Sanasana is a small village of 400 people about a mile from the Intercontinental Resort and surrounded by a world-class golf course. The local village owns the property on which the resort sits and about half of the resort workers live in this village. There is another village about 30 minutes north of the resort where the other half of the workers live.
Our guide Izi was very proud of his village and pleased to show it off. We boated up to the village and jumped out where swarms of young children were playing in the water and shore. Izi took us to the church, community hall and showed us many of the houses. He also got a young man to climb a coconut tree for us for some fresh juice. Everywhere we met local people were told “You come in as a guest but leave as family. When you return again we will welcome you as family.”
The next day at the resort several people including grounds keepers, house keepers and restaurant workers came up to us and told us they saw us in their village and thanked us for coming. This was just one of the sweet and humble moments we experienced with the local people.
