Endings

The worst part about stories are the endings.  I can love a book up until the last page or a movie until the last moment and then it’s completely ruined.  All that good stuff before is ruined because someone decided that everything had to be perfect.  Of course, sometimes things do end up perfectly and of course I do love the occasional sappy chick flick or feel good book where the girl and the guy end up happily ever after and everything works out the simplest way in the end.  I’m lying, I love happy endings, but they don’t always come out in real life as a happy ending which is why I don’t know if I believe in happy endings.  I guess my story still has some more meat to it, more juicy details and gossip, more adventures and flirting.  It’s not over yet, but it’s coming to an end and I’m wondering what the ending will be like.

I can feel it in my bones that it’s time to leave and it’s time to have my ending here, that and of course the fact that the doctor said that my perforation is slowly healing now and it will take, he estimates, another month before I can get in the water and then another month for the pressure of diving not cause another tear.  I can feel that things are coming to an end here for me.  Maybe it’s like those athletes who retire on top, I feel like I finally have found a place for myself here. I’ve achieved so much with diving and have been so grateful for the diving I’ve done.  I have very good friends and have made amazing connections. There are those people, who say that oh you’ll come back, or I was supposed to leave and have been here for 3 years, but I can feel it inside- I’m going to leave and the part that makes me tear up is that I don’t know when I’ll be back.  I love this place with all its quirks and absolute absurdities, I also dislike a lot about it as well.  There was one night before Robyn left that Mo, Robyn and I sat down and were having a bad day and decided to make our top ten things that we hate about the island.  No good food choices, the toilet paper going in the can instead of the toilet, Mo has a thing about the To Go cups and the To Go boxes, never being able to find what you need when you need it, the electricity going off whenever it really pleases, the bugs: sand flies, mosquitoes, and cockroaches, the men who hiss at you, the men who ask you if you want a taxi to West Bay every day and then when you do need a taxi they are no where to be found, seeing if the atm is working, seeing if the internet is working, well there’s a lot of things to dislike, but there are some great things as well.

So about a week ago I went to AKR to see the doctor again.  I went with my roommate, my own British little Bridget Jones.  She is sick as well and has had a hard time figuring out what exactly needs to be done to make her feel better.  She was scared and I told her I would go with her wherever she needed to go.  So we began first with Clinica Esperanza.  It was a Saturday and when we showed up the taxi driver said, oh the steel drum band.  We didn’t understand in our dysfunction of being sick, but when we stepped out and the taxi drove away we saw that they were having a party, with the steel drum band.  We wander along the clinic and finally found someone who said, yep they are closed today and off we went in another taxi to AKR.  At AKR we waited an hour and half because they were at lunch and then came late.  My Bridget Jones went in first and the doctor said she needed to go to a hospital where they could take more tests.  The doctor then gave me the news.  Yes, your ear is slowly healing, but he estimates another month and then after that he wants me not to dive because the eardrum will still be weak and pressure might cause it to burst or tear.  Sigh.  We then went in another taxi to the public hospital.  Picture a clay facade, a one story with Hospital Publica written on the front.  The front was the best part of the hospital.  It was scary, I thought that Woods Clinic where I went when I had malaria was bad.  The hospital was a maze of courtyards and wooden shacks.  We found the emergency room and asked if they could do the tests.  They wouldn’t be able to until Monday morning and the doctor at AKR had said that she needed the test as soon as possible.  We left the shack of a hospital and walked the few blocks to Woods Clinic.  The lab technician was at a wedding until 6, but she would be back so another taxi ride back to West End, because it was only 2 pm at this time and my poor roommate was tired.  They gave her two jam jars; one for urine and one for feces, then told her that she needed to keep them in the freezer until she came.  The poor, poor girl.  At 5:30 we caught another taxi and headed to Coxen Hole and the clinic.  We waited in the waiting room, they took blood, she gave only one of the samples in the jam jar and wrote her name on a piece of paper.  In the end, they said that she needed more tests, which they couldn’t do at the hospital, and that she would need to go to the mainland for more tests with correct equipment.  At 8 pm we found our second to last taxi of the night.  We get in, the driver is on the phone, then about 2 minutes later after driving through Coxen Hole, the driver turns around and says in very good English, by the way I am charging you $10 each to go to West End.  This is a taxi that should cost about $1 or $2 each.  We get out, my poor roomie has balls of steel to get through the day and to put up with all the uncertainty not to mention, oh by the way you’ve been in a lot of taxis all day and paid a pretty penny not to figure out what is wrong and now the taxi driver wants to rip her off.  We get home and she goes straight to bed.  Me, it’s been a long day.  I’ve decided that I will go home soon to Colorado.  I decide to go to the Blue Marlin and tell Mo that I’m leaving and have one drink. 

I haven’t really had anything to drink recently so Eddie gives me a screwdriver on the house because I have tears in my eyes.  I call Kala and Chase who are having dinner with his mom and DJ and tell them over the phone that I am leaving soon.  They show up at the bar and I start crying, I can’t hold it in any longer.  I am the girl at the bar crying.  There is always a first time for everything.  They give me big hugs and hang out for a bit, Mo who has been working comes over.  I tell her and Eddie my news in between tears.  Max is running around, playing his guitar with the local band that is playing.  I feel so loved to have these amazing people that I have met and become close with and so sad that I won’t see them everyday.  The local reggae band starts playing “Every little thing is going to be alright”.  Pete comes by the bar and we all get up and start dancing.  I’m fighting back the tears and smiling because these are the moments that I’ll miss.  Everyone dancing, having a good time and being with the people that I love here.  More friends come, a local guy named Artley who is a fisherman and a local playboy comes and talks to Mo and me and promises to take us on a fishing trip with Max.  He buys us shots.  Mo has been working at Blue Bahia, a resort here and her two new Spanish guy friends who are tech divers come by.  They are absolutely adorable.  I talk to them for a while and then DJ, Adam, Conal and DMT2 show up.  I end up talking with DMT2 and then end the night.

The next day good news comes in the form of a phone call from the Argentinean Grill asking me if I will work that night.  I love working there.  There are 3 other wait staff working; Johnnan, Diana and my favorite little Nica Maria Jose.  I’m the only native English speaker although the rest of the crew have their levels of comprehension.  The three managers Annalia, Uyle and Suaypa are so nice as well.  The kitchen is organized and clean.  Everything has a method of doing things and the night ended with a decent tip and the time flew by.  At the end of the night we are sitting around waiting for the money to be counted and everyone is speaking in Spanish, I’m trying to keep up but tired from the work and from the night before.  The Grill is closed on Mondays but Annalia, the Argentinean with her absolutely beautiful accent tells me I did a great job and they want me to work on Tuesday.  It was night and day from the other restaurant I had worked at and it was great not to be the only wait staff and to have a kitchen that runs well.  They give us pizza for dinner to go, which is very nice, but unfortunately I’m lactose intolerant.  I miss pizza the most, no I miss a lot of things about not eating cheese, but I used to live on pizza when I was in college and living in New York.  I go home and hang out with my roommates and give Pete the pizza.  We hang out for a bit watching Dream Girls and chatting more than watching the film.  I curl up on the couch at the end of the night and have sweet dreams.  Every little thing is going to be alright.

The next day Amanda and I had made plans to hang out after she got off of work.  Kala, Chase, Conal, DMT2, Adam and Maggie and I watch the sunset at Sundowners while I wait for Miss Amanda.  Great conversation, beautiful people and the talk of traveling.  Kala and Chase are heading to Nicaragua soon for a trip.  Conal is headed back to the UK in a couple of weeks.  It all seems to be coming to an end.  The beautiful thing about traveling is the people you meet and the hopes of seeing them again.  Amanda meets us at the Blue Marlin, we then head to the Dive where Brion James is playing with the talented Pia Flores.  We dance, people leave and then little Miss Amanda decides that it’s a perfect nite to go to this one bar to dance the rest of the night away.  Amanda, a friend of hers and DMT2 and I head in that direction.  Along the way we run into Fish.  I pop in the bar he’s at and have a great conversation with him for a minute and then head to the other dance spot.  Then little Miss Amanda goes and gets Fish and drags him to the dance spot.  Amanda is an Aries girl like me and likes to stir the pot.  Fish and I have another great conversation and I’m afraid that someone might have got a little jealous or maybe it was the horrible music, but he left shortly there after.  Amanda and I dance on the bar and then walk up the horrible hill to her house and agree that maybe we shouldn’t have danced on the bar, but we are girls and sometimes we do that.

Dorte and I had been collecting money for our boat captain and we were quite surprised at the response that we got from the community.  Many people helped out, including Mo and Eddie who for one night donated all the tips the received to little Marcos.  We were able to get the deposit for the operation but then because the little guy got a cold and they decided that cutting him open might not be the best idea they are again trying a new treatment.  Our boat captain came back yesterday and brought with him a letter that his wife had written.  

Tuesday night I work with Maria Jose, Jenni (a Canadian DMT) and a new guy.  Max, Mo, Eddie, Pete and Eddie’s grandma come for dinner.  The second night was better than the first in tips and I seemed to get the hang of it.  I love the people that I work with, especially the Argentineans and their beautiful accents.  MariJo (Maria Jose) and I decide to get a beer after work at the Blue Marlin where we run into some familiar faces.  I love speaking Spanish with MariJo and watching her speak to people who don’t speak Spanish as well.  Most of communication is non-verbal but it’s great when you can understand the words that match the movements.  The night ends in a familiar way.

I spend the night in the cabin in the woods and in the morning it starts raining again.  Mo decides to take Max to French Harbor to play on the playground at the Wendy’s there and I tag along.  After eating Wendy’s, another food that I was addicted to in college… I blame that squarely on my college roommate Jen.  We would do our laundry at the laundry mat and then go over to the Wendy’s next to it religiously every couple of weeks when our laundry started to smell and we had no more clean underwear.  Mo and I climbed in the jungle gym at Wendy’s with Max.  It’s been forever since I’ve climbed into a jungle gym and although the sign said no permite ninos mas de 12 anos o mayor, meaning they don’t allow kids older than 12 years or more, they didn’t seem to mind us climbing in the jungle gym and sliding down the slide.  After Wendy’s Mo and I decided to take Max to the arcade across from Wendy’s called the Game Connection.  $10 will get you 2 and half hours of pure fun.  Mo and I definitely had more fun than Max.  We played in the bumper cars, we threw basketballs into hoops, we pounded on drums to the tune of twinkle twinkle little star, we rode motorcycles and went bowling.  We were so excited about the 62 tickets that we got for playing the games but disappointed when we found out that they really don’t get you much.  Max got a small green koosh ball which he then lost after he had a bit of cry session from too much fun.  That is what happens when you go to an arcade, it’s so much fun, but then it has to end- just like my trip here.

A new bar was opening that night called 50 bar, it’s designed around divers.  50 bar is a term for how much air you have left when diving and 50 bar means that you are low on air and it’s time to end the dive.  50 bar is replacing Nova, which in Spanish if you break it down means no va- doesn’t go, which was the case for the old Nova.  Out with the old in with the new.  I met a great guy that night and was forced with a bit of dilemma and in the end of the night a bit of a funk.  Dreamboat is what we will call him.  Dreamboat has been living in Bocas del Toro in Panama for the last 3 years with his brother.  His brother decided that enough was enough and moved back home to the states.  Dreamboat found a friend who had a sailboat and decided to become their crew bitch and sailed on a catamaran for 4 days to get to Roatan.  Dreamboat and I automatically clicked, great conversation, he’s dreamy to look at but at the end of the night it had to end there.  Perhaps I will run into him again, but perhaps not.  It is the case with traveling, you meet people, you connect but you might not see them ever again.  I ran into Fish at 50 bar, but he seemed out of air completely and didn’t even say hi or introduce me to his new girl.  I was having a bit of a pity party for one and then dumped all over my good friend Conal who cheered me up and said well it’s all part of traveling darling as well as with life. 

I’ve been watching far more television recently since I’ve been out of the water these last few weeks.  I turn on the tube, which I haven’t lived with a television for the last 8 years and find a good movie to watch.  I saw one of my favorites Reality Bites recently and of course watched Extreme Home Makeover and cried my eyes out.  I caught half of an independent film on Showtime called “Last Stop for Paul”.  “Last Stop for Paul” is about two friends who, again I only saw half of it but I think it’s about two guys who travel the world in two weeks and spread the ashes of their friend.  These two guys go to Greece, Thailand, and Japan and end the trip at a Full Moon Party.  It’s a bit dry at first but I connected with it because they told the crazy stories of the crazy people that they met along the way.  They get thrown in jail in Thailand for not being able to pay for a night with hot women in a bar, they meet someone who had the bends, one of them misses the boat to the Full Moon Party, but in the end meets up with his friend and a girl he met in Greece.  The end they talk about their love for traveling as they spread the last of their friend’s ashes.

Well, this blog post is coming to an end.  I am hanging out with my best friend Max tonite.  I’m babysitting him and if I’m lucky we’ll watch Snow White.  I can’t remember how that fairytale ends, they all seem to end with the prince rescuing the princess by awakening her with a kiss from a deep sleep.  The princess should really just not get herself into bad predicaments and then she wouldn’t need to be saved,  but they are fairytales and they all end happily ever after.