Lobster Dinner

As we started geting to know some of the locals at the lodge, they let us in on a little secret.  The local village just down the beach sells lobster and the kitchen doesn't mind preparing it for you at dinner (for a small fee, of course).  So one day before volleyball we set off down the beach to see if we could source ourselves some fresh lobster.  You can see the village boats in the photo below.
  

The village was as you probably imagine - very basic with dirt paths, houses on stilts with chickens running around amongst other dogs and cats.  And most fascinating - cows on the beach!  A strange sight for sure, but when you think about it they are cows living on a small island so beach is really all they know. 

The village kids were also excited to see us and shouted "hello" and "what's your name" as we walked through.  The people were very friendly, even getting some waves from the adults, as we headed to the area we knew to to be the ad hoc fish stand (a lady sitting in a little pagoda with a scale).  Unfortunately, she was indeed the fish lady and not the lobster lady - she just shook her head at our lobster inquiries.

So we set off deeper in to the town to what looked like a little convienient store.  Another shaking head.  We persisted and soon enough with a few "Salam ala cum" greetings (hello) followed by "Lobster" we found somebody that led us to a house.

Arriving at the house we found a guy sitting on the porch and a couple small children running around.  He yelled upstairs and a lady came out with a calculator - showing us the price for a kilo of lobster.  Ok - fair price based on what the lodge told us.  We'll take one kilo, please. 

Once agreed, we walked to the beach where a young man jumped in hallowed out tree canoe and headed to the refrigerator (remember, the cages held just off shore to store live fish?).  I can only imagine a floating container full of live lobster to choose from!  He came back with 5 live lobsters for us in a bucket.  After the weigh in, they were a little over a kilo so we negotiated a final tweak to the total price, handed over the cash and we were on our way with five wiggling lobsters in a plastic grocery store bag!  Job done, sweet!

Walking back was an interesting stroll with me occasionally jumping when the bag jumped due to a lobster flicking his tail in protest of the close quarters.  Steph got a good laugh at me a couple times but I would have liked to have seen her carry the bag! 

Strolling up to the lodge, all of the guys quickly noticed we were carring a bag full of lobster  shouting, "Lobster!".  We found the chef and gave them to him for cooking.  A big thanks to the chefs in the photo for a well prepared platter of lobster.  We enjoyed it steamed with a very nice garlic butter sauce and a spicy tomato soup on the side.  Delicious!  What a treat.