Day 8

GUAM

Feeding the piggies

Talofofo Falls

Aaaarrr

A day at the beach.

You'll have to ask Patrick and Natalie what they were laughing about...

Sigh of Relief

Managaha Island

The house is a disaster, my clients must hate me, and I'm shy two full nights of precious sleep, but I'm happy to say that Girls Camp is now a thing of the past. It may not have been seamless, but I feel good about how it turned out.

Fortunately, I have the best group of girls in the entire world, and if this camp can, in any way, be considered a success, it's entirely because of those girls. I never heard them complain once, and they were all so anxious to help.

The highlights for me were:

1. Just sitting with the girls while they sang/harmonized and Elisa played the uke, several songs of which I'd never even heard before.

Singing on the ferry back to Saipan

2. Watching them interact with each other. It didn't matter if they were 12 years old or 18 years old, everyone got along beautifully.

3. The testimony meeting. Maybe it's cliche, but it really was my favorite part, and hopefully the girls feel the same. Before camp, I was concerned about how to make Girls Camp a spiritual uplift. I know that's kind of the point, but I didn't want it to be forced or contrived so I tried to keep it simple. Our theme was "Like the Stars" so we designed several tea light star lanterns and arranged them and ourselves in a large circle on the beach (no bon fires allowed). Then, before the testimonies, we all just laid back on the sand under the huge expanse of stars and sky and listened to the ocean waves and a few songs from the Jenny Phillip's CD, Steadfast and Immovable.

Another highlight that the girls are still talking about was our extremely successful "snipe hunt". As you may know, snipes are attracted to toothpaste so each of the girls had to put toothpaste on their face, while the snipes (large, violent birds) made obnoxious noises and threw rocks at us.



I also enjoyed watching them do all of the cool things that you can only do on an island (and certainly not in Idaho), like...

...find bright blue starfish...

...snorkel...

...play in the ocean...

...play beach volleyball...

...bury yourself in the sand...

...check out exotic sea life (you can't see it in this shot, but they were looking at a poisonous sea cucumber)...

...sit on the dock and watch black tip sharks swim beneathe you (4 to be exact)...

...break open coconuts and drink the milk...

...climb coconut trees...




...wash your dishes on the beach...
...and wake up to this!...
All in all, it was a pretty cool experience. No camp experience would be complete, however, without a little bit of drama. Ours came in the form of pouring down rain, both mornings. Lucky me, I was sleeping in Eric's tiny hiker's tent and, genius that I am, I forgot to bring a blanket and pillow. I used my towel as a pillow, and I was fine without a blanket the first night; in fact, I was hot, but the 2nd night I rolled into a puddle and had to sleep in wet clothes with nothing but a damp towel as a blanket. After a while, I couldn't take it any more so I squirmed into some dry clothes (which isn't easy to do in a compact tent that's maybe 3' high at the highest point and only about as wide as I am if you take the puddle into account). Then, I blanketed myself with about 4 articles of dry clothing. I'm guessing I looked a little silly, but at least I managed to warm up and fall asleep after that.
Now I get to go snuggle up in a nice soft bed and sleep peacefully.

Day 1

We flew into Bali pretty late and didn't check into our hotel until about midnight. Then, we woke up bright and early the next morning to go whitewater rafting - through a rainforest - surrounded by waterfalls and amazing wall carvings. We also made 2 new friends - the Russian couple sitting in front of us. They didn't speak any English, but they still managed to make us laugh. He fell into my lap a couple of times, and she fell into Eric's a couple of times. I've never seen a man look so tough with a lifejacket, goofy helmet, cigarette and speedo.

The food in Bali is fantastic! And so cheap! You can buy a meal for less than $5. Just beware of "Bali belly". We also learned that we need to beware of the money changers. They're sneaky. I'd actually read about them before our trip and intended to only use the ATMs, but we thought it might be safe at the airport. It wasn't! Once we got the money sorted, however, it was pretty cool to be millionaires. $100USD is almost $1,000,000Rp.

Funny story about these nails. You may have heard about the Bali street markets where they sell all sorts of knock offs for next to nothing (after a bit of bartering). Well, I was doing a great job of avoiding the sales pitches until I was physically abducted by a small Balinese woman. She grabbed my hand and literally yanked me into her shop as I was pulling against her, saying, "No thanks", "No money" repeatedly. She kept answering with "No problem. Don't worry about it." Then she tied a bracelet on my wrist and proceeded to paint my nails without so much as asking me what color I'd like. In the meantime, she sent her daughter running after Eric . After she finished the first finger, I said, "Wow, that looks nice, but we really don't have any money, and we need to go." To her response yet again, "Don't worry about it." So when she finally finished my nails (and her daughter finished Eric's), we decided we would give them maybe a couple of bucks, $5 max (which is what they charge at the Spas there), but she started insisting on 600,000Rp which is almost $60! I was not happy with that woman. She was entirely dishonest, and I was tempted to walk out and not pay her a dime, but Eric is a kinder person than I am. I think we gave them $10 and walked away. Then, I had to spend another couple of bucks to buy nail polish remover.

The beaches in Bali are cool - lots of surf boards and big waves - but, they're also really dirty. There was tons of trash, in huge piles, all along the beach and even some in the water.

We did it!

I think a lot of people questioned our sanity a bit when we decided to move to a mysterious island that was over 7,000 miles from anything familiar - especially since Eric hadn't even passed the bar yet. Thankfully, as most of you know, we've been really blessed by our decision to move here, and of course Eric passed the bar! Not only that, but he loves his job as a supreme court clerk for Justice Manglona.

For those of you who don't know, Saipan is among the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (in Micronesia). If you've heard of it, you're probably a WWII buff. The area was secured by the Americans from the Japanese in the Battle of Saipan in 1944.

You may have heard of the Mariana Trench which isn't too far from us. Apparently, it's the deepest location on the surface of the Earth's crust!

That's a scary thought considering that we're surrounded by ocean on all sides, and Saipan is only 12 mls long x 5 mls wide. I hope we don't get sucked into the Mariana Trench! :)