Closing Day

Our final day started at 7:00 in the morning to accommodate the minister of tourism who overslept and didn’t show up until 9:30 anyway. Wesley, one of our three project leaders is our PR guy, he’s been the one in contact with sponsors, partners and government officials. He gave a great speech this morning. When he started speaking in Malay all the locals’ ears perked up, they were very impressed. The rest of the speeches were quick and purposeful. Until the minister of tourism got up there. He rambled on and on, obviously with no direction. Just when it looked like it was about to end he started on an insane diatribe about plastic litter and plastic that’s not really plastic, but works like plastic but is biodegradable and supermarkets charging for plastic. This went on for at least another fifteen minutes and we were all busy poking people who were falling asleep. Then all of a sudden it ended and we took group photos.

The next activity was mangrove planting. As I had mentioned it was high tide so we were planting in the mud but under three feet of water, which made for some very fun stuff. As you try to walk in the soft mud, your boot gets stuck and you have to peel your foot out. A lot of times, people just fell in. I unfortunately wore white pants to the event, which I think were a reasonable price to pay for the fun I had.

The closing party was at a sushi restaurant. Everyone should know better than to buy sushi on a Sunday, let alone on a Sunday in the third world, but we went anyway. The fish definitely seemed a little unfresh, but everyone kept saying how good it was so I tried a couple more pieces. You’ll see the results in the log after next.

We had a lot of money left in the budget and being the last night, we could either donate it all back to the foundation, or have a blowout last night. Strangely enough, Arthur only had a couple, who is this person?