Friday Fat Boy Run

Have I mentioned this before? Anyway, friday afternoon was the traditional run/walk from the office to the beach. (image is from an older tee shirt, these days we don't run back). It's an excuse to get out, do a bit of exercise and drink beer. All worthy endeavours.

I was walking and a couple others were too. Then some dropped out after hearing of the deep puddles on the route from the recent rains, they were going to ride over on the bus. Fair enough. The rest of us dashed across the expressway, dodged between the shacks, uh, I mean shops, ducked under the fence and onto the sand. They are going to build a school and houses here and the sand had been trucked in and leveled off as a first step. The going was easy, since the wet sand was pretty hard. Those builders better hurry up though, it's already beginning to wash away.

My companions decided to take the longer route and I headed directly south to the beach. Not much chance of getting lost, here it's open grassland and a three story unfinished house acts as a landmark. I did have to wade through some ankle deep puddles which was not too fun. Is it flowing or still water from which you get river blindness? I can never remember.

Arriving at the Palm Beach bar, things looked different. Where had all the shacks gone? And where was the bus? And why were the people who had ridden the bus walking along the road? It seems the night before huge waves had come in and swept clean across the beach and road and carried away a lot of the raffia and palm leaf buildings. The bar itself is up on stilts and was safe, thank goodness, although it's wooden steps had been carried away.

As we settled in over our drinks the stories emerged. The puddles were deeper because of these waves, the road was covered by deep sand and the bus, and one private car, were stuck quite a ways up the road. Normally we can idle there until after dark and then hop right on the bus but this day it seemed prudent to get back to the bus before dark. So a quick drink and off we went.

I would like to say this was an orderly retreat but it certainly wasn't. Everyone scurried off down the road not making any attempt to stay together. Our erstwhile leader came zipping past on the back of a motorcycle that he had hired to catch up to us. As we got closer to the bus, there were increasing numbers of okadas (for hire motorcycles) to dodge. It was getting quite dark with only the headlights of stuck cars and kerosene lamps as light. A most unexpected sight was a front end loader digging at the sand as we hurried past.

At the bus, the obruni's got at the back and pushed, much to the delight of the locals who hooted and hollered encouragement and laughter. With sand spewing out from the spinning tires we lurched forward once, stopped and then again. The bus took off, looking for a safe place to stop so we could pile in. So we piled in, then looked out the front. The road was filled with a line of cars coming the other way that couldn't move because of other stuck cars. It looked impossible.

Our leader jumped out and managed to bribe, cajole and threaten enough cars to move off to the side that the bus could move ahead. With at least a millimeter to spare we squeezed through and were on on way. Well almost. A couple of gentlemen demanded payment for their assistance in the pushing and our driver had to give them a few bills. Then the gatekeepers wanted assurances that we had paid for this many people on the way in. Then another man pounded on the side of the bus complaining that our bus had splashed his fine outfit. No sympathy for him, it was felt he should have stepped aside. Weaving around and through some truly monumental pot holes we managed to get to the expressway and on our way.

I had wondered when the gatekeepers would notice that every time the bus that had paid for a few people on the way in had lots more on the way out, having picked up the runners. Back home in time to join our team (the No Brainers) and win the quiz night competition.