Hello Tropical Island

Friday April 15th

Flights all fine. Bags all arrived. Too nervous to inspect surfboard condition.

It’s Friday afternoon and I’ve just arrived to my new home [Tino’s House] which I’m renting from Kevin who forgot to leave the key in the dryer like he described. [In the event that neither Boris or Kevin could pick me up from the airport, I was to instruct the taxi driver to take me to “Tino’s house.”] His email said the place had an ocean view and a yoga platform. I did not hold high hopes for either of these. Welp, guess who’s pleasantly surprised. The view is unreal and the yoga platform is, well, what you’d expect from a tropical yoga retreat, complete with little thatched roofing. Even the birds look tropical. Bright red parrots singing to each other from the breadfruit trees.



Yes, it’s 100 degrees and yes, it downpours with rain everyday which it’s demonstrating right this very moment.

Boris [my World Health Organization field supervisor] collected me from the airport and we go straight to the Department of Public Health for introductions with EJ, the head of surveillance. We drive by the new fancy fortified Taj Mahal US Embassy. I joke about checking in with the embassy but then Boris informs me that the ambassador has already requested a meeting with me and we laugh and laugh but he’s not joking. We drive by random tanks abandoned by the Japanese and the Spanish fortress wall that now serves as the boundary for the baseball field. I attempt to phone my father and leave a voicemail which doesn’t go through.

Boris’s wife is back in Canada taking the MCAT so I’m driving her car until the extra WHO truck can be fixed which is not likely. I tell Boris about my MCAT mediocrity and how I’ve resolved to become an excellent Infectious Disease researcher without an MD but Boris tells me to “just keep telling yourself that.”

The chiefs of the Health Department meet on Monday mornings, but since Boris will be off island for the next two weeks, I have to arrive to the chiefs meeting, present my study, and gain their approval which will be sent to the University of Auckland Ethics Committee. Somehow meeting with the chiefs seems anthropological and also very adult. Seriously, I’ve got a car, an apartment and a meeting with the chiefs on Monday.

So the study can’t technically start until we gain ethics approval which could be 2-3 weeks. Boris suggests I take advantage of the late season surf and take a couple days off next week. Will do.