Marine Mammal Mania!

As I've written before, one of our friends down here, Mihnea, is the island's vet. He treats mostly dogs, cats, birds, the occasional monkey (though he doesn't like them), but he also is, by default, a major contact for any business involving animals. This includes Dolphins Pacific, the local 'swim with the dolphins' gig (which falsely advertises itself as both the largest and the ONLY place in the WORLD where you can swim with the dolphins, but maybe that was an error in translation of the pamphlet).

The dolphins are (were) trained to clean the leaves from their pens, which are overshadowed by a variety of foliage, but rather than bring the leaf to the trainer in order to receive a fish, as they are supposed to, the dolphins have taken to eating the leaves. We were told they were addicted to the leaves, but I'm guessing they just have an enjoyable flavor – either way, the dolphins' digestive tract is unable to process the leaves, and as a result they get stuck in their stomach. This requires treatment about every month to clean out the leaves before the dolphins get extremely sick and, potentially, die.

These sorts of routine treatments don't require Mihnea's presence – but they do require a lot of manpower, both to catch the dolphin and to hold it while it's cleaned. More manpower than they generally have staff available – and so they take volunteers out to help with the festivities. They ask Mihnea if he knows anyone who might be interested in helping, and Mihnea puts out his feelers – this time picking up Curtis (a Peace Corps member), myself, Jodie, Vivi, and Jirka. I believe the exact texting exchange (Mihnea, for whatever reason, does not seem to like actually SPEAKING into the phone):

Mihnea writes: Do you and Jesse (he met Jodie first, so he just writes as if he's addressing Jodie by default) want to go to Dolphins Pacific to help catch a dolphin?

Jesse writes: Jodie's not here right now, but I'm almost positive I speak for both of us when I say 'hell yes!'

Mihnea writes: Then hell it shall be!

Dolphins Pacific is attached to Neco Marine (one of many local diving operations), and so we were told to meet at Neco's dock at 3pm on Monday. Jodie and I got there at about 2:50pm to make sure the boat didn't leave without us (a bit over-eager on our parts, as we would soon find out), and everyone else within about 15 minutes. Jirka, notably, had apparently come straight from his last patient, so he was still in his scrubs (my MS2 classmates may recall that this makes him 'that guy' from our orientation's 'ethical dilemmas'). 3pm, everyone's on time.

We all forgot that, in Palau, this makes you early. We were told the boat wasn't going to leave until 4:30pm. You would think they might call Mihnea to let him know, but nope. No big deal, we decided, we'd just go get a bite to eat and some drinks at the adjacent Drop Off Bar & Grill. Unfortunately, we were greeted there with:

"I hope you're not hungry, the kitchen doesn't open until 4."

Great. Well, no problem. We could go to Kramer's, it was just a few blocks down the road, and we'd be back by 4:30pm no problem. Except, as we were about to leave, someone popped their head out of the office:

"Hey, can you guys stay right here? The boat might be leaving at 3:30."

So, basically, could we hang around just outside the Neco office for potentially an hour and a half because the boat might leave only a half-hour late?

Well, no problem. We'd just run across the street to the little deli there, grab some food (for those of us who were hungry), and eat it outside of the Neco office. We ran, grabbed our food/drinks, returned, and sat down to eat and keep an eye on the dock. By then it was about 3:15pm. Immediately, the woman came back out of the office.

"Okay, we're ready to go."

Within the timespan of 15 minutes, the boat had gone to leaving at 3, to 4:30, to maybe 3:30, to 3:15pm. That's unreliable information, even by local standards! So, with lunch in hand (I wound up having to eat part on the way there and part on the way back, since it's only a 10 minute boat ride or so), we waited for the last tour group to disembark (coincidentally, a group from Seattle who took a moment to bitch about the Mariners and Sonics with me), and were on our way.

The Dolphins Pacific facility is its own little island set-up about a 10-minute boatride from the dock, consisting of two large buildings, several large pens for the dolphins, and a bay where they're allowed to swim freely after hours, all walled off/connected by a bunch of floating walkways. A pretty idyllic spot – if I were a dolphin, I would probably enjoy living there. On the ethics front, all of the dolphins at Pacific were apparently headed for a slaughterhouse before they were brought to Palau, and in my mind that puts Dolphins pretty much in the ethical clear. I'd say the dolphins seemed happy to be there, but do dolphins ever seem anything other than happy?

You might think they would just give the dolphin the aquatic equivalent of syrup of ipecac or something, but no – they literally strap a giant fork to their forearm and reach their arm all the way down the dolphin's throat and into the stomach to rake out the leaves. A dolphin's stomach is apparently huge (I can't remember the exact length, unfortunately), and the guy who was doing the cleaning was literally shoulder-deep in the dolphin's alimentary canal.

As you might imagine, this isn't particularly comfortable for either party, and the dolphins tend to squirm. Hence the need for a lot of bodies to help hold down the critter – and then another crew (the smaller volunteers and staff) to keep pouring salt water over the dolphin (and us) full-time.

The whole operation was apparently complex enough that they held an honest-to-God briefing, though as far as I could tell, there were basically a few jobs: 

1) Hold dolphin

2) Stick hand in dolphin's stomach

3) Pour water on dolphin

4) ???

5) Profit!

Simple, no? And yet, everyone spread out around the war map, and the manager, like a veteran general, doled out his orders for managing the tarp and net which they used to catch the dolphin (basically by herding it towards the pier by decreasing the space it has to swim in, and then pulling it onto a little platform, wrapping a bunch of towels over it, and then bodily lifting it up and out of the water and onto the cleaning platform), and a few people had to dive underwater (tanks and all) to manage the tarp/net and then catch the dolphins, but the crew had obviously done this so many times that the briefing was, for the most part, superfluous.

Once the dolphin's head and tail had been wrapped in wet towels, we all lifted it out of the water and set it down on the cleaning platform, then applied towels to the body. Each time we moved the dolphin, we had to hurriedly throw our weight down against it to keep it from wriggling off of the platform or otherwise panicking – though for the most part, it held still during this time. They crammed about 12 of us onto just holding the dolphin – 3 on the tail and the rest along the body and head. They basically just chose the heaviest 12 people to do this – as Mihnea would say, they liked me for my beef. Or, as he has said, '[I] have a good beef on [me]' I'm not sure he'll ever get the hang of that word. Either that, or he knows exactly what he's doing.

Anyhow, this left us sitting still, completely exposed in the baking heat (and I swear to God it was the hottest day of my stay here – even the locals were complaining about how hot it was), for about 40 minutes while they cleaned the dolphin's stomach. Fortunately, a group of about 8 people were constantly pouring salt water over the dolphin – and, coincidentally, us (after about 20 minutes, both Jirka and I were asking Vivi and Jodie, respectively, to just dump it directly on us every now and then – we envied that dolphin). But as hot as it was, it was just ridiculously cool (re-reading this, I realize the unintentional horrid pun, but don't apologize) to touch and hold the dolphin. I've never swam with the dolphins or any of that jazz (and at $120, I don't intend to do so here in Palau), so this was the first time I'd ever touched one. It's pretty much exactly as you might imagine it: rubbery, soft, slick.

Just like I like them.

If ever you need a reminder of just how weak and frail humans are compared to many forms of wildlife, consider this: 12 of us holding the dolphin down – with our bodies, not just with upper body strength – and the damn thing was still stronger than us. When it thrashed around, it threw us back and forth on the cleaning platform – it didn't break free ever, but if it had really freaked, I'm betting it could've knocked a few of us in the water (or whacked someone a good one with its tail). Still, other than some chunks from its blowhole and some vomit-covered arm, no injuries were sustained.

The emphasis on beef left Vivi and Jodie, both pretty petite individuals, with water-pouring duties. Jodie got to touch the dolphin, at least. I asked permission to switch out with her in between dolphins (two of them had to be cleaned that day), so that Jodie could help hold, and was told no. Not like 'no, that's okay, you can stay if you want,' 'no' as in 'no, you have to stay.' Given how powerful the dolphin turned out to be, I don't blame them, but at least I tried.

After cleaning, we unwrapped the towels and carried the dolphin, in a little basket net thinger, to the edge of the pen and rolled it back into the water so it could relax. The first dolphin (Ariel) spent the entirety of the second dolphin (don't remember)'s cleaning glaring balefully at us and trying to see what was happening to its friend, swimming back and forth against the pier and pushing itself more than halfway out of the water so that it could see. She took a particular liking to Jodie, and spent the better part of 40 minutes staring at her, silently imploring her to stop the insanity. Sadly, silent pleas fell on deaf ears.

Once the cleaning had been done, and the tarp/net put away, we were treated to a brief show of dolphin stunts – backflips, high fives, and tail-waves abounded. I tried to videotape these stunts, and was only partly successful. Due to a woeful lack of understanding of my camera, I didn't think the video feature was working, and kept beginning a video… and then turning the camera to the ground in frustration while I tried to figure out why it wasn't recording. As a result, I have brief moments of dolphin glory interspersed with footage of my feet. If I don't get a chance to go back, that may be my one greatest frustration – I'd hoped to videotape the entire show.

As we left, the manager came over to ask when we were leaving, and said that he wanted to get us back to Dolphins to do some of the activities by way of thanks. The way he offered made it sound like he was offering it for free (awesome!) – but as yet, that hasn't materialized, and it's been a few weeks. I'm asking Mihnea to try to pursue it, because I would desperately love to go back and see the show again, and swim with the dolphins and all that jazz (for free), but no results yet. We'll see… I've got about a week left to make it happen, so if I can bother Mihnea enough about it maybe he'll push something through.

Here's hoping.

Taking Care of Business

A brief business update from Palau – I finally got out to Peleliu and was able to give my presentation. Because of the short amount of time I've got left, I'm not going to be able to do the longitudinal follow-up part of my project very well – frustrating, but there's not much I can do about it. The Governor wanted me to find an interpreter before he'd arrange a group meeting, but there's no way I can find an interpreter from the hospital and his office doesn't seem to know anyone on Peleliu who could do the job. However, an extremely busy day in the clinic (probably precipitated by the fact that we didn't make it out the week before) netted me 7 patients for my presentation – I had hoped to get 15 over 4 weeks, so if I can get 10 over 2 weeks, I'll be pretty pleased. When you consider that Peleliu has a population of 500, and maybe 150-200 of those are adults, and that less than half of those have diabetes or hypertension (though more than half are obese), and that I've only personally seen maybe 20-25 unique patients with hypertension/diabetes actually at the clinic, that's not a bad percentage of the patient population. I'm going to give a copy of my materials to the Governor's office if they want to present them and reinforce them at a community meeting (as they had asked permission to do), so there is some chance that the information will eventually reach a greater proportion of the population, but it will have to happen after I leave.

However, I also lined up a second presentation. After the storm last Thursday, I wound up at the hospital mulling my options for getting a working project. Kristen, though she claimed not to have any ideas, as usual wound up pointing me in the right direction – she suggested I talk to Tino, saying he had a youth group I might be able to talk to. So, I went over to Tino's office and sat down. What followed may be the most hectic 30 minutes of my life:

"Tino, I've got a problem."

"Jesse, what's your problem?"

"Tino, I haven't been able to get out to Peleliu for two weeks and I'm running out of time to do my project there."

"Jesse, how can I help?"

"Tino, I need an audience."

"Jesse, I can get you an audience."

"Tino, I need a venue."

"Jesse, I can get you a venue."

He went on to explain about his youth group, which apparently is some diet/exercise educational dealie, and a state-wide program which has a section dedicated to non-communicable diseases, so he figured he could just bill me as the diabetes/HTN part of it. He could spread the word to his youth group, but he also wanted to get some of the older patients in to hear my presentation, so he wanted to talk to the Governor of his state, Ngardmau (Nard-mow, ow as in cow) and get her involved in it. He called the office to see if the Governor was in – she was, but she was leaving in 30 minutes. It was about 3:30 at this time. After a brief moment of indecision, he got up from his seat.

"Umm… where're you going?"

"To get a car. Come on."

We ran over to the public health office, where he borrowed the keys to someone's state car, but failed to ask the license plate or parking lot – instead, he just knew it was a black state car, and we ran around the parking lot trying to open every black state car in the hospital's three parking lots until we just found the right one (which felt pretty shady). Given that we were in a hurry, it would've been more time-efficient just to go back and ask the license plate number and location, but , eh. By 3:40pm, we found the car and were off. He was supposed to have the car back by 4pm – apparently, it's illegal to drive state cars after 4pm without 'a reason.' I thought we had 'a reason.' He didn't. I don't claim to understand the law here. The Governor's office was only a 5 minute drive away, and we hopped out and hurried in. The understanding was that Tino would do the talking, since he's the one who knows 'what's up,' as they say. He greeted the Governor, then started to explain who I was, before just turning and asking me to introduce myself.

"Hello," I began, in a speech I've rehearsed and performed innumerable times, "I'm Jesse, I'm a visiting medical student from the University of Washington, and I'm doing a project on diabetes and high blood pressure for ---"

"That's enough, I'll talk," Tino interrupted, and, somewhat stunned, I meekly shut the hell up and took a seat.

They began to rattle off in Palauan – I'm not sure what was said, but it seemed to work, because the Governor expected me to do my presentation the following week (that would be last week, now) on very little preparation. Tino arranged for it to happen this Tuesday, a week before my departure, giving us some time to get our act together.

While I was sitting and listening to them talk without any ounce of comprehension, one of the girls working at the office glanced over at me,

"You're a U-Dub student?"

I blinked, but, excited that someone knew the good old UofW, I responded enthusiastically, "Yeah!"

"You're from Seattle, then?"

"Yeah, you've been there?"

"I lived there for two years!"

"Best city in the country," I stated objectively.

"I hated it," She replied with a grin.

"…What? Why?" This was the first time I'd met a Palauan who didn't like Seattle or Portland (the two most Palauan-heavy places, apparently), though I'd met many who have said they wouldn't want to live there.

"It rains too much!"

Aghast, I pointed silently at the window, where a veritable typhoon buffeted the glass.

"Well, yeah, but it's different!"

Mark this: Palauans and Floridians both will whine about Seattle's rain, but refuse to acknowledge their own.

A quick drive back to the hospital got the car back at 4:03pm and completed a whirlwind of activity that wound up arranging for a second presentation for me – a back-up in case Peleliu wound up a bust. Tino had a variety of changes he wanted to make to my presentation (which was fine, I had a week or so to work on it), and we're getting a couple of BP cuffs/stethoscopes to do blood pressure screenings, as well as a measuring tape and a scale to do BMI screenings, and I dropped some cash on him to help put together water and healthy snacks for the attendees. If there's one thing I've learned in this life, it's that if you want people to show up, you offer free food.

I'm not sure which project I'll wind up doing my poster/abstract on – all of the build-up has been to Peleliu, but if the Ngardmau presentation works out much more cleanly, I may be forced to use it instead, since there's no real way to force both of them onto a single poster. We'll see.

The End is Nigh

Random Palau Statistics:

Babies Saved: 0+
Consecutive Nights Without AC: 4 (a personal best)
iPods Broken: 1
Cab-drivers Who Have Suggested I Have a One-Night Stand With a Filipina Prostitute: 2

The end of my tenure here in the Republic of Palau is drawing inexorably nearer. This was, of course, technically true from the day of my first arrival, but the finish line is very clearly in sight now. I habitually measure time by a series of consecutive rounding’s, with weeks being the unit of measure. For instance, during a quarter, week 2 is halfway to week 4, which is halfway to week 8, which is typically right before finals week – therefore, by week 2, I can, in good mathematical conscience, round to week 4. Week 4 rounds to week 8 and I’m practically done. This does not, of course, change the actual length of time which passes – but it helps make it seem manageable to my fevered imagination. The reasoning “well, if I get through the same amount of time which I have already survived, then I’ll only have to get through THAT amount of time once more” makes sense only in my own mind, and I realize that, but it works.

Another favorite trick of mine is fractions/percentages. By the end of week 1, I’m already thinking “hey, I’m 10% there!” Then two days into week 2, I round up to 2 and a half weeks and tell myself I’m ¼ of the way there… this keeps the time which passes safely in perspective, and makes it go faster – without actually forcing you to confront the fact that, eventually, you really WILL reach the end and will feel sorry to leave.

As the numerator of this fraction gets larger, however (for instance, I am about 8.3 weeks into my stay, which rounds to 8.5, which rounds to 9… 9/10 of the way through), I no longer find myself devising mental tricks to avoid intimidation by the amount of time I will be away; I try to rationalize how much time I have left so that I don’t feel like I’m leaving so soon.

After all, I still have 11 more days – that’s 264 hours! Plenty of time to do everything I want! I still have at LEAST one more of each day of the week! I’m in great shape!

No mathematical manipulation erases the fact, however, that I am leaving very soon. I am constantly reminded of it:

People here ask me (with heated anticipation, I must imagine) when my flight is (often glancing immediately afterwards at their calendar, then sighing heavily and gritting their teeth).

Jodie has left – this marked the 2.5 week mark (3/4 of the way, which rounds easily to 100% through my IHOP experience). I haven’t yet been forced to confront the stifling silence that her absence would have brought, as our friends Steve and Marla were with me from Sunday (she left Friday night) through this Friday, so I’ve skipped a week of potential boredom in that manner. The same storm which kept me off of Peleliu last week screwed up the state ferry to Angaur, so they wound up stranded here far longer than they intended (apparently a common occurrence for them, and for the state ferries in general), but I’m not complaining. Still, I can’t help but see her departure as a harbinger of my own, in the same manner that her arrival started me glancing at the calendar through the end of microbiology, thinking of what it must be like in Palau. On the one hand, the departure of my wife allows me to lead the swinging bachelor’s life I’ve always dreamed of; on the other hand, it actually takes effort to find someone to hang out with. It’s a difficult tradeoff. Not so difficult for others – I’m fairly certain James has asked God more than once why she left and I stayed.

I have stopped receiving messages signed “I miss you,” or “you’re going to be gone for SO LONG,” or “10 weeks is too long!” Instead, I get “see you soon!” and “I can hardly wait!” and “I hate you and everything you stand for” (special thanks to Julia for that one).

Last, and most poignantly, I have been forced to actually start buying gifts. This is always a difficult process, as I can’t help but compare the monetary value of the gifts I select and attempt to compare them directly to how much I actually like someone. Such a money-to-emotion conversion is tricky, particularly when you find great gifts for two people who deserve equal consideration, but there is a substantial price difference – I end up feeling obligated to buy what I call “filler gifts” to fill in the price gap and even things out. The one exception to this rule is gifts which are particularly unique to the person receiving them, and show outstanding consideration on my part – if a cheaper gift has more meaning than an expensive gift to the recipient, it evens out. It’s all very scientific.

Anyhow, this was a process which I was able to safely ignore for about 7 weeks – I kept an eye out as I went through Koror for gifts, but I never worried about buying anything or making final decisions because, hey, I had all the time in the world! Now, finally, that’s not true – and with each purchase, a little bit of the carefully-woven illusion that I have “plenty of time” in Palau dissolves right along with my bank account.

Then there’s the uncomfortable process of deciding who to buy gifts for – typically, close female friends are more likely to receive a gift from a man than a close male friend. The value of these gifts is always directly proportional to the chances that they might one day get into that particular girl’s pants (needless to say, this is why I spend way too much on gifts), so obviously I have to be extremely careful in my selections, so as not to give the wrong impression to certain parties… or the ‘right’ impression to others.

Then there are some friends with whom you feel close, but are just not in the habit of giving gifts to – maybe you haven’t spoken for some time, or maybe there’s no chance in hell you’ll ever sleep with them. This can be for a variety of reasons, the most common of which being that the friend is male (see above point) or the dreaded ‘friend zone.’ Without getting into the specifics of this phenomenon, it is fortunate that God has provided men with an easy solution. There is a cheap, extremely easy-to-find, and useful gift which any purely-platonic friend (particularly men) will appreciate: shotglass. $3 and BAM! Problem solved. Of course, some of these friends are beating you in fantasy baseball, and so they don’t get squat. You know who you are.

But I digress.

I, myself, am ambivalent on my return. There’s no doubting that I want to go home. I miss home for a variety of nouns, which can generally be classified into four groups: 

People

Places

Things

Ideas

Grammatical lessons notwithstanding, I miss my friends. I miss my home (and am looking forward to seeing the new one that my room-mates, with the help of my father as my liaison have picked out), I miss reliable, fast internet (I know, I know, it’s so very childish of me, but damnit I need it), and I miss… uh… antidisestablishmentarianism. You just can’t get that shit down here.

Shouldn’t the prefixes ‘anti’ and ‘dis’ cancel each other out, just leaving establishmentarianism anyhow?

On the other hand, I don’t want to go home because I dislike Palau. I love Palau. Aside from the internet, the heat, the rain (I’m from Seattle, and I can’t believe I just wrote that), the outrageous electricity bills, and the lack of people giving me $50 (a shortage shared by Seattle), the place is great. People are laid-back, friendly, everything I’ve written about previously. The diving is amazing. Even the heat isn’t that bad once you’ve gotten used to it – I’ve finally stopped using the air conditioning, just in time for my departure so that I don’t save any money from my acclimation (and will undoubtedly be freezing in Seattle). I’m going to miss Palau. I know that the second it’s too late to do anything about it, I’m going to remember something I wanted to buy, or see, or do, or what have you and it’ll haunt me the entire 25 ½ hour trip home.

And it’s not like I’m in SoCal – I can’t just come back next summer. It’ll be at least 3 years, until graduation, before I ever have an opportunity to return, and I’m willing to bet it won’t happen until I’m done with residency. So, 7 years. By then, everyone I know will be gone from Palau, so there’s a definite feeling like I’ll probably never see the majority of the people I’ve met and made friends with down here once I leave. Sure, sure, there’s the Facebooks and the Myspaces and the “electronic mails” but, with one (notable) exception, I may well never actually see these people in person again. That’s not a new feeling – it happened at high school and college graduation, when I moved away from University Place, etc, but at least I had met those people in Washington, and they had family there that they might come back to visit, thus leaving the possibility for some sort of chance reunion. Not so in Palau – with people going to the Czech Republic, Romania, Austria, England, the Philippines, Canada, Florida, and God only knows where else, who knows?

At least I can honestly say I enjoyed myself down here – as evidenced by the fact that I’ve outlived my stipend and am $1000 in the red in that regard. I’ve gotten almost all the diving in I could’ve wanted, and outside of seeing the various sights of Babeldaob, diving Ulong Channel, and playing with the dolphins (which I’m supposed to be lined up to do for free, but I’m doubting it will happen and I’m not paying $150 for it), I’ve basically done everything I wanted. Now it’s just trying to enjoy the rest of my time here.

I just think it’s odd how you can feel sad about something which excites you.

Surgery II: Son of Surgery

Shortly after being forced to take a step out of the OR during a gout reduction surgery, I took the next logical step in my surgery-watching career: I scrubbed in on an above-the-knee amputation. After orchidectomies (which, by the way, happens on Monday, and I’m still debating scrubbing in for since I missed that below-the-knee amputation), amputations have long been tops on my “no way in Hell could I take part in that” list. And, after my less-than-impressive showing in the gout reduction, I basically planned on having to leave. It was sort of a “hey, Jesse, do you want to come watch?” “Yeah, I’ll do my best” arrangement.

Well in line with my longstanding habit of making absolutely no God-damn sense, I wound up hardly being uncomfortable at all, and easily made it through the whole surgery. Surgeries, outside of the enormous amount of blood, are very similar to the cadaver dissections we did in one major factor: it was always easier to do it than to watch it. In anatomy, the vast majority of “uncomfortable” dissections that I told my group I was going to avoid touching I wound up participating in directly – i.e., scalpel-slash-buzzsaw in hand. Eyes, face… the one exception was, as you might guess, the orchidectomy. And that was on someone who had passed away – my comfort zone for living beings is much, much smaller.

Still, it’s easier when you have a task to focus on. They had this little vacuum tube (like at the dentist’s) and they needed me to clean up blood from the surgical site (while Jodie mopped up the remainder). Then we were cauterizing arteries. Then we were assisting in suturing. There was always a task – something to occupy hands and mind so that you can’t fully process the enormity of what, exactly, you’re doing. The surgery as a whole didn’t take long, either – the surgeon pretty efficiently cut through skin and fascia, took his electric saw to the femur, and removed the leg in its entirety (which went into a nearby box – I’m not really sure what they do with it after the surgery, it’s not exactly like taking your tooth home from the dentist) – another positive in terms of ‘Jesse surviving the operation.’ Plus, the foot was really far gone – gangrene had set in, and blood supply was cut off all the way up to the thigh. I mean, if I were the patient, I wouldn’t have wanted that thing attached to me – framing the operation in terms of “we are removing potentially-dangerous diseased tissue so that this patient can feel better” as opposed to “no, seriously, I’m pretty sure I learned in anatomy that the leg is supposed to be attached to the pelvis, what the hell are we doing?”

Anyhow, it was a good experience – and for the first time, I felt like I really could handle invasive surgeries. I’m sure that if I choose to scrub in on Monday my confidence will be shattered as is only proper, but for now I actually feel like I might be able to handle surgery. Even if I’m not destined to be a “bonecrusher.”

Extenuating circumstances forced me to miss the surgeon’s below-the-knee amputation the following week, but I should have at least one more day in the OR with him. We’ll see what sorts of shocks we can cook up.  

 

Camping in the Rock Islands

I’ve fallen woefully behind, here.           

It’s more difficult than I anticipated to be bothered to immediately chronicle every interesting event which occurs during a 10-week trip. Other things happen, there’s work to do, you’re going out with friends… sometimes you just don’t feel the urge or inspiration to write. Whatever it is, it’s all too easy to fall behind, and the prospect of writing five, six, seven entries in a row to make up for lost time is only further reason to avoid the task in its entirety. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s procrastination.

However, another unfortunate side effect of nearing the end of my IHOP experience is that I feel like I have to write these entries, or it will never happen. Mind, I could write them on the plane home, even after I got back – but I’d have other things to do, other things to occupy my time (like all the video games I’ve missed out on while down here!), and I know I’ll never get around to it.

Besides, somehow it just seems insincere to update a Palau blog with Palau events once I’m back in the States.

Since I’m looking at a backlog of about six or seven posts here, and certain parties (Melissa) have complained about being illiterate, I’ll do my best to split them up into smaller morsels of journalistic goodness.  Honestly, some people (Melissa) are so needy. 

As I’ve lost all sense of the chronological sequence of past events, I’m not even going to try to put them in any order. We’re just going to start with the top of my list, here… Ah! Camping in the Rock Islands!

An interesting Saturday began with another dive trip – this one was Vivi’s first ‘official’ dive since being certified, so we went out with Jirka and Keith. I’ve basically exhausted every interesting way to describe diving in writing, so I’ll spare the details and skip to the meat of it: a series of small delays resulted in us returning circa 4:30pm (as opposed to 3pm). This normally wouldn’t be a problem, except that we were also slated to go camping that evening, and the camping party was split up.

Me, Vivi, and Jirka were diving and got back late. Jodie, Mihnea, Mihnea’s cousin Miruna, and Ming were slated to leave around 4:30pm on the motorboat. Somehow, despite Vivi’s extremely strong hints the previous nights that she was not interested in paddling 3 hours to a campsite, Mihnea had it in his head that we were going to take the canoe there. Every attempt to call Mihnea failed, so after getting home from diving and showering off, we hurried to the dock to try to catch him – only to find the boat gone. We called him again. We called Ming. No answer (we would later find out that the only call which had gone through had been at about 5:30pm… when they were already at the beach). Why would Mihnea leave without calling to double-check one last time that we didn’t want to hop on the motor boat with him? We all had our hypotheses, some more forgiving than others, but in the end we piled all of our camping supplies into the canoe and climbed in. What other choice did we have? Besides, it’d be good exercise.

At least Vivi got her wish – she didn’t have to paddle at all: Jirka and I took us there (and only Jirka did so without any rest at all). To be fair, Vivi was more than willing to paddle – it was just pretty much impossible to switch spots in the canoe in the middle of the water.

The trip really wasn’t so bad – it ‘only’ took us two, two and a half hours, but along the way we got to chat, it was nice and cool, and we played a fun game where we made up the most creative names we could for Mihnea. Good times. There was a lot of bioluminescent algae in the water, and the sky was clear enough that we could see tons of stars – so between the flickering lights in the water and the sky, it was a rather scenic little ride. By the time we’d reached the beach we had arranged to meet Mihnea at, we were relieved to see four lights just on the coast. Surely, we had at least reached our friends!

There was something odd, though… there was no sign of the boat. Anywhere. And there was no noise. But the lights were right there – flashlights, we assumed.

“Alii-iiii?” Hailed Vivi in an uncharacteristically-deep voice.

No answer.

We landed to investigate, just in time to see the lights dart away – a pair of feral cats alone on the beach (Lord knows how they got there – maybe they were camping, too). Mihnea wasn’t there. Nobody was there. We’d already been paddling nearly two hours, we knew Mihnea had taken the boat – not only leaving earlier than us, but in a faster craft, so he had to have beaten us to the campsite. And yet… nothing.

A fair bit frustrated by this point, we had to decide – do we just set up camp and enjoy the evening, or do we continue on to try to find them? We (and by ‘we’ I mean ‘they’) reasoned that, given the direction Mihnea was heading, he probably mistook the first beach with a shelter that he found for the beach we were to meet at. We could do a circuit of the remaining beaches on that string of islands, and if we didn’t find him, we’d just set up camp on the last one. The process of deciding which beach we’d probably find Mihnea at was rather impressive – Vivi systematically broke down Mihnea’s likely decisions from beginning to end in Sherlock Holmes-like fashion, and ultimately guided us to the right beach (after a few more futile ‘alii-iiiis?’) By the right beach, of course, I mean the wrong beach, but the one they happened to wind up at. We’d hardly eaten anything since finishing our dive, so we were famished by the time we FINALLY landed. Thank God we’d arrived just in time to miss dinner! There were plenty of leftovers, thankfully – but there’s something unique about the feeling you get after paddling for 2 and a half hours, being frustrated trying to find the people you’re camping with, and hungry all the way… only to be greeted with “we just finished eating!”

In the end, Mihnea was not called any of the creative names, nor harmed in any way – the wrath of a canoe full of hungry divers was assuaged by three simple words: “We’ve got beer.”

All was immediately forgiven.

After a night of eating, drinking, and be merry-ing, we retired for the night. There would be more sandwiches in the morning, along with fresh fish from a spearfishing expedition, there would be snorkeling, there would be all sorts of good times.

I would assume, at least, that all sorts of good times were had by the people who partook in those activities. I woke up feeling like hell. I wasn’t hungover – I’d hardly had anything to drink the night before (at least compared to what it would’ve taken to give me a hangover), but my body hurt, my stomach hurt, my head hurt. Naturally, med student instinct took over.

Quick, what’s that disease which causes myalgia, headache, and nausea?

I had to opt out of the spearfishing (only three could fit in the canoe anyways, and it was far more fitting that Jodie finally get to go with Vivi and Jirka) and the snorkeling (Ming needed equipment, so it was lucky for him that I was sick – though he had to wear my fins on his hands because his feet are so freaking tiny). Instead, I slept. All freaking day. Except that one time I got up so that I could have some fun being violently ill. And when I had something to eat – though that only made it worse. After waking up at about 9am, I spent about 5 of the 6 and a half hours until our departure at 3:30 sleeping or lying down, and probably seeming to be a really sore sport about camping (though I did explain I was sick). By the time I finally was able to drag myself out of Jodie’s hammock (which was just insanely comfortable) and the little shelter that had been built on the beach, we were pretty much getting ready to take off.

Mihnea had apparently had engine trouble with the boat, so it was a fairly slow (by speedboat standards – not by canoe standards) ride back… but at least we didn’t have to paddle! And all that sleeping had worn me the hell out – so I had a nap when I got back.

Just to recharge my batteries. You know how it is.

 

Clarification

Since apparently there were multiple instances of sailing-related
confusion as a result of my post, I would like to clarify that Richard
and Rita did, in fact, sail upwind using the main and the jib whereas
they used the spinnaker sailing DOWNWIND. I am not, as they say,
'crazy.'

Cheers,
Jesse

Who'd have thought a backpack would be such a hassle?

"It's camouflage, you see, so it's made for guerilla warfare. And it has THREE zippers, instead of one – making it three times as effective at everything. It also cost $12 – logically, it should therefore be at least 50% better than the Blue's Clues backpack. After crunching the numbers, I have also concluded that, at a rate of three zippers for $12 as opposed to one for $8, I have doubled my zipper purchasing-power. A strong choice economically, practically, and all-around."

Never have I been more wrong. I did not make this entry sooner, afraid, perhaps, to see the evidence of my madness so clearly produced before me. That camouflage backpack is no more – it perished just as quickly, perhaps quicker than Ol' Blue. Two of its three zippers broke in slow, agonizing fashion, the tabs by which you operated them first bending, then twisting, and then finally breaking, before the zipping mechanism as a whole unraveled before my eyes in a grisly display the likes of which I pray never to see again. The backpack was a soldier – it knew the risks when it took the job… but you still hate to see it happen, especially to a kid so young.

So, once more, I was forced to replace my backpack, and this time, I did what I should have done to begin with: given the sheer quantity of crap I've been lugging around, I should have called in the specialist. I should have paid the premium for the one they call 'Jansport.' With five(5) heavy-duty zippers, 1.37x more carrying space, and heavier-duty material, this backpack has withstood the rigors of time, surviving, thus far, a full five(5) weeks where its predecessors fell in just one. It, too, is camouflaged, so you know it means business. The irony of it all is that I bought the shit backpacks to save money, and now I have spent more money than if I'd just bought the damn Jansport to begin with. It's like how sometimes you won't buy the extended warranty on, say, an Xbox, and then when that Xbox inevitably breaks, not that this has happened to me, you end up having to pay more to repair it than you would've if you'd just bought the extra coverage. That, by the way, is the second worst feeling in the world.