30/09/2019 – Volunteering, Easter Island, Chile

We got up and started work at 10:00. I cleaned and Josh sanded and varnished. I joined Josh and helped with the varnishing just before lunch, which I found quite fun, Josh has lost interest in it! We had lunch with Peter and Tiare, a chicken curry which was lovely. Then Josh and I cleared up whilst Peter and Tiare went and collected Leonora from school. Josh and I continued varnishing until about 14:00 when it started raining, so we retreated to the laundry room where we faffed around for a little while before retreating to our studio. We spent the afternoon/evening reading our books, and both ended up having a nap too, which felt pretty luxurious! This is the life, if only this could be our real life routine! Josh is nearly done with his Lord of The Rings Trilogy and I have just started Matt Haigs book ‘Reasons to Stay Alive’ which mum is reading too coincidentally! We had a gnocchi dinner and then got into bed with our books. At about 22:30 we had a knock on the door - it was Peter saying he felt really bad and he wanted someone to go up to stay in the house. No please or thank you, no apologies. Josh went up five minutes later to see what was going on and what was needed/required of us. Tiare was on her weekly night flight so it was just Peter and the girls in the house. Peter was on the sofa after being sick and had a bad headache – he said he had food poisoning, then said actually he thinks he took too many painkillers. I think he is seriously damaging his liver with his self-dosing of all these medications, a real worry, not to mention the hepatitis! Josh offered to take him to hospital but he declined. Josh reported back to me that he kept saying we could sleep in the unmade spare room (where Petra had been staying.) Anabel was still up and wanted to know what was going on. I think Peter wanted us to stay in the house so we could babysit, put the girls to bed and get them up and sorted for school in the morning. Josh and I felt that it was quite inappropriate and I don’t trust him enough for us to be put in a vulnerable position with the girls. It definitely highlights how isolated they are here from any friends or family – to call two workaways you have known for 3 weeks over a friend or family? I thought it was a bit odd. Josh managed to get out of it by saying that I was asleep in the studio, and said he didn’t want to disturb me or leave me on my own down there. In the end Peter said to go back down to our studio but he would knock if he needed anything. He asked Josh to take the girls to school in the morning. Josh agreed to it, and we planned to go together so he wasn’t on his own.

Josh came back down and updated me. We carried on reading, a bit puzzled about what had just happened and wandering what was the appropriate thing to have done!