Fired Dancing

Friday night we participated in the Tiki Hut Luau. As it was one day after my birthday, I considered it to be a second birthday party. The Luau had everything a Hawaiian party should, one free beer, a limbo and hula-hoop competition, henna tattoos, fresh fruit smoothies, live bands, and yes….fire dancers. Imagine swirls of fire surrounding three separate dancers with one even catching the grass on fire momentarily. We are still debating whether that was planned or not. (thinking not planned). I must also mention that the clothing was of course limited which added to the whole appeal of fire dancing. We definitely felt like these dancers the past week. Being surrounded by flames, hoping to prevent the grass from catching on fire, while doing our best to keep our jobs and our paychecks…or at least keeping a paycheck, since now we will no longer be making the same rate that we were promised. We continuously are doing our best to keep juggling the flames but it seems like at every swing we just keep getting burned. As of this evening, if we do not sign this new addendum to the contract, which says we will be paid less, we ourselves will be fired-dancing.

Fire Dancer at the Tiki Hut

We've been here nearly 4 weeks and the first post finally has gone up. Maybe it's sign that we've started to slip into the slow pace of island life or perhaps it's just a result of working 12-13 hours a day and having little to no internet access at home. We jumped right in with work when we arrived and have been going non-stop preparing for the first several sets of the film. We're still adjusting to things here and what makes it particularly tricky is that most of our hard work seems to go unnoticed and unappreciated. Our friends, new and old have thankfully kept us sane thus far. Most of the people here at the studio are friendly and rely on a good sense of humor to get them through the day. The studio is an ecletic blend of locals and foreign employees, students and interns from all over the world. It makes for an unusual but often fun and dynamic work enviroment. We were lucky to have a beautiful and comfortable living arrangement found for us before we came. Although, the price was a bit of a shock to us after hearing tales of the incredibly low cost of living here, we have come to love our new home and even though we are surely getting the "special" foreigner price for the place, we are just happy to have a nice, safe, place to rest and relax every night. Overall, we are quite sheltered at the moment, spending most of our time between the studio and home and the resorts on the island. However, much time has been spent riding Jeepneys, haggling with local vendors over prices and eating an interesting assortment of local food, bar food and pizza. There are many stories to tell already and surely many to come so we hope you follow along as we try to keep up with the page as best we can. Take Care.

Looking out over the water from the studio.