ahhhhhhhh! so i am back from the cook islands after a lovely (although rather cloudy) ten day stint on rarotonga! big things happened. well, big thing happened: ANDREW CAME ALL THE WAY TO RAROTONGA TO SURPRISE ROBIN AND ME! robin and i got to rarotonga a few days earlier than caroline and eva's scheduled arrival, so on the second morning as we were half-way waking up to the glorious south pacific day, we heard a definitive but quiet knock at the door. i get up, open the door, and my jaw drops. it's andrew! he had been conspiring with caroline and eva for months planning to surprise us! i had no, no, NO IDEA! this was the ultimate surprise probably of my life. that's right. topped, right there.

it was so wonderful to see andrew after a year (almost to the day!) of skype-only contact. man oh man! it makes me grin to think about seeing him! aren't friendships wonderful when you can go so long without that hug or touch that reminds us we are human and then, bam! there's your friend again, no longer bound by screen size or pixels, but here! blood and 98.6 degrees (we hope) and full of humor and love and challenges!

the five of us had our own house on the beach in front of an ocean where we saw whales no more than 30 or so yards from the shore! i say house here, but i mean mansion, as we had so much room in our rented house that there was a whole extra bedroom we relegated to holding luggage. this is probably the first and last time i will ever, ever get to have a luggage room. we rented bikes to get around the 35ish kilometer circumference of the island, although mine got a flat tire on day one, so i hitchhiked everywhere! my first time hitchhiking and what a way to start a habit! all of these wonderfully kind island people would pick me up, drive slowly, sometimes we would stop by their house and wave to a sister or stop by an autoshop to pick up a spark plug, but thankfully, i always got where i needed to go - safely and quickly!

rarotonga has not a single stoplight, and i, myself, never came across a stop sign. i so very much like what that implies - go, go, go! this seems counterintuitive given the island culture that, like many places where the sun turns you beautifully brown, moves at a snail's pace. we made lots of "we're on island time, mon" jokes when one of us would notice that it was 4 pm and no one had left the house. i think this trip truly qualified as a vacation.

we did, however, go on an accidental mountain climb. one morning the five of us set out for what we assumed would be a light trek through the jungle-Lost-looking mountains of inner rarotonga, but turned out to be a hike. like the kind of hike where the trail isn't marked, you just know you're supposed to keep going up, up, up. at three different points during the hike we found ourselves facing a rock wall with a questionable looking chain hanging from the top of it. up we went. so yeah, i mean a hike. five hours later we made it back to the house with only a few scrapes and bumps to show for it.

rarotonga reminded me the most of ghana out of anywhere i have been. the papaya trees growing wild, the pleasantly stifling heat, the ubiquitous collar-less seemingly owner-less dogs (seriously, why are there always dogs around?!), the easy manner with which everyone says hello. i would suggest going to rarotonga. yes i would! make it your next destination! and if you do, pick up my leopard print sunglasses. i think i left them there.

i was very tired once i got back to wellington, but also very glad to be home. caroline and eva came back to wellington three days after i did, and we have been reminiscing about our raro trip and watching our tan lines fade. it's wonderful to share a few more weeks with them in wellie. MY GOD DO WE LAUGH TOGETHER. what a gift to always have funny people around me! wellington has been uncharacteristically warm and sunny coercing me into staying here and making me itch for the summer.

now i am back at marocka for day-two-back-to-work using the internet to compose this small update. it feels completely normal to be back at work and easy, easy as pie. i am very lucky to have kind and understanding owners who work with me! i know that this job is my first foray into "work," but i'm afraid it's still much too breezy. smiling with teeth is what i'm doing! i hope y'all are, too!

love,
maggie