Stars and frogs

Read the French translation

Have you ever wondered about the bounty of secrets a cleaning lady knows about her clients? What intimate moments she witnesses when she works in hotels, what little treasures she finds and what bizarre objects she has to throw away? How she perceives the human race according to how messy the customers leave a room? For a couple of days, I was part of a jolly group: the “Swedish Girls and Stef’s Cleaning Service”. We knocked on backpacker’s dorm doors at 9 am…right on time to see and smell the joy of hangover and/or to feel that we did not necessarily belong in the vicinity…

There is a blissful breeze caressing my skin; I can hear the TV playing a movie and from here I catch a glimpse of the many foreigners all bundled up on a couch eyes riveted to the screen. Marc plays ping pong with our friend from the Netherlands, Marjan, and the Swedish girls, Anna, Louise and Johanna, are petting the dogs (who are fond of eating ping pong balls…). Birds, frogs, crickets and cicadas compete to be the loudest as night falls down on the bush. Soon I will go back to my home, 17 steps away from the buzzing of the little international village of cabins, and from the screen of my tent I will maybe see an owl on a Eucalyptus’ branch, with behind it a tapestry of bright stars.

We finally “settled down”. We fell in love with Agnes Water and Town of 1770 about 2 weeks ago. It happened when we saw how beautiful and friendly these villages were. And maybe I should add the welcoming of the dolphins, which swam two meters away from our picnic table on our first day. Then we met Rodney, Marcy and Breck, we kayaked with rays in a mangrove tunnel and we found a small restaurant where they serve…well, believe it or not, they serve poutine! I looked everywhere to find a job related to the community and through that I met other amazing people, like Phil the principal of the unique small school of the area. They would have had some work for me except that, we are summer… and like back home in summer, kids are off!

Sooo, 4 days a week I serve local favourites at a bakery, one day a week I work at the reception of Southern Cross Backpackers (where we camp) and I will teach Spanish to 2 friends 2 days a week! I will take my first surf and stand up paddle lessons and I will try to accompany Marc on the reef as often as possible! To compensate for not finding a job where I can better the world at every moment, I give all the smiles I have to the nice locals that come and buy bread! It is really fulfilling, and witnessing my accent changing is quite pleasant! I also make the French customers quite happy when I teach them how things are called around here…

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