By Lucy

Monday, time to move.

I didn’t see Ismail for much of the morning. I suspect he was feeling like he would miss me. I got up and went to the food cart, like usual. The grandma who makes the fried donuts smiled and held one up as I approached.

“This is my last day here. You won’t see me again.” I said. They didn’t have much to say to that; maybe they didn’t understand.

Had a tea and contemplated Mount Kinabalu for the last time. Around 7:30, Ismail surfaced.

“When do you want to head out?”

“Oh, you know, whenever. 10?”

“You want to be in the city by 10? We should leave at 8 then. 8 is ok? I take my family to Kota Belud, and drop you off.”

“Oh, yeah, 8 is fine.” I said. That’s not what I meant, and it was a bit earlier than I meant to leave, but sure.

I ran back to the hut and packed. I made an attempt to sweep and tidy, but my primary concern was making sure all my belongings came with me. The bowl of rice in the fridge would be Ismail’s problem.

A man arrived on a scooter. When Ismail said, “Come come, we go now!”, he also followed us to the car and hopped in the backseat.

As we sat in the car, Ismail grabbed a white bag from the floor, “This is yours. Thank you for helping me. You let me focus on work and not taking care of the guests.”

“Aww, thank you, Ismail! I also really appreciate you letting me stay. And Vlad.”

“Is no problem.” He smiles.

When we get to the bus station, there’s a bunch of buses. A young man runs over to the window and Ismail talks to him in Malay. “He’s leaving now, go go.” He says to me.

“Ah, you come from Ismail’s, I love you! You like my sister!” The man declares, opening the door for me, then grabbing my luggage out of Ismail’s car.

This isn’t a bus but a “shared taxi”, a regular car with seatbelts. There’s a man and a woman in the back seat and a woman in the front, but they shuffle it around so the three of us women are in the backseat. 30 ringgit this time. Once all of us are seated and the luggage is stowed in the trunk, he takes off.

Gosh, this happened so fast. So many weeks spent taking things slow, and now I was being whisked away without a proper goodbye.

I had downloaded the Freddie Mercery biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, to watch on the drive. I don’t find biopics particularly entertaining, but the loose, cliche-filled narrative is just a vehicle for Queen songs anyway. The parts I find most interesting aren’t going to be in there; like Freddie being born a Parsi, a family of Zoroaster-worshippers going back millennia, because you cannot be inducted into the faith; you have to be born into it. One thing I did identify with, as I suppose most do, is his father telling him “stop trying to be something you’re not”, when it’s obvious that this is who Freddie is and who his parents want him to be is not. It also cut me to notice that, online, they refer to Freddie’s birth name as “his real name”.

I text Kevin, “They’re going to do that to me, aren’t they? Say my old name is my ‘real name’.”

“Most likely.” He replies.

I don’t finish the biopic before we get back to Kota Kinabalu. I gather up my bags and head over to the new hostel.

It’s a little awkward to get to, in the grand tradition of Asian hostels. It’s on the fourth floor, which, the elevator starts up one flight of stairs – strike one for accessibility. It also turned out, there are two parts, which necessitates going down the elevator, across the hall, and up the other elevator, because the building is split in two.

Drenched with sweat, I stumbled into the lobby. “Do you have a reservation?” The clerk asked.

“Yes. Lucy.” I gasped. “Do you mind…?”

“No no, go ahead.”

I collapsed on the couch and sat there for several minutes, recovering my breath.

“Is there a kitchen or something I could sit in?” I asked.

“Sure, sure!” She came around the desk and grabbed my bags, then hauled them around the corner. She pointed to the tattoo on my arm, “Oh, Chinese!”

“No no, kanji.” Most Westerners don’t realize that a lot of Asian languages share the same logographic characters, in the same way French and English says the same writing.

“Well I know that, because I can’t read it. I never seen before.”

You’ve never seen a tourist with these characters? But Chinese and Japanese tattoos were all the rage for a while.

There was a small counter with a kettle, a nook with a couch, and a desk with plugs. I sat down here and ate my food, watched the rest of the biopic. Once I was done, I moved to the couch.

At one point, she came over and handed me a small bowl filled with papyaya.

What? Oh, thank you… I ate it slowly, unsure if I was meant to eat all of it, then washed the bowl in the sink.

Around 12, she came back. “Your room is ready! Follow me!”

Another employee grabbed my heavy bag and I followed them out into the hallway.

“Have you stayed with us before?” The employee asks, as we waited for the elevator.

“No?”

“Oh, really? You look familiar.” She starts going through the check in procedure before I can comment further, but I suspect she thinks I look familiar because she’s seen one of Ismail’s Tiktok’s featuring me.

The second section is still nice, but less nice. There is a kitchen counter with microwave, kettle, fridge and sink. A small table with no plugs. A big picture window with a small table and 5 bean bag chairs in poor repair. There’s 3 dorm rooms, but I got the biggest at 14 beds.

The lockers are bollocks. They’re made of plywood, so despite the lock, it’s fairly easy to bend the door and open it. I keep my bag on my bed most of the time anyway. The downtown core is also located under the landing path of the airport, so the planes look like they’re flying into the window!

The “free breakfast” is always available, with cookies, toast with peanut butter and jam, and cereal. It’s funny, most places in North America would be afraid to offer free food endlessly, but no one is gonna sit down and eat cereal with milk 3 times a day (well, maybe my brother). Some people didn’t even bother with the free food because it wasn’t to their taste.

I hung around until 3, then I made myself go for a walk.

I was immediately sidetracked by a tourist kiosk in the lobby of the mall. I need a new dress. They had a few simple designs with elastic and flowery prints. With the clerks encouragement, I tried on a few by slipping them on over my clothes. I picked a lavender one with no sleeves, which I later regretted, because Malaysians absolutely blast the AC inside.

Then I walked about halfway down to the ritsy hotel where the conference was, so I could confirm the distance.

Kota Kinabalu has a despair-inducingly high number of abandoned shopping malls and condo buildings. It’s a city of 600’000, but it’s constantly trying to reinvent itself as the new Kuala Lumpur, which is too bad. It’s also not working; most people fly in to KK just to head out, for the tip of Borneo, Mount Kinabalu, or any of the orangutan reserves. I will say, if you want to travel to HCMC or Hanoi for cheap food and shopping and nothing else, KK will scratch that itch without having to deal with all of the reasons people visit Vietnam once and never again.

On the way back, I ducked into a 7/11 and bought a rice wine. Jana was right, I do like it.

For dinner, I grabbed a pizza from Pizza Hut. I want cheese, dammit! Too many days without dairy makes a cranky Lucy!

The ubiquity of covered, elevated walking paths around downtown is amazing. Why don’t we import this?

I watched the sun go down through the picture window, then I tried on my new dress and asked one of the other girls to take a photo of me.

Holy cow, I am tan. And it’s just in the last month. Vlad was mocking me in HCMC for having not developed a tan. Who knows what colour my hair is? The red dye is bleaching out, but then, I also develop red highlights when I spend a lot of time in the sun.

There’s a lot of hikikomori here, people who just lay in their bunks on their phones all night and day.

Tuesday morning. Time to get my boots fixed. I also had an appointment to get waxed at 11.

I grab one of the hostel employees. “Do you know where I could get some cheap flip flops?”

By way of answer, she opens one of the cabinets under the kitchen counter. It’s a garbage bag full of abandoned shoes. I grab a pair of flip flops.

I left too late. I should have left around 9:30, which would have given me time to find the cobbler within the mall. As it turned out, it wasn’t a strip mall like what is normal in rural Malaysia, but an indoor mall. In North America, you can find a directory at most entrances; this was not the case at this mall. I noted the address of the cobbler on Google maps; floor 2. I went up a flight of stairs and wandered around.

No luck. At one point, I stopped by a store to ask the bored shopkeeper for directions, and she barely glanced at my phone before saying “No.”

Alrighty then.

Lightbulb. Like the British, Malaysians call the ground floor the ground floor, and the floor above it floor one. I was on the wrong floor.

I went up another flight of stairs. It took a few minutes to find the single hallway to led to the rear half of the mall, and then I found the cobbler pretty quickly. His son/ apprentice was standing out front, and it was hilarious to watch his face change as he realized I was heading right for him. I noted a sign plastered to the counter; price depends on customer attitude.

He gestured to the older man, the owner, who came to the front of the shop. “What do you want?”

“My shoes need repair.” I smiled angelically.

“Alright, let’s see them.” He says, tapping the counter. As I dig them out of my bag, he exclaims, “How did you find me? 36 years I’ve been here, not one white tourist!”

“Google maps?”

I put the shoes down. He whisked them away. “What is this? They’re worn through! How long have you been here? Why didn’t you bring them in sooner?”

“I was in Kota Belud – “

“What? Really? You’ve seen more of Sabah than I have. 36 years!” He says something in Malay to his assistant, who starts sorting through soles.

“I tried getting them repaired there, but they just patched it.” I said, coming around the corner and pointing. He makes a tutting sound.

“What you do? Did you climb the mountain in these?”

“I walk a lot.” I say, somewhat defensively.

He ends up with two different kinds of soles. “Now, you have a choice. I can do these; 140 ringgit. They just slot in.”

I wrinkled my nose at them. They looked like cheap plastic, and they’re black.

“These are more.” He gestures to the second pair, which already look nicer, and are brown. “They take longer to attach. How long are you here for?”

“I’m here for 2 week – “

“2 weeks!”

“So I’m not in a rush.”

“No no, today you’ll get them back. Maybe tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll take these ones.” I tap the brown soles.

He smiles. I’ve made the correct choice. He says something on Malay to his assistant. “And this!” He taps the scruffs on the toe box, which admittedly, is something I’ve been delaying fixing for a year. Because I could fix it and I procrastinate. “I’ll fix this too. 270 ringgit.”

“Ok.”

The assistant takes the shoes away. “Come, come.” He says, gesturing back to the front of the counter. “Where are you from?”

“Canada!”

He asks me about my travels, before regaling me with a long, looong story about his own misbegotten youth, in 1979. Admittedly, I do actually find it interesting, but I’m also hopping from foot to foot because I do have somewhere to be at 11… I won’t be walking there now! (Maybe that’s for the best, actually.) I’m also mindful of the sign.

A couple of old men wander over; his buddies. “This is Lucy, from Canada!” He introduces me. They have a couple of questions for me as well. His wife sits behind him, working on a newspaper, occasionally looking up and smiling.

Finally, he writes up the slip and asks me for my phone number, to text me on Whatsapp when they’re ready. “240 ringgit.” He says.

Oh, fantastic!

Once I pay, he hands me his card; his name is Clement. “When you in KK, if anyone gives you trouble, you call me. I’ll set them straight!”

“Oh, thank you!”

I run down to the lobby, flip flops going wap wap wap the whole time, and order a Grab to the waxing appointment.

Jeez, I spent maybe 200 ringgit the whole time I was in KB, and now I’ve spent like a thousand in the space of 24 hours.

Walked back to the hostel.

What to do for lunch?

I walked over to a mall behind the hostel. Downtown KK is nothing but malls.

Right by the door was a sushi place. I stuck my head in, but it’s fully a la carte; you pick individual pieces. I don’t relish the idea of trying to explain what I want to order one piece at a time, so I go back to the hostel and order take-out sushi on Grab.

I need to stop doing this. I knew food would be more expensive here, but there has to be cheaper options.

Around 5, Clement texts me; my shoes are done!

I run down in my flip flops. It occurs to me that I forgot to take a before picture, but rest assured they needed to be replaced.

His old friends are gone and a young woman is there. She just got engaged and is showing off the rock.

“Well go on, try them on! You can wear them home.”

I slip off the flip flops.

I frown. The boots are smaller now. They were that damaged? It’s hard to wiggle my toes now. He looks at me expectantly. I smile. Maybe they need breaking in again. They are new soles, after all, that’s what needs breaking in.

“Thanks, I love it!”

“Don’t forget, five stars on Google!”

They definitely feel weird on the walk home, but after a few days, they start to feel normal. Because I forgot a before picture, it’s hard to say how much they were changed, but something feels different about them. But I have my big stompy boots back and I’m happy about it. I leave the five star review he wants. Slowly, the blisters and calluses on my feet heal.

On the way home, I stop by the market and grab dinner.

At first, I am distracted by the mango section. There’s a man who’s got the sales pitch down. He has 3 different mangoes for sale, and he’ll offer you a slice of each for free. One kilo of mango for 18 ringgit; that’s, like, 3 pounds of mango for 6 Canadian dollars.

Of course, this hostel has limited kitchen facilities, and to be honest, one of the things I never quite managed is cutting up mango. I buy a pre-cut mango for 5 ringgit.

There is a place noted on Google maps as selling rice for 3 ringgit. It’s not just rice, but it is basically rice. You can get an egg on top for 5 ringgit or a piece of fried chicken for 3. I noticed another place nearby that also sell rice, but for 4 ringgit, because it has the little dried fish in it like my congee.

The young men manning the booth look up nervously as I approach. They turn and call to another, who looks up at me and grins. He smells money. “You want noodles? 3 Ringgit. Spicy.”

I look at the rice. “Is that spicy?”

“No, no spicy.” He points to the hot dogs. “You want? 3 ringgit.”

“Rice and an egg, please.”

He doles it up and accepts my cash with a gloved hand. The other young men are still eyeing me warily.

1.72 CAD for dinner. Not bad. And 1.72 for the mango as well, a price I definitely couldn’t get in Canada.

As I walk back to the hostel, I notice a restaurant on the way has a “9.90 ringgit All You Can Eat” for lunch.

On Wednesday I settled into the pattern I adopted for the rest of my stay in KK, having lunch at the all you can eat place, and grabbing dinner from the market.

There was a man named Simon sitting at the breakfast table. We chatted for a bit; he’s one of a common breed around here, a wealthy man who is traveling with little more than a backpack, which is easy to do when you can buy what you want as you go.

“Hey, you seem smart…”

I laugh.

“What do you think my shirt is?”

“A man taking a selfie.” It looks like the ancient Hindu drawings of Prince Arjuna, actually, except with his bow replaced with a phone.

I’m wrong. It’s from Turkey, depicting a Scythian.

I tried walking to the beach. The beach doesn’t exist anymore, it’s now a condo.

Gross.

I try wandering around the market. I want stickers and postcards and maybe some kind of hand-carved thing. No luck. Every single booth is the exact same cheap plastic crap from China.

I go to the mall to go shopping. I’m debating a shawl. The problem is that the ubiquity of head scarves makes it hard to tell what it intended as a head scarf, or even if there is a difference. I also wanted a clip or something to put in my hair to make it look fancy. I find a small pack of cheap clips. Good enough.

The next day is the day I can sign in for the conference. I hang out around the hostel, then head down to the hotel a little late. I don’t want to get there right at 2.

I stopped to fish in my bag for my name tag. Gasp! It’s not there! I must have thrown it on my bed…

My phone rang. Gulp. I answered.

“Lucy, where are you?” Anthea demanded.

“Like, ten minutes away!”

“Good. I’m in the lobby, find me.”

I jogged the rest of the way.

When I got there, I went over to the registration desk, figuring it would take but a minute to get my badge. I also didn’t realize Anthea would be in meetings from 3 ’til nearly midnight, so I didn’t rush over to see her.

Five minutes became ten. Someone found my badge, but they didn’t even glance at the list before they were distracted by something else. Despite having three lines designated by signage, no one seemed to be organized or clear on their jobs.

“I’m stuck at the registration table.” I texted her, before she called me again.

She swept over like Maleficent, in a billowing black robe. “What’s all this? Why is Lucy waiting so long?”

Everyone at the table blanched. They asked me my information and handed me my badge in a hurry.

“Thanks Anthea.”

She lead me back to her seat in the lobby. We sat down and talked for maybe ten minutes before we were interrupted by people who wanted to talk to our future president.

“Still wearing your greenstone, very good.” She said approvingly. She glanced down, “And the boots.”

“Of course, they’re from New Zealand too!”

“Weren’t you coming back to New Zealand?”

“They changed the rules for the visa, so I can’t get working holiday anymore.”

She starred at me levelly for a minute before saying, “Send me your CV, I’ll get you a work visa.”

You… what? You will? You can?

But I already bought my ticket home!

Then she was gone, swept away by meetings.

I wandered around the lobby. Fiona arrived and went up to her room to check in. Yvonne arrived and her eyes just about fell out of her head when she noticed me (I’m sure I emailed her that I was coming).

As I sat chatting with a couple of the Kiwi ladies, a woman I’d never met came over and said “Hi Petrice!”

What? Who?

“Oh, sorry. Barbara said Petrice was here, but you’re not Petrice!” She poked the Majora on my arm, “Tattoos and everything.”

(This comment became hilarious later when I discovered the real Petrice has 0 tattoos).

I ended hanging out with her and Barbara for a bit. They’re Aussies.

Four turned to five turned to six. People kept dragging me over to meet people and to take pictures with me to send to that one person they knew in Canada. My stomach grumbled. This place claims opulence, but it’s barely the quality of your regular motel. Food and drinks take forever, nothing is clean or in good repair. 200 a night and almost every single Soroptimist had to call the front desk to have something in their room fixed.

But the view is nice.

Everyone dwindled away until I was left with David, Fiona’s husband.

“If you want, go to the rooftop bar. All the Aussie ladies were meeting there, someone will buy you food.” He says. He’s three beers deep.

I wandered upstairs to the bar, which is unroofed, as it is on the roof. As I glance around, I noticed a glass walled-in room, where Anthea was sitting. I ran in, “Anthea, I can’t find anyone! I’m trying to find the Aussie ladies…”

She smiled tightly. “Lucy, this is President Renata. Renata, this is Lucy, from SIA.”

P-president… Renata? The International President?

“Oh, hi, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Such an honor!” I bowed.

“Maybe a curtsy?” Anthea said dryly.

I blushed.

“We’re having a private meeting, Lucy.”

“Ah, sorry sorry!”

I turned and ran out of the room and down the hall, texting Fiona furiously. No one was here. I went down to the lobby and ran into Yvonne.

“Yvonne! I’m so embarrassed, I walked into a meeting between Anthea and the President…”

“Don’t be, it’s just two old ladies talking.” She says, putting a hand on my shoulder. Then I remember she was the international president as well.

“Right. I’m trying to find the Aussie ladies.”

“They’re down at the pool.”

I walked down to the pool. There’s a Tiki bar between the pool and the sea, and everyone was crowded around a couple of tables. My stomach rumbled angrily.

We hung out for an hour, but the staff at the Tiki bar were so disorganized no food was forthcoming. I ended up in a group going up to the sky bar instead, where Fiona was using the Shisha (hookah). Anthea and Renata were still seated on the couch, talking. I later found out the group included Siew Yong, the outgoing International President, who bought me dinner because there wasn’t a thing on the menu cheaper than 75 ringgit.

Finally I managed to excuse myself and go home.

I had a headache the next day from trying to remember everyone’s names and affiliations. Jeez, and it wasn’t even officially the conference yet.

They gave us a bag of nonsense as well. A reusable bottle, a foldable bag that wasn’t as large or as nice as the bag I had brought with me, and the booklet of speakers and workshops.

I called David and we made plans to take the hop-on hop-off bus around KK and sightsee. However, he was misled about the timing of the bus, so I got on by myself, paid for a ticket, and sat down to discover he wasn’t there. I called his number, but him and Fiona share Whatsapp and I got her instead because he left his phone in the room. So I hopped off and got a Grab to the hotel, where I found him sweating through his shirt by the bus stop. I corrected him on the bus route and timing, which emotionally destroyed the poor doorman who was confused about the timing.

“I drank both of my beers while I was waiting!” David complained. I assumed he was being sarcastic, but I later discovered he was not. He had another beer on the bus, and then 3 with lunch, and some more in the afternoon…

We found a bunch of the other “Soroptimisters” waiting in the lobby, so when the bus actually got here we had the whole bus to ourselves. The other bus had been packed with the usual amoeba of Chinese tourists, so this was better. The bus guide, to his credit, quickly figured out that we just wanted to drive around and take in the sights, so he amended the route somewhat for us. He took us to this Durian place that has Durian ice cream and we all got a free sample. We also stopped at the chocolate place and got samples of Borneo grown and made chocolate (for some reason, they gave all of them one sample of each, but they gave me three), and ice cream. I wanted to buy a Durian chocolate bar, but they didn’t have any regular flat chocolate bars. I bought a container of chocolate covered coffee beans instead, to juice the old ladies.

They have a seat out front that looks like an angel. “David! Go sit in front of it so I can take a photo to send to Fiona!”

The tour bus stopped, inexplicably, for ten minutes at a very tall building that was a “business centre”. I guess it’s important to the business men? None of the regular tourists care.

I tried to talk to all of the men equally, but me and David really clicked. We’re both cynical and sarcastic. Also, it turns out his youngest has the same name as my brother. I started calling him “dad” and we kept that joke up the entire weekend.

After two hours, the bus returned us to the hotel. Me and David stayed on it to go to the all-you-can-eat place. I wanted to walk back, but apparently David’s knee is all broken, so we got a Grab instead.

We wandered down to the pool for a swim. Except it’s more like a swim-up bar for you to lounge at while your kids swim. I did aquarobics while David had another beer and we laughed about all the influencers having photo shoots by the pool instead of actually enjoying it.

At 5, Fiona was finally free for the day, so we went up to their room. Me and Fiona got dressed up for the Friendship dinner. They offered me a Shandy, and I left my bathing suit drying in their bathroom.

The dinner was nice. We found an empty table, and I dropped off my bag and went on a tour around to socialize and network. That’s my real value here, right? Still being shoved into random group photos. Also, people misunderstanding the badge saying “Of the Americas” and thinking I’m American.

When I got back to the table, it had filled out. I was now sitting next to Senata, from Fiji.

They had a few speeches, and a dance performance by some local dancers. Actually, they had too many speeches… do the speeches once everyone has grabbed a plate of food! At one point they decided to announce all the ethnicities here, which surprised me when they said “And from Canada!” So I was propelled to my feet by Fiona and gave some sort of cheer before being allowed to sit.

The dinner itself was self-serve buffet style, but they didn’t even call tables or anything, so the initial rush was a scrum. Fiona poured me a couple glasses of wine.

At one point, I agreed with a comment about being single, and David gives me a significant look.

“What?” I ask.

“What’s this, then!” David exclaims, tapping my phone to reveal Vlad as my lockscreen.

“He’s my friend!” I blush. When everyone continues to look disbelieving, I add, “Within a week of arriving in Bangkok, I had two separate men kiss me without my consent. A man as my background discourages that.”

“Ah.” Everyone nods along to this. David looks slightly embaressed.

After everyone had supped, they tried to do a scavenger hunt. The Malaysians clubs ran around screaming to find the items; maybe it’s a big deal here? Then they opened up the floor to dancing and played all the golden oldies, starting with Dancing Queen.

When I got out to the dance floor, someone grabbed my arm and jerked me away, “Look! Petrice is here!”

We could be twins.

We ended up spending the rest of the night dancing together. I also noticed that Siew Yong was the most “in your face” dancer on the floor. So I can be a huge goofball and still be International President? That’s… a huge relief, actually.

Around ten, I called it and went back to my room.

Up early, and headed out around 8 for a leisurely walk to the hotel.

The speeches were supposed to start at 9, but of course, they were late. I finally found Voralak, who remained quiet and elusive for the rest of the conference. I ended up seated with Petrice in the middle row.

They started with housekeeping: The local club is KK, they had these sponsors, etc. Then there was a dance performance. They brought in all the flags for the various countries represented and set them up around the stage. We had to stand for the Malaysian national anthem.

At 10, we took a break for tea. They served congee with all the usual toppings like the sundried fish, which I ate up while all the rest of the white people stared at it with distrust. I also had a coffee because today was one of those days. I kept popping chocolate covered coffee beans like caffeine pills.

The first speakers was the CEO (minister?) of Sabah Energy. He said the plan to have 45% of their energy be renewable by 2045 (I think they could be more ambitious). A female minister said they want 1 million female entrepreneurs and 30% of government and business leaders to be women. A spokeswoman for Tiger went off on a ramble about having solar panels on the roof?

There was a presentation from the Spark organization about teaching local women to farm. Fiona gave her speech about her club’s project, getting clean water, solar power, and farming soil to a small village in Papua New Guinea. Project Kebun talked about its community farm.

Then we breaked for lunch, which was buffet style in the hotel cafe. I ended up seated with outgoing SISEAP president Joanne, although I don’t think she enjoyed my conversation much.

I ran over to find Yvonne before I forgot. “What happened to Anne? I emailed and I sent her a letter, and she never replied.”

“She’s been busy, dear. Her husband is sick.”

Oh no… poor Gary.

“I’lll let her know you were asking about her.”

“How was Wildfoods this year?”

“We did great.” She rattled off the numbers. “One year you have to come back for it.”

“Of course.” Maybe in two years. The conference is held in the country of whomever is president, which means in two years, it will be in New Zealand.

Voralak found me this time and asked me to sit with her, so I did.

The speeches in the afternoon started with a recorded video from the SIA president, who is American. She apologized for not making it, but also, for no one from SIA coming, which isn’t true because I was there. A few heads turned to look at me.

The next few presentations were about New Zealand, which I know about already. The Mongolia presentation really interested me, if only because I really want to live in Mongolia for a bit. I have an idea for a book. According to the presentation, a third of Mongolia’s rivers dried up by 1997, and a lot of its pasture is severely degraded. As a population, half of them live in the only real city, Ulaanbaatar, and the rest live as nomadic herders, which is hard to do when the pastures are dying. The Gobi is growing, and the sandstorms are now so large they affect Korea. But! They managed to turn desert back into grassland, which is great!

There was an organization called CRIMTAQ, which turns former shrimp farms into healthy ponds. And an organization which is trying to capture sea plastic and turn it into cement blocks, which was the last presentation of the day.

It was also popular; I was waiting in a line to talk to the CEO, which was annoying when I just wanted to get her contact information so I could ask her my questions later, at leisure. She surprised me by asking if I would be interested in coming out to the island on Monday. Sure!

I ran home to shower before dinner. The Kiwis were all doing dinner at a restaurant on the hotel property. Yvonne offered to buy me dinner, since everything here is stupid expensive.

This place is blue. Very nautical.

“Here, Lucy, you sit here.” Anthea commanded, gesturing to her right, between her and the end of the table.

“Yes, madame president.”

“Oh, don’t start that!” She smiled and whacked my arm.

Then Renata sat down on my right, at the head of the table.

I think I’m starting to see what Anthea is doing here.

Since we’ve ordered in advance, all we have to do is wait for the food to be served.

“What is this tattoo?” Renata asks, gesturing to my neckline.

Oh. “It’s a Finnish word.”

Anthea saves me, being one of the few people in New Zealand to whom I admitted my health problems, and moves the conversation along. But being dishonest with the President doesn’t sit well with me. I go back to it later and tell Renata I am a cancer survivor, although for once I do gloss it over and say that I’m fine now.

We had a few good conversations, actually. As expected of the President, she’s eloquent and sharp.

The food comes. Yvonne was buying my dinner, so I had no idea what she ordered. She ordered a meat kebab that the staff hung from this hook… for… reasons.

Anthea and the lady across from me started stealing my potato wedges, which I hurried to eat before they were gone!

As we finished eating, three men with string instruments came down to serenade the restaurant. They started with Sweet Caroline, and a bunch of the ladies got up and started dancing. Which was obviously not the intent!

Of course, I got dragged to the front to dance with them, so I did!

We danced through 3 or 4 songs before they could be persuaded to sit back down. A Chinese boy hopped up and joined us, and the families at the tables around us filmed us and cheered us on, so you know… it was fun, at least!

We started heading back to the hotel. Not that I needed to, but a little walk after dinner is nice. Then I ordered a Grab back to the hostel. It’s started raining.

I feel wretched. My throat hurts, my head is throbbing. It’s hard to stop my thoughts from running in my attempt to sort everything. Somehow I drift off.

I don’t feel better when I wake up. I’ve got a con cold. My ears are too stuffed up to even use ear plugs and I have to blow my nose constantly.

Gross.

The Hantavirus outbreak on the ship kind of makes me laugh. See? I was right to be worried about it in January!

I don’t have a ticket for today, although Anthea has insisted I sneak in to watch her speech today. I have a lazy morning, go to a nearby laundromat to wash my clothes, and have a nap before noon.

I head in around 3, which is when the workshops are supposed to be over and everyone comes back for closing ceremonies. As suspected, no one is actually checking badge dates, so I can just waltz in. I still feel a little guilty about not buying a ticket.

Cherrie comes by with the Mongolians. I’ve talked to Cherrie off and on throughout the conference, and I love talking to her, but she’s always too busy for a real chat. The Mongolians wanted to talk to me desperately; one of their number is in Toronto. I’m not sure what they want from me, but I give them my contact information and they’re so grateful they give me a box of chocolates and a card for a tour guide and tell me I should visit Mongolia. I email Rosemary quickly; information is power. The only thing she can offer me is that, allegedly, the member isn’t a member anymore.

Me and Petrice sit together again.

Anthea’s speech is pretty good. She pulls up a chart about SISEAP finances and points out that they’ll be insolvent by 2030 if they don’t reverse the decline soon. Everyone turns and looks at me and Petrice.

Gulp. No pressure.

Renata also gives a speech that is pretty good. You can see why she was voted president, although I can’t find much on Google about her.

Christina comes over to talk to me. Yvonne emailed me last night saying she wanted to. She wants me to make some sort of recruitment video because I’m young, blah blah. I dunno what she expects from me, but I promise to try.

We all hang out in the lobby chatting until 6. The Gala dinner is at 7, so everyone evaporates to get gussied up. I threw everything I needed into my bag… except earrings. God, I look like such a vagrant. I try and fail to do anything elegant with my hair and the clips. I’m trying too hard, aren’t I? Then I walk over to the venue, walking slightly fast as it’s threatening to rain.

As I was checking the available seats, Anthea ghosted by, “Go sit with Judith.”

“Aye, aye.” I walked over to Judith. “Anthea hast ordered me to sit with thee.”

“Ok.” She says.

Petrice comes over to join us because she arrived late. She’s wearing a hot pink dress with a dangerous neckline. She laments about it a few times but… like… she brought it!

Dinner was nice. Lots of local Malaysian dishes, which everyone thought was weird because they’re descended from British people and they have no taste. It included a chilled peach soup for dessert that I thought was quite lovely. Petrice was unhappy with everything because she forgot to ask for vegetarian, although by her own admission she isn’t vegetarian, she just hates cuts of meat that remind her she is eating a dead animal, and Malaysian cuisine tends to throw the whole dead fish on the table in all its glory. I laugh at her a lot. I’m not a nice person.

The dinner was punctuated by prizes, silent auction wins, speeches, and Malaysian dancers. At one point, the lights in the room dim to a dark red and the male dancers thread between the tables with spears and shields, before “abducting” some of the guests to dance on the stage with them. Petrice goes and is unhappy about it. Fiona also goes but has a blast, she’s the only one that can keep up with them.

The night ran so late they only left us half an hour to dance before they shut it down and kicked us out, lame!

At one point Petrice, possibly looking to assuage complicated feelings of her own, asks how proud my parents are of me. I have to explain that, actually, my parents hate just about everything I’m doing. Traveling, moving to Thunder Bay, working in the trades. My dad dismissing the article I wrote in the paper. I could even imagine them disapproving of Soroptimists and Rotary, although I can’t say for sure.

I even got into a conversation with David about the toys little girls like, and I explained that when I was little, I loved Godzilla and my mother kept buying crocodile toys and pretending they were Godzilla. Until one day, they actually released a Godzilla stuffed animal. My mother didn’t want me taking the tag off, for “resale value”, and when I did take the tag off because I wasn’t going to sell my beloved Godzilla, she took it away from me, and she kept it when I moved out.

Everyone goes quiet for that.

I’ve been debating for a bit… I love my father, but every time I message him, he just tells me what I’m doing is wrong, dangerous, confusing, etc. There’s no space for “well I don’t understand it but as long as you’re having fun”. It’s very demoralizing, especially when I’m surrounded by so many wonderful, supportive people.

Sometimes goodbye is a second chance.