Merry Christmas to All!

Despite going to bed around 3:30 in the morning, I woke up bright and early at 9:30 on Christmas Day. The rest of the prison was still asleep, which was nice since I could Skype my family and wish them a very merry Christmas.

My day was planned thanks to Marion and Toro, the prison owners who invited all of us inmates to their family picnic in Eckland Park somewhere outside of Napier. The 'family' was definitely of the extended variety, so we ended up at a potluck with about 50 other people that featured just about every kind of meat imaginable, tons of salads and free beer (!). I brought cupcakes, which is always a crowd pleaser. Apart from the delicious food, the park itself was beautiful, and we could not have asked for better weather. There were tall trees spaced around the park so there was shade everywhere you might want it. Near the back of the park, hidden behind some tall grasses was a river that we chilled in for a while to cool off, and then sun tanned til about 3 when we came back to the prison.

Me! On Christmas Day! Suntanning and splashing in a river!

Jonne bought some water balloons, so we spent the next half hour filling them all up for an epic battle of boys versus girls.. that lasted all of 10 minutes. The prison grounds were covered in colourful plastic pieces of rubber, but we were not discouraged. I'm not sure who started it, but we all grabbed pots from the kitchen and chased each other around the exercise yard with buckets of water. No matter how drenched we got, every new bucket was just as cold and wet as the first one. My weapon of choice was two metal mugs filled with water that I splashed in people's faces. Will had a huge stew pot, Rachel and Jonne had big buckets, and Nic had a sauce pot which you think would do more damage, but apparently my perfect aim that got everyone right in the face every time was a whole other level of weapon. Our battle lasted about 2 hours until we were finally exhausted and had probably wasted enough water to solve Australia's drought problems. Since we were already wet, Rachel, Jonne and I ran down the hill to the ocean and jumped in. We just bobbed for about half an hour, and the waves just kept crashing in on us. I don't know the last time I've laughed that hard. I was happy and exhausted, and finished off the night by watching Elf with some inmates and then headed off to bed, thrilled with my Kiwi Christmas.