Sweating around

The first days of this week, it was raining a lot a lot still. So we were inside a lot, baking ‘kruidnoten’, watching movies, doing inside work (Anthony and his dad renovated the kitchen tiles) and having a take-away lunch twice (on Friday with a ‘special’; lasagna).

But, on Saturday, the weather decided to get sunny and shiny. So we had a barbeque, roasting chicken and potatoes. I collected some wood on the hill and made a classy slip, causing me to be covered in red mud.

Due to the good weather, we finally were able to do some more hard work outside. Anthony and his dad moved a huge stone for making a wall. It took them about an hour to move it 10 metres and placing it right. Imagine how heavy it was.
Done by the container, we are going to lift a piece of ground, to make a working place. Therefore we collected big lumps and little lumps of stone. Every time lifting a stone brought a surprise: what will be underneath? Red crabs, cockroaches, beetles, frogs, caterpillars, gold? We’ve been using some serious tools like the machete, chainsaw and hoe. With those things we’ve been aggressively chopping away bush and pieces of stone. We also took away lots of trees to make the sight even more beautiful. Then we sorted out firewood from garbage-wood in the burning sun. We all had a very good sweat =D.

After the hard work, we went to Beach Combers(hotel where they have nice drinks). But a cruise ship had landed, and the whole beach was full of people. So we amused ourselves by watching spoiled, stressed tourists in local boats which were almost bumping into each other. When they were gone again, we went to the hotel, having some drinks, fries and our first cocktail: Pina Colada!

Also, we’ve been chilling around with Roganne a lot lately. He’s the little 6-year old son from a friend of Roger. He helps us noticing all boats passing by, by calling your name and saying ‘a boat’ or ‘express’ Every Time a boat passes by(there are lots of boats passing by, Every Day). He helps us finishing candies. He helped us dragging firewood up. And he watched ‘Sint’ with us…He loves chatting with us when we are having breakfast. And just trying to wake up. And he loves telling interesting stories about swimming to a rock in the sea and jumping off of it. He’s funny.

I went with Anneke to the shop, and when we came back, a man was selling mango’s (10 for 5 ECI =€1,50) and then he gave us free fig banana’s and a ‘box’(also known as ’boom’ ;)). They are really tiny but looked really ripe. So enthusiastically we took a bite, tasted it, and our mouth got really dry, as if we had eaten flour. We ran outside and spit it out. But as weird as it is, they ARE supposed to taste like that.

Anneke’s birthday was on Sunday and we baked her a carrot cake. It was the nicest one we ever made. Orange, decorated with raisins and coloured fruits, and on top, a nice layer of creamy creamcheese frosting! And the nicest part: this was the first time the gas oven finally worked well. The top was just fine and the cake was nicely done!

Sinterklaas’ birthday was on Monday, but he’d forgotten us this year, so we made our Sinterklaas day nice ourselves. We went to the sea and we saw lots of fish, surrounding us, and even a seasnake. In the evening we had pancakes for dinner and baked a rumcake, with a nice rum-icing.

As for the fauna:
My sandfly bites have been upgraded into mosquito bites.
We saw ants eating a baby lizard.
One morning I woke up and saw a lizard in our mosquito net. But this time, it was INSIDE. After some failure catching, we got it out. Such an animal feels really strange, like a ‘klittebandplant’. Then I went outside with my laptop, and a lizard all of sudden jumped on my foot and then he moved to my laptop. Lizards look like catdogs.
I’ve been experiencing sealice for the first time in my life. I was taking a swim when all of a sudden I felt a kind of needle stinging in my hand. We’ve been stabbed for some more time than one. Fortunately the stinging feeling is the only thing the animal does. You do not really get an itch or anything from it afterwards.
Dear Baxter really loves walking with us. When we went to Beach Comber, he walked with us. Then we passed Dog’s Hell; first Pittbulls, then Rottweilers, followed by Jack-Russel-alikes and also a Bull-Mastiff. All growling and barking to our pack-member. I was just telling how happy I was people fenced their gardens so well, when we saw an escaped dog. Fortunately all ended very okay. Baxter had decided to walk back home on his own, and when we passed later, all dogs where gone already. He’s a very very tough dog, Baxies, but when it comes to sea, he’s very very frightened. This shows again how very loyal he his though. Cause when we went for a swim, and he went with us again, he sat next to our bag the whole time while we were in sea. He was only removed from the water half a metre. Also we were swimming in all directions. Everytime we looked at Baxter, his eyes were on us. Just keeping track.

By the way, Anthony turns out to be a very, Very good American Pancake-baker. We had American pancakes for breakfast already twice. Together with butter and syrup hmmm! I’d say: come and taste!