Wednesday, December 17, 2008

10. Help

Cath decided there was no point sneaking past and besides she was curious as to why he was here.
"Hi, fancy seeing you here!" She tried to sound casual and not too nosy.
Jack jumped. "Hey there. Jacob said you'd be here."
"Well I've only just arrived today. What are you doing here?" Trying to get the conversation off her onto his plans.
"Oh I was doing one of these things for Jacob in California and he mentioned you were here and I thought why not come and help."
"Yeah?" Cath sat down. "What were you doing?"
Jack sat on the edge of the squishy sofa, his hands animated with his excitement.
"It went really well but I was just helping. Not starting from scratch like you. We did an outdoor screening of these fantastic short films a group of Mexican kids made. We invited the hotel managers and people like that, who employ a lot of Mexicans to try and build respect for cultural differences, seeing all people as equal - you know the stuff Jacob is trying to do. We had a good turn out and they were impressed with the films. Which they should have been as they were excellent. I've still got to write it up and edit the footage for Jacob's website."
He paused. Cath smiled. It did sound pretty neat. Maybe this trip was a good idea. She did like seeing people change and being more tolerant and understanding seemed pretty good changes in her opinion.
"How is your trip so far?" Jack cut into her thoughts.
"Well my luggage is not here and I have only just arrived and...." She stopped, she was going to mention the car park incident but changed her mind. Jack didn't seem to notice.
"When do you start your project?"
Cath stared at the ceiling. "I was going give the guy on the reservation a call to make sure it is all still okay and then I thought maybe of going into the town centre tomorrow night and talking to people about what they think."
Jack nodded "Sounds like a plan. Shall I meet you here tomorrow night then? We could go and grab something to eat first."
Cath agreed. It was nice to not feel so alone here, even if Jack was hardly a familiar face. Jack was up and gone.
As she got in the lift, she pondered - Did he always leave in a hurry and how come he just seemed to do whatever he felt like at the time? She shook her head. She could not live like that. This project was an experiment but if it didn't lead to something she would move on. She wanted to do something worthwhile and successful with her life - not fritter it away. She stuck the electronic card into her door. Would her suitcase have arrived? Even with the bags on her arms, she really wanted her stuff.

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5 Favourite Sights Seen

  • 1996 Watching tropical lightning turn night to day, outside a little wooden church in a small village in Sabah.
  • 2004 Flying down the Rainbow Valley at 8000ft in a cessna on a clear blue day.
  • 2003 Seeing and hearing Michael Schmacher rolling out of the pit garage in his Ferrari in Hungary.
  • 2009 Chancing upon 100 or more dolphins just off the Kaikoura Coast swimming around, jumping out of the water, doing somersaults and generally having fun.
  • 2006 Finding a pool at the bottom of a waterfall in the bush at Kaikoura that was full of playing baby seals.