Thursday & Friday, December
10-11, 2015
In the morning we had our weekly call
with Gary Winters here at our place, and then Elder Leben took Jim to the job
to work on the rain catchment project; Sister Leben and I walked to her place
so that I could help her with some things she needed to know; again I dozed off
afterwards. About noon they went to the
church to visit with the Stake President while Jim and I chilled at the
hotel. Later in the afternoon we visited
a water project request that was an hour’s + drive up the road. Their biggest problems were leaking pipes and
lack of cooperation, which left part of the village with water, and some
without, and the problem was not getting any better. Two chiefs were in the area—and that never
works to get the people to cooperate, and their local government hasn’t done
anything to help either.
The men were quite
pleased that those left in charge to work on the rain catchment had done a
great job—their block wall that will hold the coral and eventually the water
tank, was level and well-done. The posts
are in, and they have to be straight for it to work out alright.
Jim and Mathias
checking out the water catchment tank that was fed by a spring and had plenty
of water; without cooperation from the community though, nothing is going to
work for them. To get to this tank, it
was a bad road through the bushes and then a jungle hike to get there—these are
so much fun (really!).
We came back here for dinner,
which is always pleasant because it is the night that the man comes and plays
his lovely music here at our home (after a while, wherever we are, ends up to
feel like home). Tonight there was a
very large group that came for this occasion plus a few others, so that their
tables were all full—we hadn’t seen that before.
We prepared for our day tomorrow,
which we are very excited about—a day on Lelepa, snorkeling and seeing the
cultural sites of the area. It will be
our last ‘fun’ day; then it will be back to work till we leave, but then that’s
why we’re here--it’s just that sometimes here we forget that--and it is so nice
to forget.
Friday: If I said it was a very
nice relaxing and interesting day of some good snorkeling and looking at a few
interesting sites on Lelepa Island, and having a really good lunch, that would
describe our day. Except for one thing:
taking us to a protected coral reef after lunch to snorkel, falling directly
out of the little boat, while they fed the fish the leftover lunch bread, and
literally swimming with the fishes. As I
let myself overboard they were having a feeding frenzy and so I ended up in the
midst of them, boiling all around me. It
was the most incredible experience! Even
better than that was the most beautiful coral I had ever seen. I felt like I was in the middle of a National
Geographic underwater day. Usually I
mostly care about seeing all the beautiful designs on the fishes that God
created, but today those lovely creatures were nearly upstaged by the
multi-colored and differently-shaped coral.
[Since I don’t have a picture, look up coral reefs on the Internet and
then you’ll know what we saw today, up close and personal]. More than anything, I wish my underwater
camera was still working. Of all the
places we’ve ever snorkeled, this was hands down something that probably cannot
be duplicated for us. By the way, those
of you who watch Survivor on TV, the island we went to today they say is where
they filmed the last series. I asked our
guide if they got paid. He said that they
gave the Chief the money and then he distributed it among all the inhabitants
on the island of about 500 people. I
hope he was fair—I didn’t ask that question.
We’re excited for our
adventure—E/S Leben in our little boat.
Someone
really loved their dog ‘Trouble.’ We
hiked through the woods on our way to the spot where we’d spend most of our
day. We learned a little bit about trees
that they use for canoes and a little bit about leaves that help a sore get
better fast. We saw a well dug by troops
in WWII.
We spent the majority
of our day on this beach, snorkeling, eating, kayaking and using the homemade
outrigger canoe.
Today we died and went to heaven…
Love, from Paradise
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