. april 24/10 . i spent my last $10. not my last $10 for the month, week or day. not my last $10, "but it's okay as i have a back-up fund." i spent my last $10. period. on internet.
it's a wierd feeling - to have nothing and be absolutely okay with it. it's even stranger to think that i so willingly handed over all i had left in order that i might continue to remain in contact with everyone around the world. granted - i DO get paid in a couple of days. but still. i gave all i had in order that i might be able to catch up on a few emails, my blog, etc. and i am not alone.
over the course of my travels in the last 10 months i have realized that i am not alone in the quest to stay in contact with people around the world that i care about. hundreds of dollars slip through our fingers as we stock up on postcards, phone cards and internet minutes. we'll buy second phones just so that we might have a better chance of reception with a different phone company in the outback. budgeting involves choosing the absolute cheapest foods so we can buy an extra phonecard. we will live on PB & J sandwhiches for a week or two just so that we might have an extra hour on the computer. travel plans become altered on a regular basis so that we can stop through a city in hopes our cellphone might have reception. entire days are wasted running around an unknown city in order to find the cheapest internet rate. we even go as far as to cancel late night plans so that we can get to sleep early if only that we might wake up at the crack of dawn to make our phonecalls.
not even a week ago i dropped $50 for internet charges and a round of postcards to be sent back to canada. in one day. $50 - gone. at the time anika and i weren't even spending that much on food for both of us... and what we bought would last us almost 2 weeks. go figure.
there were times during our travels around australia when anika and i would be scrambling around trying to find reception so that she could call her parents - all within the few hours we had to reach them during an appropriate hour of their timezone. meanwhile we're travelling across multiple timezones ourselves in australia. makes things a little bit difficult.
as if life couldn't get anymore complicated, try to figure out what time to call home when, as travelling westward, our clocks are turning back in time, but because it's nearly "winter" (nothing compared to canadian standards) in the southern hemisphere, daylight savings causes us to jump back an extra hour still. and that's just us. the northern hemisphere gets to jump ahead an hour. then take into account that because of the time different that both germany and canada (whom anika and i are contacting) would be experiencing their evening as we are waking up for our morning the following day. and all of THAT is even simple when not considering individual schedules all persons involved have or the complicated prospect of "booking" a time to call one another. oh yeah - and did i mention none of it is free? aside from the small and rare exception of finding a public library that will offer free internet and even then there is generally a limit to how long one can use it (on average, anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour can be expected). this can be rather annoying when you have over 200 pictures to upload, a blog to write, emails to send and banking to do. i'm regularly spending (on average) $5/hour for internet, $2/postcard and $1/hour for phoning home. it sounds small in theory, but when i do 4 hours a week on internet, send at least 12 postcards home every couple weeks and spend countless hours on the phone when i call... not to mention any travel expenses to get to the places to do these things - well - it adds up quick.
my point through all of this is not to bash everyone at home and say i don't feel the love regarding my efforts in staying in touch - it's not that at all. i love what i do in trying to stay in contact and i fight my way through all the obstacles on a constant basis in order to do so. it is more that i had no idea what kinds of obstacles i would be facing when i left calgary 10 months ago and if i didn't have any idea - i can only assume those at home haven't considered the concept either.
so, as it stands - yes, i have spent my last $10 on internet. but i do have a job and will get paid here soon enough. however, that being said, i have created a new button for my blog (those reading this via email, facebook or otherwise will have to go to my actual blogsite in order to see it) in which anyone can donate money to help out my cause. now, keep in mind - i do not expect money from anyone and i will continue to update my blog and pictures regardless, but should you feel inclined to send a little money my way to help finance my travels in any way - it would be greatly appreciated.
. april 30/10 . it's hard to begin to describe life here in broome. days are filled with waking up to neighbors who are in the same boat as me. living out of a tent. sleeping on the rock hard ground only to rise when an annoying bird starts to squak from the trees above. we all work our random jobs. some in housekeeping. some in maintenance. some at restaurants. we are all dirt poor and have developed our own community of backpackers seeking to help each other out when one is in need. during the time that i had given up my last $10 for internet and was waiting on pay, my newfound friend gerwin offered to give me some of his last cash he had in his pocket - i declined, but it amazed me to know that there could be people out there just willing to help, no matter what the cost is to them.
and broome is completely full of people like that.
a couple days ago i decided that i should try to get myself a bike to get around. the bus is a little pricey and a bike would make things more flexible in order to come and go as i please. so i talked to the reception at the caravan park. lynn told me to go speak with tony who lives at the park as well. i trekked myself to the back of the park where i found tony to be living and asked him if he knew where i could get a bike. he told me he didn't have any, but would check around for me and then directed me to talk to another guy who also lives at the park. so i trekked back across the caravan park and found the new guy didn't have any extra bikes for me either. but by then it didn't matter, the word was out. all the regulars knew i was looking for a bike and were eagerly coming up to me to give suggestions on where i could get them.
i suppose i should back up here and say that broome has a very unique bike culture. quite simply - bikes are hard to come by. there is only one bike shop and even then there aren't that many in there. and those that are being sold are high in price. much higher than my budget of $50. the thing is, there are tons of bikes "lying around" in broome. people just ditch them when they are done with them. people like tony pick them up, fix them up and either give or sell them after they're done. bikes constantly are in rotation with the seasonal backpackers like myself and at the end of the season they are all dumped off at the side of the road like old shoes no one wants anymore.
so before i knew it - the next day i was talking to a co-worker who also lives at the caravan park and told him i was looking for a bike. scotty said he might have one as he had found 2 on the side of the road, dropped them off at the police station and the cops called him back to say they hadn't found the owners so would scotty like to keep them? he decided to keep one of them. i got the other. for $20. all i had to do then was head back over to tony and get the brakes fixed as they were next to nothing.
before i knew it, by the end of the day, all us backpackers had bikes. hannah's only had one pedal. kirsten's gears were a little rusty. gerwin's seat was peeling off. dalphine's bell rung while going over bumps and my gears jumped everytime i hit a bump in the road. but we had bikes and that was all that mattered.
as it were, last night we decided to head down to town beach to go see the staircase to the moon. once a month, the moon can be seen rising over the horizon and it's reflection in the ocean waters looks like a staircase. hense the name. we all went with our bikes. the girls, that is - and we weaved around the roads on our mishapen bikes (but well loved) and had a blast as the not-so-cool breeze hit our skin. definitely a night to remember.
within the last couple of days i also have received a mattress for my tent. for free. kind of. dalphine's friend had it and wanted to throw it away, but decided to trade it with dalphine for some food dalphine had. dalphine didn't need the mattress and i had an extra phone (anika's old one) so we did a trade so that dalphine's boyfriend could get a phone as he had been looking for one. and i got the mattress. i can't imagine why i ever thought the hard ground to be comfortable now that i got a nice big foamy floor. i'm living in luxary now...
and that's pretty much life here right now. trading things. making a bag of communal food from all the stuff we get for free at work. working our butts off - most of us having 2 jobs and working 6-7 days a week. riding our barely-there bikes. watching the sunsets. trying to surf super small waves. living in tents. swatting mosquitoes. baking cake in the microwave. living off PB & J. seeing who can get the better deal on bike locks. making jewellery. playing guitar.
people say i'm lucky, but luck has nothing to do with it.
life is what you make it.
live it up.
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