20/09/2019 – Day 8 Volunteering, Easter Island, Chile

We got up and out before 10:00 to start laundry and cleaning the bungalows. Bungalow 1 had checked out. When Josh checked their cupboards there had been no food left for us unfortunately! Josh helped me start the deep clean until Peter got back from dropping the guests at the airport. There was a lady in bungalow 3 trying to have a lie in but by 10:30 Peter was too impatient so asked Josh to start on the noisy striming! Josh started on strimming the grass as he had the day before. I finished the deep clean and did some laundry, waiting for the guest in bungalow 3 to head out and for those of bungalow 2 to check out. When bungalow 2 checked out at 12:30 the lady came up to me in the bungalow as I had started the clean. I apologised and started saying oh sorry I thought you had gone! She told me no no and came over, so I gave her a hug and a kiss goodbye, but then to my surprise she put some money in my hand. I was so surprised I looked at her a bit bewildered, and then gave her a big hug thank you, she told me it wasn’t much but in fact, when I looked after she had gone, it was over £20! She was the lady that had fallen on her first day, and I had dressed her knee for her. She was lovely, and she and I had got on pretty well. They also left us loaaaads of snacks that Josh and I quickly snaffled away into our studio! Peter had told us whatever gets left on a deep clean can be ours. I carried on cleaning and Josh strimming until we were called in for lunch by Peter. I don’t really know why, but I think because I have never been in a tips kind of job, I felt the need to let Peter know that I had accepted cash from one of his guests. I told him I had been given a tip, and he replied straight away ‘oh they owe me 10 because they took 10 from the tip they gave me for petrol.’ I looked at him a bit confused and then realised, he was asking me to give him my tip money! I was pretty gobsmacked and didn’t know what to say so I just handed him the money over. I had thought that if I told him, then there might be a system of splitting it between myself Josh and Petra, or maybe to go towards some biscuits and chocolate or something for all of us. But for it to go straight into his own pocket really floored me. Especially as the lady had come to find me specifically and gave me the money to say thank you! I was so upset with him over lunch I could barely look at him. We ate black and white rice and a chicken curry sauce, which was lovely. Josh and I cleared up and then I went back to the bungalows, and tried to avoid Peter for the rest of the day. We finished up at around 16:00 and put a load of our own laundry on. We showered and chilled in our room, sharing a bottle of Chilean wine, and ate a spaghetti dinner. We relaxed, read our books, played some monopoly deal (Josh beat me in two sets!) and went to bed.