Author: Pam
Another lovely outcome of our connection with the association for the blind was meeting Michel and Vivian. Vivian is visually impaired due to Stargarts and participates in the painting classes, yoga and other activities at the association. When Scott and Michel went to the police station for the second time, Scott invited them to dinner aboard Starship.
Our day ended up being mostly devoted to preparing for dinner and started with a trip to the market next door, which is an overwhelming experience on Sunday. It is the biggest market day and very crowded. We struggle on a quiet day to find what we are looking for and to understand how much we need to pay. We still can not hear the numbers in French when they tell us the total. We often ask to see the calculator they have used to figure out how much we owe or we just give them a big enough note that we are sure will cover the outrageous amounts we are paying for fresh veggies. After making a couple of purchases and not being able to make out what our options were at the butcher, we decided to finish our shopping for dinner at the grocery store. We headed out to accomplish this task to find out to our horror the grocery stores are not open on Sunday. Oops, now what are we going to make for dinner? We only had one package of ground beef (mince for our Aussie & Kiwi friends) in the freezer. We brainstormed and came up with several ideas that we had almost all of the ingredients for, but not quite. We finally settled on pasta, Greek salad and cherry crepes for dessert.
By the time we got this all figured out we had an hour to whip it together. We finished one minute before 5:00 pm and Michel and Vivian arrived promptly at 5:00. There is no such thing as New Caledonia time, we find New Caledonian’s arrive either early or exactly on time. Once aboard they presented us with gifts from New Caledonia, a shirt for Scott and a cool and loose fitting dress for me. They also gave us an essential oil that is from the native Niaoli tree. It has medicinal properties, you can smell it when you have a cold (like Vicks Vapor Rub) or you can put a few drops in a pan of boiling water or an oil burner to cleanse the air. It smells like a cross between Vicks and Eucalyptus. We shared a lovely time in the cockpit and when I went down below to make the final dinner preparations, they confessed they thought they were only coming over for an aperitif (cocktail hour), there had definitely been a breakdown in communication. They said they were happy to stay for dinner, so we all feasted on a meal that we would eat at sea instead of the BBQ we had planned, well maybe minus the crepes.
We will see them again on Thursday for a day trip in the car to go sightseeing to some of their favorite places outside of Noumea. Michel loves to speak English and is very chatty and although Vivian is shyer about her English ability, there does not seem to be a lack of topics to cover. Spending a day with them will certainly be educational and definitely fun.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment