After what Laila told me last night I just kept waking up during the night. Each sound made my mind wander into the abyss of my worst thoughts. “What is that? Will someone come into my trailer? What if a girl straight from a horror movie show up?” These kind of worries kept me scared all night. I did not even realize until morning that I was sleeping in the corner of the bed that is close to the wall. I planned to do breathing exercises, jog and work out but I just did not feel like that because I woke up pretty late for my Canadian standards. Nevertheless, I still woke up at 7am.
First things first, so I got changed, brushed my teeth and washed my face. It is strange because I always felt like we should not brush their teeth before breakfast, but when you actually get in touch with lots of people before that first meal you realize that maybe they do not want to smell a bad breath.
I really wanted to turn on my computer and continue my blog, but I felt like I should have replenished the wood stock first. It took me around ten minutes because it was not that empty, but when I finished I still could not get to my computer. Today Asher and Jim woke up really early so the little boy was already energetic and ready to play. Moreover, Fran asked me to fold some plastic bags so that it would be easier to take them when needed. I used the method my mom taught me, which is apparently the same method that people use to fold flags. Basically, you try to fold the bag in quarters, then you just do a triangle at the bottom and keep making triangles as you go up the plastic bag. They were so amazed that we started like a competition on whose folding was prettier. Obviously, Asher won with his tornado style folding (it was actually a technique used to tie-dye shirts).
After that I helped Fran cutting lots of stuff for breakfast and the evening pot luck. People keep complimenting me but I do not know if I really am the person that I become when I travel. I mean, if so many people compliment me and keep telling me that I will find someone and will be a fantastic husband/dad, then why am I still here all alone? I think I know the answer, but I will keep it to myself.
As usual, we had oatmeal and I am starting to get used to it. During the breakfast Fran asked me to read one African proverb which lead to Jim and me teasing Laila about the fact that she has not been asked to read one yet. The page I picked had something like this written on it: “The highest heights that a man has to climb are not mountains but the depths whence he came from – Sierra Leonean proverb”. Everybody shared their thoughts about that and it was cool to realize how same thing can inspire different reactions and thoughts in different people. In my opinion it meant that the steepest challenge we have to face is not a physical one like a mountain but a spiritual one like climbing up our inner dilemmas, weaknesses and fears.
Done with the breakfast me, Laila and Larry helped Fran to clean cabin 9 because it was too early to start nailing and drilling since the camp’s guests were probably still sleeping.
While Fran was doing some office tasks and Laila was cleaning the office bathroom, I played make-believe with Asher. I pretended to be a horse that he could ride and drive but what he liked the most was the monkey I showed him the day before. He just loved it and we kept pretending that I could transform into a monkey. He would just run away and I would run after him to “eat” him like a banana. It is funny how many times a kid can ask you to play the same thing. As adults we get bored after one or two times, but I think I lost the count of how many times Asher, Haven and River asked me to transform into a monkey to play with them. Even if I suggested other super funny games, they would just play monkey tag. Fran took some videos of us and then we left for cabin 9.
It was the first time I rode on a truck and I did it on the back like a real American (in this case Canadian)! It was a bumpy road but it was so funny and amazing because I got to do what I always watched in the movies. At the cabin I basically just cleaned the windows with a liquid based on vinegar. I think I smelled like vinegar after the cleaning. Then me and Laila had to check out the outhouses. For those who wonder, an outhouse is a little cabin where people can pee or poo but it has no flushing water. So you just do your stuff, wipe with the toilet paper and then shove some sawdust on your poop. We had to refill all the bins that were lacking sawdust. I told Laila about my germophobia and she encouraged me by saying that she has a fish phobia but she actually swim anyway in the lake. I remembered she laughed when I replied by saying “I am going to wash my hands ten times when we get this job done”. I did not.
Right after that we both went to Jim who was working at the cabin. We had the best intentions, but I think we slowed him down by doing lots of mistakes and just taking more than double the time it would have taken Jim to do the same thing. We all laughed about it but at least we got the frame of the back wall done.
We and Asher played zombie and tag while everyone set up the table and the food for lunch. I think we are bonding well which is cool because I think he has two amazing parents and he will become a fine kind man. We had leftovers for lunch to empty the fridge a little bit. It has been three days since I started eating vegan and I do not miss meat a bit. Obviously I am going to eat it anyway when I go back to my normal life, but I can admit I can live without.
After lunch I offered to help with the cabin but Jim and Fran told me to enjoy the activities because bringing energy and helping out during those moments is part of volunteering too. So I joined the tie-dye and got helped by Asher. He explained me what I should have done but I was afraid of messing up until Laila told me “There are no mistakes while tie-dying”. Nodding at those words I just let my creativity flow. Tie-dye is basically getting chunks of the garment you want to color and then tie the different parts with elastics. I admit I was a little bit worried because my t-shirt looked so different from the others. When it came to actually color it we chose dark blue and orange. I went for a Barcelona uniform type of color mix and I am so glad it came out so cool. The sleeveless shirt Fran gave me to tie-dye was gray with a Lighthouse Landing Camp logo on the chest. After the tie-dye it looked like a a sky during the sunset. It was so wonderful.
As soon as we were done with the activity we headed to the shore to do the next one. It was really cool because everyone got to join. We basically ride the boat to the other shore and swam back. I started strong, playing the shark part with Asher. But I soon noticed Larry swimming alone and everyone could see that he was drifting, so I went to him. The moment I caught up with him and told him that he was drifting, he replied to me that he knew the way because he was been doing that for years now. Another funny thing is that Fran did not have her ear gear on, so she could not hear anything. She started talking to me and I tried to explain her the situation but we could not really speak and understand each other, so I just made a heart my hands which received a heart back from her, then I left them. I never caught up with Jim, Alyssa and Asher even with my above average swimming skills. I used the life-jacket as a tablet sometimes and as a diaper other times. I was about to give it to Laila, who was rowing on the boat for safety reasons, but I realized that if I had a cramp it would have been bad for me, so I kept it.
Once we got to the shore I wanted to help Jim with the cabin, but all of my stuff was on Fran’s canoe including my glasses. Since they were still so far, I decided to help Jim anyway with my bad eyesight. I just helped him to line up the planks while he was nailing or drilling them. However, when Fran came to give me back my things, me and Laila started to help more seriously. And I have to admit that we did not slow down Jim this time. We worked so much faster that a building company could have hired us in another life. Jokes aside, we did a pretty well done job for being amateurs. Even though Laila has worked in construction before since she built wood igloos in Sweden. The competitive side of me could not accept that she was better than me with the tools, but I understood that I had a handicap. We finished framing the walls before supper (which is the way they call dinner over here) and we were so excited because it looked so cool already.
One last thing I did was greeting and welcoming the new guests at cabin 6. They asked me few things and I got the answers right except for the cost of the wood chops. I told them it was free but Fran actually told me later that it was not, so I felt a little embarassed because I got it wrong and felt like a let them down with my task. But anyway, I enjoyed riding the bike to the cabin and back. It has no gears, so it was a little bit difficult when I had to ride it uphill but going downhill was so cool.
Supper was actually another activity today, but I would call it more like an event. We had a pot luck with the guests and everyone brought something. I had some good food and Fran asked us to share with the others a reason why we were grateful for the day. All of us had to do that in their own language plus a translation in English if the language was not understandable for everyone. It was cool that we got it done and I actually understood all Melissa’s speech. She is from Mexico so she used Spanish. It is fun how Italian and Spanish people can understand each other. When it came to my turn I said I was grateful for the patience and the trust the people have showed me during my stay here. Everyone was so amazed with Italian and kept telling me that it sounds so melodic.
We jumped back to building the cabin after dinner and everyone joined us, even the people from cabin 3. One thing that amazed me is that Asher, even though he is four years old, knows exactly what he can an can not do. Moreover, he knows the limits of what he can do. He was there with a chainsaw and Jim was not worried a least. He is so consistent with his kid and his attitude. Whatever, I was a little worried but when River came over my worries just took over and I grabbed the chainsaw out of Asher’s hands. Basically after a short time all the children were there and as soon as we lifted up all the frames for the four walls, the kids jumped in and started playing make-believe with me. They had so much fun that it was hard for their parents to make them stop to go back to their own cabin to sleep. I went with Jim and Asher back to their cabin, where the little boy asked me if I wanted to see his bedroom. He toured me around his cabin before we said goodbye to each other.
The plan for the night was getting some writing done with my blog and finish writing other days too, but it did not work. Apparently I took so much time just to write down one day. And moreover, while I was about to start, a fox just walked down the camp to the Polish people’s trailer. I followed it and was amazed. Foxes do not look like the drawings or like they do in television. They are so much slimmer and this one just sat close to the Polish people to have some food. Karma, the girl from the first day, actually fed it a tomato directly from her hands. I read that on the guest book in the cabin we cleaned in the morning. The moment was so cool, but I had not my camera with me. In that very instant, I scolded myself for not having it with me and made a mental note to always bring the camera along because something always happens here in Lighthouse Landing Camp.
The night is pretty much as usual, with me and Laila trying to keep our travel journal updated. We talk instead of doing what we are supposed to do and we keep eating a lot of peanuts recently. Maybe this is one of the reasons why I can not keep up with the pace I need to catch up with the days I left behind. Plus tonight Melissa came to talk and spend some time with us. Will I ever catch up? Who knows but for tonight that is it.
One more thing, I was so scared of going into the activity building alone in the dark that I left everything in the office’s fridge. Moreover, Laila left me alone early on purpose, so I dashed into my trailer in the darkness with all these new noises and animal cries. There were these two similar cries coming from both sides of the trailer, so I just closed the door behind me and went to sleep even if I had to go to the bathroom. The bathroom could wait until sunlight I guess.
Godyl Go! 