5
As Teuila escorted me toward the bathing lagoon, women and children smiled at me from the open verandas of their huts flanking the main thoroughfare of the village. But a group of men carving a dugout canoe on the main beach eyed me suspiciously when we veered off onto a flagstone-lined path leading into the woods. When we reached the secluded lagoon, I peered around me at the natural splendor of the landscape.
"Your island is so beautiful," I said, inhaling the fresh onshore sea breeze. "Where I come from, people pay a small fortune to visit these tropical paradises. And here I am, being feted by my native hosts, with never a thought to any kind of compensation."
"At least for a few more weeks," Teuila frowned, reminding me of the cargo ship pickup that was scheduled to pick me u
