After several days of culture shock and adjustment issues (nauseating heat, language frustration, sleep deprivation, absence of any modern creature comforts, homesickness), I seem to have found my groove again. Each day gets easier, by minute degrees but nevertheless, I am acclimating.
I am fortunate in that I have not experienced any food or water related illnesses. (I fear I may tempt fate by even writing that statement!) However, the mosquitoes have found me. They love my feet – which are always exposed in Fiji. I keep my feet coated in tropical strength repellent. The other day I made the mistake of spraying my feet while I was wearing my flip-flops. The colors bled and my feet bore the blue and black outline of the straps. So I guess Deet melts or breaks-down plastic or rubber.
We live in sandals and flip flops here. The only time I wear socks is when I run in the mornings sometimes. The roosters start squawking anywhere from 4 to 5 AM (lots of free range chickens roam the village) so I’ve been trying to take their cue and roll out of bed by 6 or so. It’s an opportunity to enjoy the early morning coolness and also normalize my new life with an exercise routine. Running within the village is considered taboo (disrespectful) so we’re restricted to doing any kind of exercise on the main road that runs through the village. It doesn’t provide much variety in the scenery but it’s just as well; the paths within the village are narrow and in poor condition.
I’m starting to get a slight command of the language. I’m sure I sound like Tarzan but I can string together and understand enough phrases to have the most rudimentary conversation. The 3 year old who lives a few houses down the path has been helpful. I can (almost) understand him!
The rainy season seems to be coming to an end. The locals say it’s late in arriving - it rained every single day for the first 10 days and now we can go several days without a drop. And it cools down quite a bit at night which has been nice for sleeping.
I’m getting used to the nightly bed prep of putting my mosquito net in place and tucking it in (from inside the bed). This is a critical task because those suckers can find a way in when they’ve got you in their sights. And then there is the repositioning that is required after I get up in the middle of the night to pee. And that’s at least once during the night! We are encouraged (almost required) to drink lots of water while our bodies adjust to this new climate. During the day, I pee just about every hour on the hour. At night, the urgency sometimes awakens me (hence the aforementioned sleep deprivation) and I lie awake for several minutes debating with myself how bad I need to go versus the laboriousness of the task (re-tucking the net). It could be worse: at least my house has an indoor toilet.
Another benefit to the end of rainy season is that the nights are clearer now and the night sky is truly magical. Oh My Stars! Being in the southern hemisphere provides a whole new view and one of my fellow trainees helped point out the Southern Cross (probably the most famous of the southern hemisphere constellations). Once you spot it, it’s so obvious! I look for it every night and have the Crosby Stills and Nash song on constant re-play in my head. (Do yourself a favor and refresh your musical memory with this classic from the early 80’s: CSN – Southern Cross):
When you see the Southern Cross for the first time
You understand now why you came this way
‘Cause the truth you might be running from is so small
But it’s big as the promise of a coming day.
David
ReplyDeleteI am so excited every time , i receive one of your emails via Anja (Flomme).
i love the way you write, it is like reading a great book that never ends :)
Life in London, is like a roller coaster, one day you are up, the next you are down and sometimes it throws you a loop.
The freelance business gets harder and harder and the budgets have been cut by 75%, so everyone is "fighting' to stay afloat.
I do sometimes think "what the hell are you doing, why put yourself through this life of an artist", but then I remember how much I love it and there really isn't much else i would like to do and I can't let the dream go just yet!
Chris has also gone freelance, so it is a both exciting time, but also financially scary and we are working hard to make it all float.
Life in casa Ty, is good.
we live and sleep in her living room and share kitchen, bath and garden oh and cat..so I do understand what it means, not having much privacy,
even though your circumstances are quite different !!
But we all get on and so far it has been pleasant and the neighborhood is nice and quiet and I do love running here, as there are 2 major parks and it goes up and down hill, so I do get a great work out for the gluteus maximus!
i was approached, by this rich couple from Canada, friends of Shlomo
(Helena"toast mistress"boyfriend) to help bring over a new product from the USA to England. We talked for months, how to go about it, what right moves to make etc. I obviously let them know that I had a lot of retail experience and my knowledge of cosmetics is wast, but when it comes to marketing etc, I have never done it before, but I do have a lot of contacts to get help from.
Chris and i then went to Italy to meet them, as they were on a second honey moon, basically they met 2 years ago, he is super rich, she shot the peacock, as we say in Denmark and now she wants to have her fun with his dosh and play dress up with her own cosmetics line (she comes from the banking world) , I guess you can hear a bit of recentment coming out...well, so we spend money (we really don't have) to meet them in Rome, we have meetings, hatch a plan for London and how to go about it, also making sure they know, that we are not in a position to just concentrate on this venture, as we will only get paid from this ones it makes a profit as they have put all the money in it and as i mentioned before, times are tough in our industry, we are being totally transparent.
Anyway we have found a potential buyer for the products, a well known Salon, who's owner is a high profile celebrity hairdresser and they are looking to expand into a spa and very interested. Back in the UK I am lining up meetings with some great people, that are willing to give me free advice, that you would pay in the 1000's for and we are trying to pin down, the sister of the hair dresser, who we will be doing business with. It is all happening, slowly but surely...in London, everything is a longer process, then it would be in the US, which was something that was kind of difficult for me to understand in the beginning..but everyone play their cards close to the chest here! So 3 weeks pass since Rome, but all is set up and we know what we are doing... Then we get an email from the canadians, that they don't feel our hearts are in it and that they had expected us to have sold the products somewhere by now, since it had been months since the first took up contact.
Chris and I were speechless...so he called them and asked for a skype meeting, which they had and all seemed fine and they agree to have a meeting when I get back.
ReplyDeleteI was in Venice assisting Dick Page (world renowned makeup artist & creative director for Shiseido- mega japanese cosmetics line)
on the latest Missoni campaign.
We have the skype meeting, we ones again tell them our plan, tell them, that for the 10th time we are not "rich kids" , that we also have to work on our carrier whilst doing this and remind them that it had only been 3 weeks since Rome etc, they tell us how much they want to be in business with us and that they know we can do it, bla bla.
I say, great, now for me to keep going, I would need a letter of intend from them, a business contract. Oh sure you will have it by monday, so all is great! NOT! So I ask Ty (our roommate, the singer you met at my birthday party) to do my tarot cards, just have a question about this whole thing..yeah I know, must people feel it is humbug, but hey to each their own..anyway,it comes up about the business and that there is a woman who can't be trusted..I say, I feel it is the canadian wife!
a second later my phone beeps and there is a message from her:
That, they basically had decided, not to go ahead with us..this is after, they had blown sunshine up our behinds in the skype meeting and oooh, you are the only ones we would want to work with, bla bla.
basically, when it came down to the business contract, so they couldn't screw us, they backed out!
I have decided, to still go ahead with all the meetings I set up, as I did gain a lot of great ideas from this process and so we will see what the future holds :)
will be off to N.Y in September, to assist Dick Page on the fashion shows, which I am excited about. I am also setting up meetings with agencies and photographers to get more work over there.
Chris might go too and do the same.
I would love to swop London for N.Y :)
Well I am off for now.
Take care of yourself
Love you
xxx Dorthe
It's so good to hear how everything is going!! It sounds challenging but fantastic at the same time. And of course only you could manage a CSN reference in a post about Fiji. :) All good here. Baby scheduled to arrive July 15. It's going up to 100 degrees today - is it that hot in Fiji? What's your mailing address?
ReplyDeleteMiss you! xoxo Jen
I look forward to hearing from you every week. I am so impressed by your resolve to handle the tough adjustments and hang on until you get to another high. The night sky, the water fall adventure.... surely there are so many more to come. Miss you so... Jackie
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