Day 41

I have a cold.  I am sniffly, tired, and sore.  It has also been raining for the past two days, and that hasn't helped.  But at least it's warm!

It's been a whole week, so let's start with Friday.  We went on a field trip to Rincon, the oldest town in Bonaire.  We went on a little tour of the town, which was basically an itty-bitty 7-11-sized grocery story and an irrigation ditch around some houses.  We saw the Rincon Cemetery; the cemeteries here are all above-ground because the ground is mostly limestone, which is pretty hard to dig into.

The cemetery.  Pretty cheerful-looking, eh?

On the Rincon church is a mural of St. Bernard,
who (fun history fact!) started the crusades in the 1100's.

We stopped for a drink break at the church.  The limeade
here is SO GOOD!!!

A typical Rincon street.

A typical Rincon house.  (I love the colors!)

We also visited a new distillery called Cadushy that makes alcohol from the Kadushi cactus, which is abundant here on Bonaire.  In the old days Kadushi cacti were often used to make soups, but people lost interest in it because it takes so long to make.  According to the Dutch couple who started the business, they got the idea from the tourist towns in Holland, which all make and sell their own special alcohol as souvenirs.  They realized that Bonaire didn't have its own special alcohol and decided to make their own.  They're doing very well, and even let us sample their signature flavor!

The owner of Cadushy shows us how they make their alcohol.

This wee bottle sells for $12.50, but it's pretty delicious.

They're also working on a 'Christmas flavor,' which smells
(and presumably tastes) just like a pine tree.  (Yuck!)

Leah is a fan of the cactus alcohol.

And so am I!

We also had a traditional Bonairean dinner at someone's house, which was goat stew, salted fish, rice, funchi (similar to polenta) and plantains.  For dessert, little kids served us cookies!  

Traditional Bonairean dinner, right here.  The glasses in the
edges of the photo have nail polish dots on the bottom; when
we asked, they told us it was in case people borrowed the
glasses, so they'd know to return them.  

We then went to a storytelling event under the full moon.  We were told that there would be translators there for us, and that the local people were excited to hear American stories and myths.  We were lied to.  They asked only one of us to tell a story, and the Papiamentu version (from what I could understand) didn't have much in common with the original story.  There was also no translator, so we sat for two hours listening to stories we couldn't understand.  I was also a little surprised by the terrible phone etiquette there; adults were answering their phones and having full conversations while people were telling stories, without leaving the circle.  It would definitely have been considered rude by American standards.  We ended up leaving halfway through, thank goodness!

The weekend was uneventful.  I went to bed early on Friday night and woke up to broken glass all outside my door, but that was the height of excitement.  We'll skip Monday for a moment, but Tuesday and Wednesday were mostly uneventful.  Today I got a new research project that I'm very excited about: looking at the habitat of the invasive cup coral on Bonaire!  I had to ditch my peacock flounder project because it wasn't working, and I was going to have to do a study on video sampling techniques--which didn't even require diving.  I was absolutely dreading that, so my advisor really came through for me on this one!  Plus I get to dive and snorkel at new sites, which was what I really wanted to do!  Yay!

On Monday things picked up.  We had a lab dive to look for lionfish, but I had no clue what was going on and never saw any lionfish.  That night we went for a night dive because there was supposed to be a super-cool bioluminescent spawning event, but we didn't see anything.  I got separated from my buddy and that freaked me out a bit, so I went for a run after the dive to relax.  Unfortunately I was really hungry so I ended up walking, and as I was walking a man started talking to me.

This is actually an eye-opening story, especially for me, because I've always felt very safe on this island.  The man told me that he'd seen me running a lot and wanted to introduce himself, so we sat on a bench and started talking.  He seemed pretty normal at first, until he started asking me to be his girlfriend.  I pulled the "I'm not looking for a relationship right now" card but he kept trying to convince me that he'd be a great boyfriend.  Things were getting sketchy, so I stood up and told him I needed to get home.  He grabbed me into a bear hug and started trying to kiss me, still talking about what a great boyfriend he'd be.  I pushed him off and sprinted all the way home.

I'd like to point out here that I'm actually a lot more cautious than most people give me credit for.  I made sure to keep an easy-to-flee position while sitting, no leg crossing or sitting too close.  I was in a well-lit place where people were walking by sporadically.  I normally don't run at night, and if I do I take my 3-inch spring-assisted knife.  (Incidentally, I left it at home that night.  Won't happen again!)  I didn't get a kidnapper vibe from this guy, it seemed more like he was really desperate.  I've heard Natalie Holloway jokes and creepy men calling "Heeeey, preety white girl," but this was the first time anyone got close to me.  All the same, I'm definitely going to be more careful from now on!