katy, says Dujaric, this is plenty fast enough.) And everything is just so green and lush, fertile and natural, which inspired the unlikely song loop of "To Life, To Life, L'chai-im" in my head for the entire ride home. Driving past the green pastures ("to us and our good fortune...") and through towns full of people sitting outside of their houses to watch us go by ("be happy, be healthy – LONG LIFE!"), I came to realize that this was actually the perfect soundtrack for this moment in my life ("and if our good fortune never comes, here's to whatever comes") and frankly, it's a shame that more Russian Jews didn't think to settle in the Dominican Republic in the first place. What a missed opportunity.

I had a couple of moments of significant self-doubt when Dujaric dropped me off at the bus, as I realized my Spanish isn't always so hot after all. First, an old lady was literally yelling and yelling at me – I thought because she was telling me that she really liked my dress, but it turned out that the dress had blown up on the bike and everyone could see my underwear. Ahem. Then I was moved by a man's pity speech on the bus and gave him money for the students he was organizing on some kind of a trip, not realizing that I was actually purchasing about five kilos of smelly chicken wraps that he insisted on my taking and which I had to hold on my lap the whole way home.

As for work, things here are the same.

-Baby Welcome: sucks.

-Circus show: I still look like an ANGEL.

-Yoga: a yoga instructor from California came to thank me for the ideas I gave her for her course – and then asked me about my qualifications and where I had learned those moves and I had to tell her that I came up with them based on my sore calf muscles and the stretching that I was in the mood for and that I have zero qualifications as a yoga instructor but took dance classes a long time ago... And you know what? She was okay with that.

-Health: I had been playing soccer three or four times a week for a while – there's a G.O. vs. G.M. game every day – but it stopped being fun when all these young Italians came and turned it into a France/Italy World Cup rematch; the mood has been spoiled ever since. (That first game, incidentally, ended with three injuries, including a split head that the guy refused to have stitched up. I know this because, as the only girl, I was sent to the infirmary with him even though I don't speak Italian and he was a son-of-a-bitch whom I had no intention of helping in any way. Because girls take care of split heads while boys keep playing soccer – case in point of how it stopped being any fun.) It also stopped being good exercise, as I ended up stuck in the net for forty of the fifty minutes and the whole notion of "fitness challenge" disappeared. So, despite the fun fact that the G.O.s had started calling me "Pele," I abandoned el futbol and started doing the Body Sculpt and Pilates classes a few times a week and I don't know if it's making much difference, but I definitely have a harder time doing the yoga class when my butt muscles are too stiff for me to quite sit down properly. We'll see how it goes.

-Snorkeling: I did it a second time and got sea-sick again, which seems to indicate that it was never a question of having been sick and dehydrated, but rather just a question of my body not handling boats very well. Good thing I discovered motorcycles in time to cancel out my disappointment!

-My identity: first, Katy in French is "Kah-TEE" (and in Spanish "KAH-tee"), so when people say my name in English it becomes "catty" and I'm just not a fan. Second, a significant number of the camareros have this funny speech thing where they add "s" all over the place – even though Dominicans in general cut them all out and it's hard to figure out what's going on. So "como tu estas" (how are you) becomes "como-tu-ta" in Dominican and then this special group says "como stu ta." This means that "catamaran" becomes "castamaran," "toda la vida" becomes "stoda la vida" and "Katy" becomes "Kasty." There is no one called Kasty here, so I always know it's me, but it has morphed into "Castille" for some of the guests who heard the camareros talking to me and misunderstood what they were hearing. Two G.M.s have now sent letters to Hotel Fun to say that Castille at the restaurant was really helpful and made their stay more enjoyable. (They couldn't figure out who the first letter was talking about, but then the second one mentioned babies and it all came together.) So someone posted the letter on our G.O. notice board and now everyone calls me "Castille." Or "Pele," or "Watch the Road!" or "Katy Judiciaire" (Judge Katy, from my anger at their homophobic comments or their sexist talk or their general xenophobia.)

And I guess that's it, since this e-mail is much, much longer than I had planned. It turns out it's a good thing when people are in the office watching me type because I feel guilty and cut it off really quickly; tonight there's no one here and apparently I can't shut up.

I hope things are going well for you all.
See you soon,
Kasthryn