Day 58

I hiked into Playa Madama with Terry, an American who is staying here for two weeks with his wife and children. They live in Camden, Maine, where he runs the mailboat in the non-winter months and they live in a tent on an island all summer. He told me of his time in the Peace Corps on a remote South Pacific island, where he learned the way of the coconut. He - like me, in his 40's - can still climb a palm tree and open a coconut with his teeth.

We had a pleasant hike in, swam and snorkeled for awhile, and walked out. On the way back we cut through Casa Marina, where we ran into Felix, a deaf / mute Dominican who sells coconuts on the beach at the all-inclusive. We have spent a couple days communicating with him - hand signals and pointing and sometimes drawing - and we enjoy seeing eahc other. It feels like we know more about him than we do of some of our speaking Dominican friends. He always tells us he has money and new clothes, and that he sold a lot of coconuts that day.

He gave Terry and I a couple of coconuts, free. We drank the juice, and Terry showed me how to open the shell to get to the meat.

That night Amy, the kids and I went to our favorite local pizza place - L'aventura, a French pizza restaurant. While we were sitting there Felix came by and invited himself to join us. He ordered a beer and pizza for himself. When our food came, we offered it to him, and he tried a slice of Amy and my roquefort pizza. He hated it, and made a wide variety of faces and hand gestures and noises to tell us not to eat it, even though we made it clear we liked it.