Living the high life

Since we had no real plans on Friday, our friend Ben (another undrgad studying fish here on the island) and I decided to spend the afternoon golfing. After all, I've lived accress the street from the golf course the entire summer - why not take advantage? Plus, the entire process only cost us each $11, including clubs, 9 holes of playing, and (the fun part) a golf cart.

As some of you may know, I have never played golf before. I've spent bits of time at the golfing range, but that's the extent of my experience. Ben was in the same position, so we were able to have a good time despite our pathetic strokes and miserable aim. Donned in collared shirts, we tried not to make too big of fools of ourselves in front of the Samoans who actually knew what they were doing. Luckily for us, there was no one immediately behind us for most of the time, so the pressure wasn't too high on us to keep up the pace.

After a day of gentlemanly fun, we headed to Larson Beach on Saturday to take in some sun. Though we were among the first ones there, the beach began filling up with people (Samoans and Palagis) soon after we arrived. We snorkled around a bit, but I spent most of the time laying on the beach reading. One Samoan family brought their crazy dogs with them, and one of the dogs (unprovoked) charged and bit the leg of one of the palagi lawyers as he was walking along the beach. This cut the lawyers' beach stay short, as they had to take Sean to the hospital. What was really suprising was how the dogs' owners didn't even come over to appologize after the incident. There's very little feeling of ownership around dogs on this island, and this was a very clear example of that. Don't worry, Sean will be fine - he got a bandage and some antibiotics from LBJ hospital, but he was walking around last night.

After a rough few days of golf and beach-going (read sarcastically), today is a lazy Sunday, so I'm saving up energy to do a lot in my final few days on the island.