Unemployment and Silly Complaints

Alright. Forget about what I had to say before. Guitars, language barriers, teaching guys from Jakarta, forget it. Maybe I'll throw it back in someday, but it pales in weight to what I have to say now.

Lionfish

I have been diving with a particular dive resort since I got a call to do a one-time job (teaching guys from Jakarta) at the end of November. They are the only dive shop that actually let me volunteer around the shop and keep an eye on customers in exchange for regular diving and so I naturally stuck with them. I had finally found my place on Gili Trawangan: great staff, fun to be around and hang out with on a regular basis. They have never pressured me into drinking, and thus I actually enjoyed going out with them. They are really the only ones I can call friends on the island: Donna, Sebastian, Marcus, John, and Rhiannon. I forget how much I said before, but I was not happy a few weeks ago when I was sitting around idly waiting for work. During the past two weeks I have been having an incredible time. Even without an income, I was thoroughly enjoying myself every day, diving up to 3 times per day like in the Philippines.

Clownfish in anemones

After going to Singapore and buying my camera, I have been taking pictures on every dive. Some of them are turning out very well and I am quite pleased with the purchase. I told the staff that I would donate some of my best pictures for the website as a further payment for them allowing me to dive. What's more is that I discovered I could make money selling pictures! After one dive, I sold 51 pictures for $20 to 5 Irish girls, then about 80 pictures for $30 to a really cool Dutch woman (I was essentially her personal guide for all 7 or so dives she did with us). As I was editing another 60 pictures for an English couple, Rhiannon came to me and told me the freelance videographer was a bit upset that I was selling pictures. She goes on dives with students (as opposed to certified divers coming for a few fun dives) and takes video. She then edits and sells the video to them. Because she doesn't do pictures and doesn't come on fun dives, Rhiannon and I thought it would be fine if I offered to sell pictures to certified divers. The videographer is freelance so she works elsewhere anyway. As it turns out, she is put off by me selling pictures. Apparently she can (but doesn't) go on fun dives and takes video for customers. If they don't want video, she reluctantly freezes the video and copies still images from it and adds them on the end of the dvd. Regardless of how I feel about that, that's the way it is, that's the way she feels, and there's no negotiating and thus no more selling pictures (which was turning out to be a very promising source of income - $50/week is nearly enough to live on).

I humbly accepted that nothing was going to change her mind and said goodbye to my short-lived photography position without putting up a fight. I was just getting back in the routine of diving and not taking pictures until yesterday immediately after unloading from the morning dive; Sebastian came to me and told me that he had some bad news. As it turns out, the 23-year-old Russian who owns and operates the small dive resort with his boyfriend decided that he doesn't like me diving there. Since I am not going to be there for the 2 weeks of high season (family is coming!), he doesn't want to be wasting tanks of air for me to go diving in low season. Ultimately he told Sebastian to tell me to stop diving. Realizing nothing I did could change their minds, I pretty much said “okay, no worries” straight away but felt quite distraught. It felt like I had been fired.

Blue spotted stingray

Back into unemployment I fell. No selling pictures, no guiding, no teaching, no income, and not even any diving. I have been banished from the water and can only dive if I get a call from a dive center overrun with customers. I figured it was not too much of a problem and today I made another round to all of the dive centers here hoping that one may need an instructor, a guide, or even just a volunteer. Alas, most of them seemed tired of seeing me and some answered my question even before it was asked: “sorry, we'll call you if it gets too busy.” So here I am on this beautiful paradise unable to do the ONE thing I came here to do, whether I get paid or not. Ironic, isn't it.

I have always been one to find the humor in irony no matter how unfortunate its outcomes. However, I've never been in a situation of this sort of irony. Allow me to lay everything out on the table: I have little money, no income, few friends, no one to really talk to, and I can't even do the one thing that I came to this island to do, the thing that really makes me happy.

Sea turtle.  Hawksbill or green, I'm never sure

And finally I have arrived at the heart of this update – the reason I said the other updates don't matter. Here I am living on this gorgeous tropical island with an abundant crowd of interesting tourists and locals, surrounded by palm trees and warm ocean water, I'm wearing shorts and t-shirts every day, spending an average of $1.40 on lunch and $5 on dinner, able to read, snorkel, play guitar, ride my bike, wander around, hang out, meet people, swim, etc. whenever the heck I want. Through all of this, I have the audacity to complain?! I need to seriously reconsider what is important in life if I have the nerve to say that I'm upset while living in a place like this. One of the great things about traveling alone to such distant and foreign lands is that I can learn a lot about myself. After seeing myself get down about this unemployment situation, I don't like what I've learned. It's a powerful life experience to be unemployed and not able to get work regardless of my efforts, but I'm being ridiculous. It took me an entire day and night before I was able to see how stupid my complaints were, and even then it was only because I was talking about it online and realized how dumb it all sounded. It's true, the frustration is real. However, I now have as many responsibilities as any tourist on this island and I'm only poisoning my mind if I don't allow myself to enjoy it as much as they are.