Quiet Sunday

After the hectic week I had, I had planned to have a quiet day and today’s blog will be about how things are going from an autistic perspective.

The coronavirus virus news is making me very worried about my travel arrangements and as nobody really knows what will happen. My latest worry is travelling to new Zealand and being refused entry as I was at Hong Kong Airport within the last 14 days and countries refusing me entry if more people die.

Other things I have had to cope with is like communication, for example,
the first night I had been chatting to my hosts and I asked them about their heritage and they said that their family had been bought over by the British. I did not know what to say in response. I felt tarred by stupid history that I don’t know how to respond to.

The next nights dinner I met other people who are staying at the Airbnb. They had not let the host know about travelling, contact was made this morning and my hosts were unhappy. However, tonight it was a different story, the american knew how to sweet talk his hosts as he praised their food and Australian girl impressed them with her knowledge of when she had travelled to India for a few weeks My hosts were lovely and chatty a lot to them. I will be glad when I leave this Airbnb, the parents are OK with me but the conversations can be stilted. I found out that there is a lot of resentment towards the British from the Indian people. The hosts daughter is really rude to me.  Thankfully I have just about coped and escape into my room.

I am finding it hard to sleep at night as the fan is so noisy and I like it silent. So I am constantly fighting a battle against feeling exhausted. Hopefully New Zealand will be cooler.

A positive thing is that the Fijian people very welcoming and 2 young Fijian women were very kind and after realising that I had no camera at the mud pools, sent me photos via Facebook. I went out with one of ladies who took me to a restaurant nearby and we had Fijian cusine.

There are some things which I have found challenging like having to sort out cancellations and coping with buses not turning up and thinking how to sort the mess.

The biggest challenge was trying to get in touch with my friend Yu who lives here.
When I arrived, a message from her read

Hi Lucy! Have you arrived safe? Sorry I was gonna come to the airport but couldn’t because of the change of my work schedule..I hope you are Tony had a good flight..!

I was thankful that she was not able to come as my plane had been delayed. I then tried to contact her, leaving messages via messenger, phoning her and sending texts. No response. On Tuesday, I was being dropped off by Nita and when I relayed my story and showed her photos of Yu, Nita recognised her. On Thursday, I saw Nita again and she was giving a Chinese lady called Charlie a lift. Charlie actually knows where Yu lives and she showed me last night where her house was.

In the morning I received a message saying
Hi Lucy!!!

I am very very sorry for not being able to contact you for so long!!!!! You must be wondering why I don’t send you any messages and calls.  I am very sorry. I hope everything is ok with you.

Oh my gosh..it has been such horrible days after I got in touch with you last time. Last Tuesday, my phone was snatched at Nadi Town Market by a Fijian man and I lost all the contacts and was trying to lock my SIM by visiting Vodafone but I couldn’t because I didn’t have my ID and had to visit one of my Japanese friends straight away who got sick in Lautoka since she has a baby so I was helping her next couple of days.

I tried to log in messenger with her laptop but the connection of wifi was very bad since it was in a rural area and she told me the area has a very bad wifi connection usually.

After I was able to lock my sim and tried to use it with my old phone, it was just too old (black and white screen one) and didn’t work at all. That’s why when I received your call, I was hearing funny noises and got turned off..I was very sorry Lucy…!

I am buying a new phone tomorrow and I am now on messenger on one of my neighbor’s phone. And I don’t know why I cannot make a video call on this phone so I am just writing this message.

I am very sorry that this happened and I am sure I made you so worried! What is your plan today? I assume you already made a plan for today…If so, do you think we can meet up tomorrow or Tuesday before you flight?

We finally got together and it was lovely to see her and meet her daughter. Unfortunately her son was ill so her husband stayed at home whilst she came to see me.