Today was a big day for KMEC in that Stephen had organized
some sort of Ayahuasca ceremony to take place in the half-finished ‘yoga-hale’ and
was stressing out about the necessary preparations all morning. While I was
sweeping the floor and making a few last-minute beds, Sarah had been positioned
at the entrance to aid the arriving guests with the parking and welcome them,
and soon a whole crowd of white-clad hippies were strolling around the property
and congregated in the yoga hale from which then soon intense chanting and
drumming could be heard that lasted throughout the day. Two of the people
partaking had brought round their eight-and-ten-year-old children who sat
around rather miserably in the kitchen with their little gameboys so we (Sarah
mainly) entertained them for a while and shared our gourmet meal of rice and
beans with them.
We wanted to go to Kehena beach again for the afternoon even
though the dark clouds looming in the distance did not look promising. Sure
enough it started raining before we even left the house and continued to do so
for most of the way while we tried to brave the weather and kept telling
ourselves that further down there surely wouldn’t be any rain - just a BIT
further…. Unfortunately however that was not at all the case, and just as we got
dropped off at Kehena it just started pouring it down like never before. We
sought shelter under a little table there and sat there hunched over quite
pathetically for a while watching the feet of all the people who’d been at the
beach scuttle past in the direction of their cars, before finally giving up any
hope we had left and dejectedly found someone to hitchhike home with. Under the
slight delusion that at least some people would be at the lawn we went there
first but it was completely deserted and so we ended up walking the last mile
to our place in the pouring rain, barefoot because our flip flops were getting
too sloshy, towels wrapped around our heads, feeling like long-suffering
pilgrims or something. At home we settled in Sarah’s bottom bunk bed and talked
for a while, interrupted occasionally by the sounds of copious retching right
behind us, which led to the evenings main activity being a rather voyeuristic
experience of hiding in our darkened room and peering through the window at the
Ayahuasca enthusiasts stumbling out of the room at random intervals and
vigorously puking into the bushes somewhere. Soon after nightfall suddenly our
boss Stephen (Mr ‘I’m-not-going-to-partake-in-the-ceremony-because-I’m-the
manager-and-I-need-to-keep-an-eye-on-things-I’ll-be-right-back’) arrived at our
cabin with a serene smile on his bald face and told us that he needed to lie
down now and whether we could make sure that the other people left soon. And so
all over sudden the two of us plus Mick were in charge of getting the thirty or
so hippies out of the property before 9 o’clock and before Leonard found out about all this, which had definitely not been
in the job description.
It took us long enough to coax them out of the yoga
hale (by passive-aggressively shining torches on the path to help them walk
down it) but then they congregated in the kitchen and were mostly completely
oblivious to our mumblings from the corner where we sat, the exact opposite to
them with our scant black clothes.
 |
| GLARING at them. |
Every time there seemed to be an
advancement, suddenly something else appeared that kept their attention (such
as the unexpected arrival of two pumpkins out of the oven) and they all could
just not stop talking about all of their profound spiritual experiences they'd just gone through. After
much persuading they finally got the message and were suddenly all rushing around
and were miraculously gone at exactly 8:59, after which we breathed a huge sigh
of relief and vowed to not let Stephen hear the end of this.
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