When the phone rings at 11:30pm and you know your son must be fairly under the weather by now, as he is celebrating his 21st, your heart kind of skips a beat. The call however, was from Juls to say that Robs had been taken to hospital in Bela Bela. She really was not well and they had tested her for malaria, the tests had come back negative but they had her on a drip and were keeping her in hospital. I knew with Kate Doyle (the camp director), she was in the best possible hands, as she would care for Robs as if she were one of her own. Julie and Adie were on standby to fetch her, if necessary and Al was in contact with the hospital for updates. My wonderful support system was rallying around but we still felt worried and helpless being so far away. This was the first time any of the kids had stayed in hospital.
We had a call from Kate around 9:30 to let us know that Robs had viral flu and would be fine, we chatted to her and she was croaky but in good spirits and more worried about her lost camera than her health. We were soooooooooooo relieved and thankful that she was on the mend. Thanks to Kate and all the Saints staff, the hospital staff, Julie and Adie and Al and Jen for their love and support.
After chatting with Gareth, who had also made it through the night, with nothing more a slight headache, I went for a nice long swim on the lake. I stopped and chatted to some fishermen in a mokoro who were rowing past. We then, lazily did some camp maintenance; mainly cleaning dust off things; the fine dust from the roads seems to seep into everything. From there we gravitated to the beach, where we alternated between reading and cooling off in the water. If we go any slower, we will start going backwards.
We decided to eat at the restaurant; besides it being a nice break from fire cooking, we love trying new restaurants. We are also mindful of supporting the local communities that we go through. It’s not like in S.A., where if you feel like a pizza at 6:00, by 6:30 you are sitting at the local pizza place, sipping sangria. Here you need to let the restaurant know in the morning that you will be dining there in the evening. A waiter arrived at our camp at lunch with a menu - we had a choice of 2 starters and 2 mains and one pudding. As we are the only 2 staying at the camp, we were obviously the only 2 at the restaurant. They had set us a table outside, overlooking the lake, candles and all. The meal was spectacular and to make it extra special the full moon rose slowly up over the lake – so romantic.
Chilling
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