Work: To be serious, I have been loving my job as always. There is always a new puzzle to solve, a friendship to save, or something to boggle my mind. (Cue the cat with 12 pony-tails that we pulled out of his gut recently). I love it!! I will spare you all the gory details of my day-to-day, and suffice it to say that we have kept very busy, and that there could be no more perfect job for me in the world! (if you are interested in the gory details, just look through previous posts...I have lots of stuff about work on here :)
Eating: Not nearly as healthy as it should be - though I am working on that. I have recently discovered a love for curries. Went to a little restaurant the other night with a couple girl friends and had a really delicious curry there! I want to learn how to make it from scratch! yumm :) My other new favorite is Pineapple. My whole life, I have had a distinct dislike for Pineapple. I thought it was tart, and oddly flavored. Never liked it...until now!! My new favorite obsession.
Sleep: Not nearly as much as it should be - but I am working on it! It doesn't help that almost the only time I ever see my roommate is at 11:00 at night, when we need to catch up on the last 4 days that we haven't seen each other. It's a vicious cycle.
Repeat: self-explanatory I think.
Relief Society: Busy! Being the Relief Society President of my singles ward has been both more rewarding, and more stressful than I ever would have imagined! I have loved getting to know the girls in my ward on a deeper level, and helping them in whatever ways they need. I have had so many opportunities to serve them, and it only helps me love them more. I never realized how much you can love someone who you barely even know, or perhaps have never even met. We have a girl who is investigating the church right now, and she is awesome! She came to church for the very first time on Sunday, and then came over for dinner/games that night. I have never actually been a part of teaching someone the Gospel, and I am very excited about this chance to help her come to a knowledge and understanding of our Father in Heaven, and His wonderful plan of happiness for ALL of us! She had her first formal discussion with the missionaries at my house, and it was really a great experience for all of us there. To remember the very core things about our Church, and to feel that Spirit all over again testifying of truth, I loved it and I can't wait for the next discussion! I can see why missionary work can be so addicting!
Social Life: I think the best word to describe this is Butterflies. I have been making lots of new friends lately, which is awesome! I am starting to feel like my old "social butterfly" self lately, a part of me that I have been craving for awhile now. We had 9 people over for games on Sunday, it was so fun!
But, I suppose that it is time to share some experiences with you all, of the Biggest, Grandest Adventure EVER!!! For those of you that aren't aware, I recently took a 6 week trip to volunteer at a non-profit vet clinic on the beautiful tropical island of Rarotonga. This is part of the Cook Islands. Where is that you say? Well, find Hawaii on a map, then go straight south. It's almost perpendicular to Fiji, slightly more south. You won't see it unless you zoom in. It is a cluster of 13 islands, some of them the most remote islands in the world. The main island is called Rarotonga, where I spent the duration of my trip. It is beautiful there. Period. So small, so remote, so clean, so laid back, with more colors than you can imagine. The weather was perfect, the sand was perfect, the fish...gorgeous! and friendly! The water, slightly colder than luke warm and always pleasant and refreshing! Whether it was 6:00 in the morning, or 10:00 at night. I loved everything about this place, and I dearly hope to go back again someday. In so many ways, this trip changed my life.
I barely know where to start! How about accommodations? I volunteered through an organization called The Esther Honey Foundation. Hereafter referred to as 'the clinic', 'EHF', or 'the Honies', a common nickname for us with the locals. It is a permanent veterinary clinic that offers animal care at no charge to the residents of the Island. However, donations are requested, and accepted gratefully from the generous people that live there. The clinic where I lived and worked was a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom house with an outbuilding and a shed that served as our hospital and animal shelter combined. For the majority of my stay there were 8 volunteers living in the house, and 3 others who had other accommodations. The least amount we had was 5. There was minimal hot water - you had about 12 seconds of warm water in the shower on a good day. I hated it at the beginning, but by the end of the 6 weeks I hardly noticed the cold water. In fact, I *almost* came to enjoy it because of being so hot and sticky throughout the day. About 3 weeks in, we started running out of water at the clinic because there was a bit of a drought going on. It was supposed to be the rainy season, and there wasn't much. Sometimes there was no water pressure at all, and we had to go shower down at the beach or go without. About a 20min walk down the road is a very nice resort, whose general manager, Alex, is friendly with those who run the clinic. He offered the free use of his resort to volunteers - it was heavenly! There was a guest shower with hot water and lots of pressure, as well as a beach-side restaurant, infinity pool, and lots of hammocks and sun chairs. It was the place of choice for a lazy day off! Often we would go as a group after work for sunset cocktails, and just to chill after a long, hot day. (of course, I did not consume any alcohol on this trip. There were plenty of mocktail menus, fruity smoothies, or I just got soda or something without alcohol. Just to clarify :)
Every Monday night, we would go to Hash. They are part of the Hash House Harriers, an international group of non-competitive social running clubs. It was really fun! Every week was a different trail that we would run, sometimes on the road, sometimes down the beach, but mostly on the fringes of the forest (jungle?). I don't think I made it a single week without losing the trail and getting "lost"...and my group just wandering back to where we started after awhile. Lol, let's just say, little handfuls of shredded paper dropped on the side of the road don't make the best trail markers... But it was a good way to get out and exercise and see the island, as well as meet some of the locals!
My days were filled with lots of work, at least 8 hours a day for a 40-50 hour work week. Depending on how busy we were and how many after hour emergencies we saw...which wasn't that many while I was there. Our case load was probably 80% dogs and cats, 20% goats, pigs, and cows. I could fill up pages and pages of experiences, cases I saw, things I learned and animals I fell in love with. I won't go into that much detail, because if I start I won't be able to stop :) But I loved being the only technician there. All the others were vets with varying degrees of experience, from new grads to may years of experience. I got to be in on almost all the surgeries I wanted to, and got to do lots and lots of nursing care. We saw quite a few cases of fish poisoning, which takes weeks of intensive care to heal. Lots and LOTS of broken bones from being hit by cars. Lots of dogs had multiple breaks. Probably the best thing, was doing the hydro-therapy treatments! Since we conveniently lived right across the street from the beach, we would take the dogs that were on cage rest down to the beach and get them some exercise in the water. We had TONS of orphans, puppies and kittens that were brought to us. Some of them only a few days old. In my first week there, I took under my wing a little 1-2 day old kitten and tried to hand rear him. He did super good for about a week, then one day he just couldn't make it any more. It was so sad, I cried. I had become so fond of this sweet little kitten that I had fed every 2 hours for a week. From the way he would squeal and scream for his food, and then snuggle into my neck when he was full. Sometimes, I am a glutton for punishment I think. After that, I tried not get as attached to our patients, but there were a few that still stole my heart :)
I think the very worst part, my least favorite of all was laundry. This chore was NEVER. ENDING. Often times, we had from 10-20 dogs in our care, and depending on how many litters of kittens, anywhere from 15-30 cats at a time, with 3-5 surgeries or more in a day. This makes for LOTS of laundry. Our washer was smaller than your typical household washers so we had to run small, constant loads. We had no dryer, everything was hung out to dry. Including our underwear, haha. This got extremely challenging as we started running out of water. I remember we had i think 3 days of no running water, and the laundry pile was as tall as I am. (No short jokes, please. No matter how tall I am, that's still an impressive amount of laundry) It took a week to get caught back up on it.
The landscape was picturesque. I went to church with one of the three local LDS branches on the island, and made friends with one of the members. His name was Nooroa, and he was kind of enough to show me around the island, as well as cook me a few local meals. Everyone at the clinic called him 'my fruit man/buddy' because at least once a week he would bring me giant bags of fruit from his garden and orchards. He is a farmer, like most people there, and has a papaya orchard, as well as a guava, avocado, and mango tree. I tell you, guava picked fresh off the tree is the most delicious thing ever. I think the most interesting fruit I ate there was called a mene-mene. Prounounced 'mini-mini'. It is about the size of a quarter, and round and ribbed like a perfect miniature pumpkin would look. Red like a tomato, or bell pepper and had a completely distinctive taste that's hard to describe. Slightly acidic like a tomato, but much sweeter. Worst thing I ate there...I think has to be the Noni fruit. I had seen them all over the place, and picked one up at hash one night. One of the locals with me told me to eat it, that they are delicious. 2nd worst prank ever. Try eating the most un-ripe union of an apple and a lemon you can think of. So then, after he had his laugh, he noticed a scrape on my foot and told me that the Noni juice is known for its healing properties. (which is true, and I had heard many times before) so he told me to squeeze some of the juice onto my cut, and that it would be cured by morning. So slightly skeptical me does as he says. Worst. Prank. Ever. It stung so bad, I almost screamed. And for about 30 minutes, I could hardly walk on my foot. But, I have to say, that in the morning it was greatly improved - Still would never do it again.
There are many places to go hiking on the island. It is one of the Island's main attractions and charms. From the beautiful lofty 'mountain' tops (i use the word mountain loosely) You can see forever to the horizon of the ocean. I was never brave enough to go watch a sunset from the top, because many of the paths are a bit perilous, and involve climbing up cliffs or steep muddy inclines with the use of ropes to get you up. It is a sight the likes of which I have never seen, pictures do not do it justice. In the absolute silence up there, besides the distant, constant, breaking of the waves is one of the most peaceful feelings I have ever had. It took me awhile to get used to not hearing the waves after I came back, because no matter where you were, you could always hear it. The 3 main hikes that I did were Rae'maru, Te Ko'u, and Te Manga. Nooroa took me up Rae'maru, and a couple other volunteers and I conquered Te Ko'u and on my very last day there, Alex took me and a couple others up Te Manga, the highest peak on the island. I kinda wish we would have gotten lost, and I would have had a good excuse for missing my flight back home. I would love to have had more time on the island.
Blackrock is my new happy place. So fun fact, the movie 'The Other Side of Heaven' that is set in Tonga, was actually filmed on Rarotonga. If you watch it, the main baptism scene where they are all sitting around on a giant black rock, and getting baptised down below...that rock is about a 5 min walk from where I lived. And it has a super original name. I went there at least 4 nights a week to watch the lovely sunset. It wasn't until I had about 2 weeks left that Alex (the manager of the resort, and also good personal friends with the Honies) and I realized that we were both watching the sunsets at the same place, just on different sides of the rock. So that became our evening gathering place. He had a satellite tracking app on his phone, that wouIld tell us when a specific satellite was going to be visible. It was exciting to watch it soar across the sky, melting into the wondrous spread of stars. Often times other volunteers would come for a bit as well, but I usually stayed well after the sun went down, just taking some quiet time to myself. I contemplated many things, the greatness, majesty, and power of God to have created something so incredible beautiful in every detail. The magnitude, and vastness of the ocean that separated me from the land of my home. The array of color and conformation of the fish, the coral, the clouds and sky. I had a sincere 'spiritual rejuvenation' of sorts. I would sometimes read my scriptures as I sat there in the warm evenings, with the water lapping near my feet. So much peace, and serenity.
Much of the reason I decided that I needed to go on this trip, beyond just a drive for adventure, was a need to refresh myself, recharge my batteries. Remember the things in my life that really matter, and let go of the big, rock hard, ball of stress and contention that was imbedded in my abdomen. I had recently found myself to have become a person I was not happy with, judgmental, jaded, and all-around malcontent. The people that I met here, and the recurring peace I felt in these quiet, stolen hours, helped me to release that tension, and to rekindle the light I know I have inside. The two that helped me the most, Alex and Amy, both said they could see a transformation happening inside of me throughout the trip. That by the time I left, I was at peace with myself. Amy, always telling me to quit worrying about things, quit worrying so much about what others were or were not doing, and stressing when everything didn't go just perfectly perfect. I learned to roll with the punches, and to work with the limited resources we had available. I became much less judgmental of those around me, and learned to just accept and appreciate each person for who they were and the things they contributed. Hakuna Matata. Alex and I had many philosophical discussions about everything under the sun, but a recurring one was the pursuit of happyness in life, what real happiness was, and how to achieve it, and keep it. I really miss our talks sometimes, when life just starts to get over-whelming and I feel like I am losing control and it's time to run away. I have to remember that this is the life I chose, and if I truly am unhappy with it, then I have the power to change it, and make it what I want. I am in charge of my own happiness, no one owns it but me. It helps me to be reminded of that, and empowers me to once again take charge of my life.
Well, I could keep going on and on, I think I could never run out of things to say about my experience there! But I will stop there, and return to my life in the here and now. My most exciting project I am working on right now is the quilt that I am making for my 7 year old niece, Maddi. I have taken up the hobby of quilting, and resolved to make a quilt for each of my nieces and nephews. I have completed 2 of them, and am now working on Maddi's. I'm super excited, I think it's going to be awesome. I have spent the last 2 months puzzling and fussing over the design of the blanket, and I think I have finally gotten it just right! Now I just have to take some time to practice the new stitches I am learning, and get the technique just right. I have never taken any formal lessons, just learned what I can from my generous friends and family who have much more experience than I. Mostly, I just make it up as I go. I'm sure that anyone whose even sort of good at quilting would cringe at my unorthodox methods but hey....it works for me! (usually). I don't have any pictures of the quilt yet, but I will put up a mid-project post sometime with some pictures for anyone who is interested. I can't wait to get started!
Now - Mom, tag your it for updating your blog!
So, I don't feel like taking the time to put these pictures in their proper order in the post, so here they are with captions. So hard to choose, it feels like such a small representation of my time there! And for the record, none of these photos have been enhanced in any way. I do have some that I have enhanced colors and things, but I purposely chose ones that I did not do that. The colors really are just that real!
Oh-so-beautiful sunsets! I feel like in this one, God himself is getting ready to jump out from behind the clouds!
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Reef Rash from scuba diving, it's much worse than it looks, this is a few days post. Had a few grains of reef sand that I didn't get out at first, so it got much more red and swollen before it got better. (This is the scrape I put the noni juice on)
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Scuba Diving!! Our first trip out..Me, Kate, Adrian, and Paul our instructor (with the bald head)
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The beach-side lounge at Manuia Resort.
This is the same night as the first picture, just a different angle.
This night was cool, the very air seemed to be tinged with color
Brownie's release day! So sad, I loved her! But I did stumble across her a few weeks later, made me so happy!
This pig materialized out of the weeds in front of us. Blocked our path and wouldn't let us go by till we had both given her a good ear rub!
Going over the drop-off! It was awesome!!!
My traditional super-cute puppy shot :)
Viktor, Stitch, Hector, and Suzie-Q. This is one place where we kept hospitalized patients, especially ones on strict cage rest.
Hydro-therapy! Toughest part of my job there, let me tell 'ya
I loved the flowers there! So many gorgeous colors, in every shade you can imagine! There were predominantly hibiscus flowers, which are my favorite. I always got teased because I took endless pictures of flowers.
Hiking up Te Ko'u with Kate, a senior vet from Ireland, and one of my good friends I made there. She is terrified of heights, So proud that she did so well climbing all the way to the top!
Fallen in a hole....
At the base of Te Manga, on my last day on the Island. Tom, Alex, me, Sarah, and can't forget Lostris (the dog)
Blue has always been my favorite color, the ocean never ceased to fill me with wonder.
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Giant Taro plant
Entrance to the beach across from my house
Snorkeling in the lagoon in front of my house, and by Blackrock
