29/07/11 Anyone for bat curry?

Friday night we abandoned the weekly braai and instead the GVI entourage headed into Victoria for the night market we'd heard so much about. Stories from staff about amazing creole food had enticed us enough to go and see why such a fuss was being made. The food was indeed authentic creole cuisine and the brave amongst us tried the bat curry! The rest stuck to more familiar dishes such as curry, kebabs, GIANT pieces of bacon and barbequed chicken and meat, divine! Souvenirs were bought from other stalls as well as a plastic blow up unicorn and Disney princess towel by Nat and Nikki! Unfortunately at about 8 pm the heavens opened and we all bolted for taxis (unsuccessfully as there were none to be found). Half an hour later we found the secluded taxi car park and all piled into taxis to the Beau Vallon (completely drenched from the down pour) for a night out at the local clubs.

Most went back to base for the rest of the weekend which was spent chilling on the hammocks and having leisurely snorkels around the bay. Adam claims to have seen 8 turtles over the weekend and Savi saw 13 bump head parrot fish! Dorry and I (Mel) stayed in Beau Vallon to do our PADI rescue course with one of the local dive shops and ate pizza all weekend (cheese is severely missed on base)!

For the 5 weekers it was our last 6 am wake up on a Monday morning. To think 5 weeks ago we all awkwardly arrived and introduced ourselves, heard Marie's laugh for the first time, discovered Savi's love for Disney, Adams adoration of Tarzan songs, Nat and Nikki’s epic sound effects and Nikki's "gender confused unicorn"!

The 5 weekers went down to Port Launay beach to meet up with some of the children from President’s Village for an afternoon of snorkeling and swimming. The kids all remembered us from Creole Day last weekend and all ran up and gave us hugs. We kitted them up with masks and snorkels and headed into the water. Only about two kids ended up actually snorkeling while the rest of us mucked around in the shallows with the soccer ball and boogie board. Liz's "professional establishment hair salon" re-opened for business yesterday on the dorm balcony and had her first client of the week Marion!

The social committee (Savi and Maddy) announced on Tuesday night that this week we are all playing "murder mystery"! People are taking this very seriously as Marion has already killed Jamie in the kit room with a wetsuit, Spencer killed Adam in rec room 2 with a cricket bat and Lee killed Nikki on the office stairs with a cheese grater! Everyone’s scheming secretly so the next few days should be interesting!

The 5 weekers are enjoying their last few days of diving and looking forward to the Mexican themed 5 week Braai tomorrow with hopefully some of the interns! On a closing note I must mention Spence's moment of gender confusion when he borrowed Grace's rash vest for a dive on Friday, the photo says it all! To the last night with the 5 weekers – shoulder shoulder, chin chin, raise the roof raise the roof!!

29/07/11 Anyone for bat curry?