Saturday:
Today everyone was pretty low-energy after
our shenanigans last night. We hung out at the Oasis for the whole day except
for a quick venture to Shoprite for lunch. We’ve decided to do that more often
because it was much quicker and cheaper than going to a restaurant and there’s
actually a fair amount of variety! Natalee, Aileen, and I got dropped off in
town to find an internet café, but unfortunately they’re all closed on
Saturdays…And Sundays…and this Monday because it’s a holiday. I’ve accepted
that being internet-free is probably good for me, but I’m starting to miss my
family and friends, and I’d like to hear from them. Yesterday I got to send my
sister a Facebook message through Chelsea’s account (they’re friends from
Carleton), but I was pretty rushed in writing it and it was really
unsatisfying.
The time spent at the Oasis was very chill.
I did some laundry, wrote a bit in the sun (after applying sufficient sunscreen
– I’m not a fan of being a lobster. I’ve so far managed to avoid getting
sunburnt, though many of the other girls have. Hopefully saying that doesn’t
jinx it), and went for a walk with most of the girls. Tonight’s going to be an
early night; we’re all pretty tired. We spent a fair chunk of our evening watching
TV, which is abnormal.
Marlo and I are getting reputations as the
bug experts of the Oasis, so we’re often called to the rescue. Today when I was
outside, Akkila asked me to get a dragonfly out of her room. It turned out to
be a hornet, so I killed it with a flip flop. A few days ago, I ushered a
jumping spider outside, and I’ve been in charge of removing many a grasshopper/
cricket. Luckily we haven’t come across any massive spiders (there was a scare
in the kitchen one night but by the time I got there, we couldn’t find the
spider) or cockroaches; I’m not sure how calm I’d be about removing those.
The other thing that’s earning me a
reputation is my Swiss Army knife. I’ve taken to carrying it at all times. It’s
come in incredibly handy, though to be honest, the bottle-opener is the
most-demanded part of it (we’re not drinking THAT much alcohol – pop comes in
glass bottles with caps here). I’m quite content being the fearless bug hunter
with the bottle opener.
Today I was joking with Susan that we’re
practically living the life of reality show contestants, apart from the whole
being-filmed-for-TV thing, which I guess is a pretty significant part. Oh well,
semantics! The 13 of us live in the Oasis with only each other for company and
without internet. Since it takes half an hour to walk into town, we generally
only leave when we have the shuttle. I think we’re all feeling a little bit of
cabin fever today (though everyone left the Oasis at least for a bit), and
we’re all starting to get worn out from all the human interaction. Tomorrow we
were supposed to go to the beach, but Paul decided that we should have a
schoolwork day instead, especially since everyone’s tired. I’m actually pretty
disappointed about that because I’ll take any opportunity to get out of here,
and I was looking forward to getting a major dose of Vitamin D. Hopefully we’ll
go sometime later.
Sunday:
I made one of the corniest puns of my life
today. I spent some time lying outside in the sun, doing readings and reading a
book I borrowed from Aileen. Whenever people made comments about my sun-tanning
(which, again, was less sun-tanning, and more vitamin D acquiring, because I
wore plenty of sunscreen), I would say, “Well, it is SUNday.” I think I’m
hilarious. They didn’t think so.
Most of the day was spent reading, either
readings or Aileen’s book. I was feeling really lethargic in the afternoon, so
I jumped at Akkila’s suggestion to kick around a soccer ball. That was fun, and
I got to spend some 1-on-1 time with Akkila, which I think was the first
instance of that. I really like her; she’s our resident tech-expert, and she’s
generally just really knowledgeable about things. We had some good chats while
kicking the ball around.
We went out for dinner, so we did get to
get off “The Compound” today. The Oasis really hasn’t caught on…everyone calls
it the compound. I’m going to continue calling it The Oasis on here, though,
for consistency and also because it has a much more positive connotation.
That’s really all I have to say about today; it was very chill, so not much
happened.
Cheers,
Jen
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