Sunday, 12 December 2010

Trip to Paradise...Except for the Jellyfish

After the first few months at post, each Peace Corps Volunteer attends In-Service Training (IST) for additional technical training. Luckily for my group, our IST is where?  The beaches of Kribi!
 
The beautiful beaches of Kribi

Janelle, Crystal, and Andrea and I arrived yesterday afternoon to take a well-awaited swim off the African coast. After some relaxing beach time and a nice dinner at La Figueroa in town, we spent today at the isolated beach of Llondji, about 15km from Kribi. After fording a river by canoe and chasing after crabs, we finally settled on a tranquil space of thin sand in front of our own little jungle paradise.

The isolated beaches of Llondji a.k.a. paradise!

Unfortunately, my happiness was cut short by a jellyfish sting! The waves in Llondji are rough and as we were swimming to a calmer spot, I screamed as a knife-like object sliced my left knee before my right foot touched upon something jelly. The girls came to save me as I couldn’t swim and we plopped against the sand. Sheer pain continuted until my leg started to swell and bloat up. Thinking I may be allergic, I called the Peace Corps Medical Officer who said, “Oh, that’s fine. That’s just the jellyfish’s poison getting underneath the skin.”         Fantastic.

The waves were a bit rough. Watch out for jellyfish!

Luckily, within half an hour or so, I was able to limp my way back to the main road. And that night at dinner, we finally were able to eat shrimp (Cameroon translater to "River of Shrimp" in Portuguese) while being reunited with the other PCVs and my now scarred leg made for a great story!

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