One of my greatest adventures in 2010 was learning to scuba dive. I have always been in love with people. Before I learned to dive, I did not know how much I loved fish. Once you see what lies beneath the surface, you life is changed forever. Isn’t that always the way? Below the waves waits Bob the Grouper. He hangs by the shallow Caribbean corals off the coast of Little Cayman Island in hopes that divers will swim by and stoke his scales. There is nothing like feeling the skin of a living fish suspended in water. There is nothing like diving.
After my slow start as a scuba diver in the cold water of the Puget Sound, I found myself on a trip to the Wakatobi Resort in Indonesia. I had a rudimentary idea of where I was going. Indonesia was somewhere above Australia. I had never heard of Sulawesi, the enormous U-shaped Island to the west and only knew of Bali to the south, through books and Hollywood films. The day I walked into my dive shop to inquire about dive locations, one precious space opened up on the trip to Indonesia. There had been a cancelation. It was the scuba adventure of a lifetime. I wrote a big fat check and tried to submerge the fear of traveling to the other side of the globe with strangers. Something was calling me. I was not about to miss it.
The location was exotic. The Wakatobi Dive Resort is situated on Tolandono, one of a circle of islands called Tukang Besi, southeast of Malaysia. The surrounding coral reefs extend for 100,000 square miles and encompass one of the largest protected marine parks in the world. From the air, the reefs look like a glass marble, swirls of turquoise, green, and blue. The scuba divers who stared down at the coral reefs below were awestruck. It is reassuring that nature such as this exists, and the excitement was tangible. We watched uninhabited jungle islands pass beneath us. The round dark tops of palm trees formed thick unbroken masses from shoreline to shoreline. There were no huts or roads to break the lush green vegetation. We felt lucky to be visiting a place that few tourists find. Places such as these are where divers go.
The plane landed at a tiny private airport. We were loaded into several ramshackle vans and driven through narrow island dirt roads past cinderblock style houses. Small children ran to the road to watch the vans pass. We hiked down the stone steps to our waiting resort boat. We watch the sea gypsies swim beside the dock. The sea gypsies are the Indonesian homeless who live on the water throughout the archipelago. We were handed pink welcoming drinks and iced towels to wipe the sweat from our faces. Ours is not the life of most Indonesians. The children waved to us as we slip away into the darker blue water.
Wakatobi Dive Resort looks like the set from Gilligan’s Island. The waves lap against the narrow white sand beach where tall palms curve down and back up again, reaching for the sky. The smell of sea salt and jungle fill the air. We put down our drinks and made our way along shell lined paths to our bungalows. We had barely arrived, and it was time for our first dive. We rushed into our wetsuits to explore the house reef, one of the best in the world.
We only swam a few meters when the underworld magic of this coral reef was revealed. We released our air and sank below the surface to have a closer look. Like an underwater garden, the reef bloomed in color, shape, and texture. Everything was alive with activity. What appeared to be a feathery green and black fern was an animal reaching for food in the passing current. What seemed to be a sediment rock was a deadly stonefish waiting for prey. Anemones of pink or orange sheltered fish of matching colors. Camouflage and color is the way of life for creatures beneath the surface of the sea. Schools of dazzling striped or spotted fish swam around us. Some fish were both striped and spotted, as if the decision made at their creation was a jumbled error. I was amazed and gasped in my regulator, not for air, but in joy for the viewing the reef for the first time. I had been at Wakatobi for a matter of hours, and I had seen incredible things.
Divers seek tiny creatures like a treasure hunt, peering under ledges on rocks for slugs in brilliant blue and yellow. We hovered beside pink fan coral with magnifying glasses in search of pygmy sea horses. We strained our eyes at the sand looking for crocodile fish buried for protection. The moray eels yawned their jaws to display their teeth as we drifted on the current near their hiding holes. All the while the goby fish peered at us to see if we were predators while his enlisted shrimp dug his hole. Life continued nonstop in the ocean while we, for as long as our air allowed, watched and learned.
Nowhere is there a more beautiful place than a dive site named for ancient Rome. In Roma the giant barrel sponges look like the ruins of Pompei. At the bottom of a ridge, a giant cabbage coral grows in the shape of an enormous pink rose. As we swam in humble respect for the underwater Indonesian landscape we were experiencing, a school of large silver snapper swam by. Then quickly to our side, a regiment of bright blue fusiliers darted in precision across the rose.
Oh the fishies, the beautiful fishies. My instructor, Marielle, laughed at my pleasure as she wrote the names of fish on her slate. We could not speak. We had regulators in our mouths to keep the air flowing and us alive. Without the use of spoken words, we communicated to each other with our hands. We tapped our chests to tell each other how much we appreciated the unique sights that drifted by.
It is a bonding experience to engage in a life threatening activity with another person. A diver does not dive without his buddy. It is a dive buddy’s responsibility to make sure that his partner is safe. Every few minutes you make eye contact with your buddy and signal with your fingers the message, Are you OK? If only relationships were that caring above the water’s surface on the land, every few minutes someone looking and checking to see, are you OK? Eyes beside you that watch closely for your response. Yes, I am OK for now.
A diver can easily get narced. This is the slang for nitrogen narcosis, when too much nitrogen had gathered in your blood. One of the first symptoms can be a lack of focus or perhaps giddiness. As I swam circles like a mermaid and chased fleeting turtles, Marielle was always watching. If I became narced, she was ready to help me to the surface and share her life sustaining air. The lessons of scuba can extend beyond the water, to the eyes of those in need with whom we have contact. Are you OK for now? Let me know, and I will be there to help if you need me.
Returning home from such a beautiful place with such great need was difficult. I knew that one day I would return to Indonesia. In the mean time, I began diving in the Puget Sound. Diving in a drysuit is much more difficult than in warm tropical waters. It is difficult to achieve neutral buoyancy with the addition of quilted undergarments, rubber boots, huge gloves, a thick hood and thirty-two pounds of extra weight. Air is added to the suit itself for warmth against the nearly freezing temperatures. This must be regulated. Visibility is limited. Having a dive buddy close at hand is essential.
Darrell is my instructor at Elliot Bay. He is patient and supportive, generous with his compliments and encouragement. He loves to share what he finds beneath the surf with other divers. While most people feasted on calamari over the water at Seattle’s famous Seafood Restaurant, Salty’s, a hand full of divers submerged below the surface to see the North Pacific Giant Octopus that lives twenty meters away. Hidden under submerged boats and artificial reefs, these enormous creatures lazily eye their visitors with their ten foot tentacles as the rest on bottom of the bay. Darrell and I paused on the bottom as well, watching in amazement at the very existence of such an incredible animal. Darrell grabbed a large orange Sea Star and placed it on my head, like a fancy Easter bonnet and then snapped a photo. I laughed in my regulator. Darrell constantly checked my eyes behind the lens of my mask. Are you OK? Let me know if you are OK. We were here together to make sure that we were both safe on this day’s journey in the salt water of the Sound. That’s how it goes when you dive together. Hey Darrell, I am more than OK. I am fabulous. I took off my orange Sea Star bonnet and looked for more treasures in the deep.
I am reluctant to quote Blanch Dubois, “that I have always relied on the kindness of strangers,” but in June, through strangers on Face Book, I met a group of divers heading to the Caribbean. Again there had been a cancellation. One precious spot remained on a trip to the Cayman Islands, and it was offered to me. I jumped at the chance to see more warm water coral reefs. I had been the Caymans only once before, and it was not to dive.
In 1998, several women asked me to join them on a golfing trip to Grand Cayman Island during the November Pirate’s Week. When we landed at the airport, were handed rum drinks by costumed revelers. The party had begun, before we ever reached baggage claim. The leader of our group knew how to party. She owned a condo with her lover on Cayman, along with a bank account where we assumed that money was hidden without scrutiny from the IRS and his ex wife. This trip was doomed before it began. Upon reflection, I am not surprised. Far to the east, storm clouds were gathering.
We landed at night and awoke in the morning to a beautiful narrow white beach. The sky was dark with what appeared to be the typical tropical storm. It was too rainy to play golf, so we played cards instead in the afternoon and headed to dinner for more parting. We were not about to miss a moment of Pirate’s Week. The next day at the pool, we chatted with a group of divers from New Jersey. They had just chartered an airplane to leave the island that afternoon. They were cutting their dive vacation short because of a Hurricane named Mitch that was on the way. I looked around. The rain had stopped. Where was the hurricane? I asked how much it cost to charter a plane. They asked me how much my life was worth and laughed. I began to feel uneasy.
We went into George Town to discuss the storm over fried clams and beer. I looked into the harbor and explained with authority to my buddies that the Navy vessel moored in the bay was a guarantee that we need not be concerned. When hurricanes approached, the Navy always moved their ships to sea. We clicked our beer glasses to calm waters and par golf, when all of a sudden, the Navy ship turned and headed to sea. Mitch was on the way, and the military was not taking any chances.
After learning that all return flights home were booked, and that we would be staying on Cayman for our first hurricane, we looked for candles, matches and flash lights in our holiday condo. None were to be found. The grocery store was nearly as vacant. What had been an aisle filled with loaves of bread a day and a half earlier, was barren. Shoppers were swarming through the aisles grabbing any food and supplies they could find. We managed to buy a few candles and some batteries for the sole remaining flashlight that we triumphantly claimed for our own.
Grand Cayman Island is a sandbar in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. The news had reached Seattle that a category five storm was nearing the island. Husbands were calling, concerned about Mitch. They wanted us to leave. There were no planes left to charter. Our host’s lover warned of being too low to the ground in their condo, or too high up in a hotel room if we were to rent one. Everyone else received calls from Seattle, pleas to head to the airport and find a plane. Where was my dive buddy to ask if I was OK? I called home. No worries. You’ll be OK. It’s just a storm.
The television and radio blared continual reports throughout the night as to Mitch’s location. It was predicted to be a direct hit. All foreigners were to be evacuated out immediately. We dragged our unopened golf bags and our suitcases to the airport at 5 AM and watched the palms that lined the tarmac bend flat to the ground in the rushing winds. Huddled on the floor, we waited for our names to be called. Yes. It was our turn to leave. The early morning had turned into late afternoon, and we were finally getting our chance to go home, away from the storm. We did not care that United Airlines was flying us to Miami on an Aeroflot jet. As I gripped the armrest in the wind of our departure, I thought about the people remaining behind on the floor, and the natives who were not being flown to safely. I am going to be OK. Are you?
On my return twelve years later, I was pleased to see that Mitch had spared the Cayman Islands. Only one dive boat was lost in the storm. Mitch decided to turn at the last moment and do his worst to the Spanish speaking countries of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala.
Now I was back again. I met my new dive buddies at the Grand Cayman Airport. Pirate week and free airport rum drinks were still five months away. Little Cayman rested quietly off the shore of its bigger sister, waiting for the few arriving divers who flew in to enjoy the reefs and the wrecks. I was immediately welcomed by a friendly group of gregarious divers from North Carolina. They were the Gypsies and were happy to welcome a new member. No problem that you traveled here alone. We will all be your dive buddies.
The experienced divers heaped praises on my skill, boosting my confidence, and gently made suggestions to improve my diving ability. They were always checking to see if I was OK on land as well as underwater. They called my name as I entered the bar to come and join them for drinks. They made sure there was a seat at the dinner table, so that I would never dine alone. I was part of their diving family, a Gypsy Diver too.
This is where I met Bob. I was swimming along the reef, minding my own business, when Bob decided to swim along. He nuzzled below me and did not flinch when I reached down to touch his side. We had been told by our dive master that Bob would be waiting. We were instructed the proper way to pet a fish. We would damage his skin if our caresses did not follow his scales. We had to respect the innocence of a Grouper so friendly that he would let us run our hands along his sides. We had to be careful. I settled as closely to the coral below without touching the bottom, so that I could float beside Bob, as if we were lying together, side by side in a bed. Our heads were close and I cooed to him in bubbles, trying to explain how moved I was that he had decided to be there with me. He seemed for a moment to understand my English, distorted by bubbles from the regulator. Are you OK? I am more than OK as I talk with you now. Be safe from fishing nets, hooks, and sharks. I like you my friend.
I have made a promise to never eat a Grouper again. I think of Bob happily swimming on the current in the Little Cayman reef. I would hate to think that any harm would come to him. And, like the day that I was following the reef when Bob came close to swim beside me, I swim along in life day by day. Perhaps someone will join me for a while. However, there are too many wonderful things to experience while swimming, many wondrous places to go, and many people to meet, to be concerned about who is swimming and where. The current will take me along. It’s been an incredible year drifting along the reefs of the world, and there is one last reef to explore.
I have come back to Indonesia. I am in Bali, this time for a month. I am here to see if this is where I might stay for a while. I am here to make connections with the people of Indonesia. I have packed my dive equipment, my plein air palette and oils, my laptop, and my book of prayers.
I walk back and forth along the long rocky road each night, and back and forth again each morning. On one end of my street lives an old and famous Balinese artist. He has invited me to join him for coffee. At end of the main road, in the opposite direction, is a scuba shop. They are waiting for me to call and return for another dive to a remote and exotic underwater location.
At every corner of the street, and in between, on every road in Ubud, sit the poor, asking to take me on the back of their scooters for twenty cents, so that I won’t have to walk by myself alone down the rocky road. They sleep in the backs of their trucks and smoke on the curbs in front of the few shops that stay open twenty-four hours a day in hopes of a customer. They are polite and always smile. Their smiles belie their true feelings of hunger or despair.
Twenty cents for a ride. Twenty cents that would lie discarded on an American road, walked over by those who pass by, too lazy to bend down and pick up such an insignificant amount of money. On my way home from dinner I am asked at least thirty times if I could use a ride. No thank you. I am OK. I do not need a ride. I am fine on my own, walking on my way alone. Are you OK tonight? Are you OK this morning? What can I do to help you?
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Fear- Part 2
Thump. Thump-thump-thump. Thump-thump.
I hear it on the roof. It’s late. I am alone in the only room of my house that has walls. The doors are locked with small key locks which are not very effective when the handles keep falling off. There is a large space underneath the connecting door to the study. My bedroom has the only light that is on. I am sure that the light streams out beneath the door as a beacon to whatever is on the roof.
There it is again. The sound is coming from the left. Thump. Thump-thump-thump. As it scuttles across the roof, the sound reverberates over to the right side of the ceiling. In the silence of the night, even with the air-conditioner running, the bounding feet are heavy from above. It must weigh one hundred pounds at least. Perhaps it is a winged monkey from the Wizard of Oz. What else would be that large and able to jump upon the roof of my room? I hear the thumps only at night. Oh God, a night creature.
The dogs are barking. Now a howl. I have been placed in the setting of a horror film. I sit underneath a white billowy net, a barrier from mosquitoes for which I am protected by inoculation, and all those other insects for which I am not, like the three inch black wasp that I saw on my ceiling this afternoon. Is he still up there? I know I could crush the insects with my shoe, if I were wearing shoes in my bed. My Hindu neighbor would be appalled. I am an ant crusher. Hopefully it is not his aunt. How can I joke when there is something out there? Something that I cannot see but can hear, along with the dogs. Something that is large, and I am sure has teeth. All night creatures must have large, ugly, yellow teeth, and red, red eyes. They always do. I am sure that it is looking down from the clay roof tiles, smiling an evil smile, and thinking of the meal cowering below.
I look up through the netting and notice that the end section of my ceiling is missing the drywall. It has been replaced with plastic sheeting. The only thing that prevents that night creature from falling on me is a thin, clear plastic layer. Night creatures could eat their way through plastic. They probably think of plastic as an appetizer before a meal of white woman. Fear. I feel the fear. I am alone. I have no one to protect me from the sounds in the night, the sounds that go thump. I am unprotected from my fear.
This afternoon, I noticed something dead and white floating in the lotus pond that borders my lower sitting area. Fish were eating the carcass. I thought at first it was an enormous bullfrog, and that the coy were enjoying a lunch of frog legs. I did not know that frogs were white, but this is Indonesia and creatures are stuff that lures the photographers from National Geographic’s. When I looked at my photographs at dinner, I saw that the animal, missing half its body, was not a frog at all. It was a rat. What could have chomped a rat that large in half and left its bloated body floating in my lotus pond until it turned white? The fear. The fear is here. I bet the sounds on my roof are from large Bali rats, or whatever ate a rat that huge. I hear the sound again, racing across my roof. The rat must be fleeing something large. I can feel the fear in its footstep flying across the drywall ceiling. I hope it doesn’t step through the plastic. There is so much to fear in Bali. Would I be afraid if I were not alone?
I walk the dark rocky street to my villa, accompanied at night my small flashlight. On a street without lights, I see an erratic dark image coming toward my head. A huge bat swoops down from the banana tree. This must be a fruit bat. I have seen them in zoos, but they were behind glass cages and not free to nest if my hair if so desired. I hunch my shoulders and stoop as it darts overhead. The fear. I need mace or a gun. I have only my dog whistle, and I am too frightened to fish it out of my pocket. The dogs are barking in an unending chorus at the bats and at me.
I was told that the dogs are no threat. They stand in every doorway growling as I pass. Most begin with a low guttural sound, as they defend their spot for the night. They are skinny with mange, and I pretended to ignore them as I pass by on my way to the Main Street of Ubud. The Balinese dogs look hungry. If they are family pets, food is not wasted on their behalf. They appear to have to fend for themselves. I hope they don’t like to munch on the legs of a tourist. It was recommended to bring my dog whistle to keep them from getting to close. The one time I blew it, they followed behind howling even louder. I try to keep the fear hidden. They can sense fear. I don’t want to give them an advantage. My heart races despite the logic of my brain which is retreating beneath my fear.
I was told that rabies is a problem in Bali. There is a program to get the dogs vaccinated. I did not take the rabies vaccine before my travels. It cost a thousand dollars. I was too cheap to pay so much for the inoculation. I was assured by my doctor that unless I was around bats, I did not need to worry about rabies. Another bat swoops by. I stoop again. The fear.
Other than the series of three shots for rabies which I decided to decline, I have had every other inoculation available to prevent diseases spread from the water, the soil, and insects. Months before my departure, I begged my doctor for shots that have yet to be invented. Why haven’t they come out with a prevention for the plague? I want it. There are rats here. I read Camus’ book. I even read it in French. I know what a rat can spread. I saw a large one on the wall of my bathroom garden. I adjust the mosquito netting to make sure there are no gaps. I want to insure that my sleeping perimeter is secure from rats, bats, dogs, and mosquitoes.
Malaria is a huge problem in Africa. It kills thousands each year. Here in Bali, malaria is not a concern. I have packed my prophylactic Malarone pills, just in case I get an email from the CDC saying that things have changed. It was only by chance that I checked their website and discovered a vaccination that I lacked, Japanese Encephalitis. I only had time for two of my three shots. There was no time to be inoculated fully before my departure. I am at risk. Fear.
I loved traveling to Africa. Every shot possible was required before entering the country of Burundi. I had to produce an inoculation record which was presented at the airport at Bujumbura. How nice to make sure that everyone has had their shots.
Before I left for Africa, my friend Henry and I were discussing elephantiasis. Henry was laughing at my fear. I was not. Testicular elephantiasis can be found in Burundi. He had seen it on the internet. We looked together in horror at the images of the poor souls disfigured by this disease which is born on the wings of a mosquito. There is hope for a vaccination by the year 2020. 2020! That is ten years away! Six percent of the country’s populations suffer from this disease. What will I do if I get testicular elephantiasis? Henry assures me that this is impossible. The female alternative is unimaginable. There is no cure for elephantiasis. The only treatment is to bathe your skin in Clorox. I have packed a Clorox pen, my mosquito netted pants, my clothes treated with insecticide, and a case of Deet. I am sure that if the mosquitoes don’t get me, then skin cancer will.
They laughed when I arrived in Africa. They said that there had never been anyone who traveled to their country more prepared that me. I am sure that REI’s stock skyrocketed after I purchased my equipment. Despite their laughter, before my departure from Gitega, the staff begged for my supplies. I told them that I had been a Girl Scout, and that I was always prepared. Actually, it was the fear that had pushed me to prepare so well.
I took my dive knife on my trip just in case I had to slash ferocious African animals or a terrorist on my way to the latrine at night. There were neither ferocious animals nor terrorists around us, and we had the luxury of indoor bathrooms. I used my dive knife to sharpen pencils used for drawing a mural on the wall of a school. Everyone was glad that I had brought it. There were no pencil sharpeners.
I also brought my water purifier. Water is a problem throughout the third world. Bad water produces parasites. All kinds of hideous worms come from bad water and ultimately attack the whites of your eyes, coil beneath your skin, or cause diarrhea, dehydration, and sometimes death. I had done my internet homework. I knew what was lurking in the water. My doctor warned that if I returned from Africa with a rash that moved beneath my skin, to contact him immediately. Not to worry doc. You’ll get my call from the tarmac. I want an ambulance with anesthesia sent to my plane. I want to be hospitalized immediately.
When bathing or washing my hands in Africa, I chanted, “Water is poison. Water is poison.” With the smallest break in concentration, I might open my mouth in the shower and unwittingly let the water come in. I told my doctor that he should come with me to Africa because he had the skills to be of great service. He said he would never go there. Perhaps he felt the fear too. Always remember doc, “Water is poison. Water is poison.”
As for Africa, one thing you need not worry about is ice. There is none. In Bali, I order my drinks without rocks. But it was hot today, and I was thirsty. I had a coke at dinner with frosty cubes of ice. They assured me that bottled water was used, and that I was safe. I feel my stomach tighten and churn as I sit in bed looking toward the ceiling. I fear getting sick and spending the evening on the floor of my bathroom. There was a rat on the bathroom wall and mosquitoes will be attracted to the light above the sink. There is also the matter of something unidentifiable thumping above my head. There is goes again. Thump. Thump-thump-thump. Thump. I breathe deeply and ignore the cramps in my stomach. Nothing will make me emerge from beneath my mosquito net. I freeze into stillness and think happy thoughts. I think of hand sanitizer.
Hand sanitizer is the blessing of third world travel. I keep it by my sink with a bottle of water to remind me that I am not at home. My favorite smell when traveling is that of sanitizer. Five years ago on a cruise to Alaska, the ship was blessed with the Norwalk Virus. The employees washed every wall with sanitizer several times a day. Sanitizer dispensers were placed by each stairwell and every elevator. The captain of the ship refused to shake anyone’s hand at dinner. We were asked to bump elbows as a new way of greeting other passengers. The ship smelled cleaner than a hospital. I am sure that you could have performed surgery on the floor of the hall outside or my room. I was in heaven.
We tend to want sanitized lives. It is all born from fear like the sleeping sickness parasite that comes on the wings of a tzetze fly. We have brains to inform us when shots are need, Deet should be applied, and hands should be washed. We can listen to the government reports, walk in pairs, and avoid dangerous street corners. I read every government report before I flew to Africa. When information was difficult to find about the emerging violence in Burundi, I called the embassy in Bujumbura and spoke with a marine named Phil. Phil assured me that the country was quiet, and described the previous day that he had spent on the beach at Lake Tanganyika. He recommended going to the beach. He had not heard my mantra that, “Water is poison.”
Phil was right. Once I arrived in Burundi and met the people who live there, I felt no more fear. The unknown had become the known. The known had vanquished my fear. I walked on the rutted orange dirt road behind the Gitega Orphanage and greeted the people with a smiling Amahoro. Amahoro means peace. It is a fitting way for people who are tired of civil war and mass murder to greet each other. I clasped their hands in mine in the tradition way of showing respect. After extending your right had to shake, you grasp your right forearm with your left hand. In that way the left hand can offer no harm to the other person. Peace, may no harm come to you.
When you meet an orphan, it is a special and blessed experience. This is a human being, whether young or old, boy or girl, who has had a difficult life by no will of their own. To see the smile of a child in an orphans home eliminates the need to sanitize your hands. You want to hug their shoulders, pat their hair, clasp their hands, and offer any encouragement that you can.
In Africa, their parents have usually died in the genocide, or by disease. In Indonesia, the parents are more than likely alive, just too poor to care for all of their children. Some children are sent from their homes at the age of five to work in the rice fields of Bali for food. At six, a dear friend from Burundi watched his parents and thirty-two members of his family die at the hands of neighbors with machetes. He, his sister, and cousin hid in the fields until he was rescued and eventually found his way into an orphanage.
The question I always get is, “Will you come back?” and, “When will you come back.” I tell them that I will, and their next smile comes with a large sigh of relieve. They do not want to be forgotten. The cry from the poorest on earth is the same, We are here. Thank you for coming. Do not forget us. Please return.
Remembering the voices of the poor has caused me to forget the sounds on my roof. Perhaps there has been no sound for a while, only the gentle hum of cool air blowing from the air conditioner. Even the dogs are quiet. My thoughts have silenced the sounds.
I am now remembering my testimony before the Anglican Church in Bujumbura. I was terrified. I had written about my faith. I had read my writings in class to a handful of encouraging other writers, but I had never witnessed before a group. I had no idea that the church would be so large.
Three of us were driven in a van on the first morning of our arrival into Africa, to a large cinderblock building down the typical red dirt road. A small child stood in the doorway, and through the darkness we could see that the service was already in progress. We were told that church services in Africa could last for hours. Praise the Lord, our host exclaimed. We were also told that we would leave early, before noon so that our group could have lunch and journey on to the mountain town of Gitega. Praise the Lord, we thought.
The fear grew when I entered the enormous one roomed building and saw twelve hundred worshipers staring toward the door at the only white faces entering their sanctuary. We bowed our heads. They smiled in curiosity and continued to sing along with the choir which rocked in unified rhythm before the raised stage where the pulpit stood. We were seated to the right of the stage, just below the pulpit, and in front of the visiting choir dressed in black and white. I was wearing a black skirt and a white blouse. I fit right in.
The spirit of the congregation was infectious. I swayed to the hymns that sounded like melodies from the Caribbean. Africans were brought to the Caribbean as slaves. With them, they brought their music. I had the honor to listen to the origins of music that I have always loved. When my translator was not paraphrasing the message of the minister, I was running through a speech in my head that I hoped to remember when it was my time to climb on the stage with my fear.
I heard my voice as I began to speak. It was tenuous. I spoke slowly and at each pause, the translator would begin. The congregation was so large that the people in the back were barely visible. Round dark heads like rows of tiny dark bubbles filled the room. My eyes focused on the microphone in my hand. I spoke of a message that I had heard in England exactly one year before from the head of the Anglican Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Our mission in life, he explained, was to take one step at a time, and hopefully with a little help from our friends. That was all. The translator translated. I was their friend. The members of our team that had come to Africa were their friends. People from America that they may never meet were their friends, and cared what had happened to them. I wanted to let the worshipers know that Burundi mattered, and that we would be with them as they took their steps along the way. The fear was gone. I was speaking with intensity. When my last words were finished and the translator was quiet, I could hear the congregation clapping. How could I have been so afraid to begin talking? I was humbled by the appreciation for a simple message. No more fear.
Fear is appropriate at times. At dusk on the street corner in Gitega waiting for our hosts to buy three cases of Coke and Fanta for our dinner, I saw a group of men standing beneath a ramshackle tin awning. I knew that this was a group to be wary of, to fear. One night, when the guard who patrolled our twig and leaf security fence that bordered most the Gitega Orphanage discovered a thief, fear was natural. The guard always carried a machine gun. As we lay in our bed, we held our breath. We could hear the cries from the beating. We feared the sound of gunfire. Gratefully, it never came. However, the fear disappeared in the morning with the sun and smiling children.
The fear of death still concerns me. In January, when I took my scuba certification test, I accidentally disconnected the primary hoses to my air tank. I breathed in salt water rather than oxygen in my practice rescue exercise. I knew at the time that I was drowning. There were no thoughts of life, God, or love. Only panic and fear. The voice in my brain cursed violently. I did not want to die. So much for the peace of the Lord. All I needed was for the Lord to hurry up and get me some air. He did. My instructor placed the secondary regulator in my mouth. I had a tank full of air the entire time. I had forgotten about it, when panic and fear took over.
The lessons learned from scuba diving are life lessons; Stay calm, assess your situation, and above all breathe. I hear the sound of an animal slamming into my ceiling and scuttling over to the opposite corner of the room. It was a difficult landing for the creature visiting my house. I laugh this time. I wonder if the unknown brute is bruised from his haste in bounding so recklessly onto my roof. Something that clumsy will not cause me to be afraid.
Neither will the dogs. I will ignore them and carry my umbrella when I walk down my road to the fabulous Japanese restaurant near the corner. As for the mosquitoes, diseases and parasites, that’s what Deet and the pharmacy in my closet are for. Of all the drugs that I brought with me to Indonesia in April and Africa in September, I have yet to use a single pill. What a shame to have missed the scuba diving off of Sulawesi or the songs sung with orphaned children in Gitega for fear of a mosquito or tainted water. I grew up in the south. Mosquitoes were everywhere.
Fear comes from physical things, the animals that fly, crawl or slither. It comes from psychological things such as being alone or forgotten. And then there is always that fear of death or the unknown. I am happy to remember my diving lessons. I take a deep breath, relax, and think calmly. I am under my mosquito net. I am in a safe country, in a beautiful villa, under warm covers in an air-conditioned room. When the sun rises, I will meet a new friend, travel to a beautiful beach, and jump off a boat into some of the most breathtaking coral reefs in the world. Once under the water, I will remember how to breathe again. I will relax. My breaths will slow, and I will achieve a Zen-like state as I float in harmony, in rhythm with my lungs and heart. No fear at all.
I have traveled a little through this world alone and yet was never alone. My friends and family are always an internet click away. I have met new friends everywhere that I have gone. I am grateful that fear has not prevented me from taking my journey. I can hardly wait to see where each new day will lead.
Tomorrow I will ask what resides in my roof. I will turn the unknown into the known. For now, I will turn off the lights and sleep. No fear. Simply sweet dreams of diving and another beautiful day in Bali.
I hear it on the roof. It’s late. I am alone in the only room of my house that has walls. The doors are locked with small key locks which are not very effective when the handles keep falling off. There is a large space underneath the connecting door to the study. My bedroom has the only light that is on. I am sure that the light streams out beneath the door as a beacon to whatever is on the roof.
There it is again. The sound is coming from the left. Thump. Thump-thump-thump. As it scuttles across the roof, the sound reverberates over to the right side of the ceiling. In the silence of the night, even with the air-conditioner running, the bounding feet are heavy from above. It must weigh one hundred pounds at least. Perhaps it is a winged monkey from the Wizard of Oz. What else would be that large and able to jump upon the roof of my room? I hear the thumps only at night. Oh God, a night creature.
The dogs are barking. Now a howl. I have been placed in the setting of a horror film. I sit underneath a white billowy net, a barrier from mosquitoes for which I am protected by inoculation, and all those other insects for which I am not, like the three inch black wasp that I saw on my ceiling this afternoon. Is he still up there? I know I could crush the insects with my shoe, if I were wearing shoes in my bed. My Hindu neighbor would be appalled. I am an ant crusher. Hopefully it is not his aunt. How can I joke when there is something out there? Something that I cannot see but can hear, along with the dogs. Something that is large, and I am sure has teeth. All night creatures must have large, ugly, yellow teeth, and red, red eyes. They always do. I am sure that it is looking down from the clay roof tiles, smiling an evil smile, and thinking of the meal cowering below.
I look up through the netting and notice that the end section of my ceiling is missing the drywall. It has been replaced with plastic sheeting. The only thing that prevents that night creature from falling on me is a thin, clear plastic layer. Night creatures could eat their way through plastic. They probably think of plastic as an appetizer before a meal of white woman. Fear. I feel the fear. I am alone. I have no one to protect me from the sounds in the night, the sounds that go thump. I am unprotected from my fear.
This afternoon, I noticed something dead and white floating in the lotus pond that borders my lower sitting area. Fish were eating the carcass. I thought at first it was an enormous bullfrog, and that the coy were enjoying a lunch of frog legs. I did not know that frogs were white, but this is Indonesia and creatures are stuff that lures the photographers from National Geographic’s. When I looked at my photographs at dinner, I saw that the animal, missing half its body, was not a frog at all. It was a rat. What could have chomped a rat that large in half and left its bloated body floating in my lotus pond until it turned white? The fear. The fear is here. I bet the sounds on my roof are from large Bali rats, or whatever ate a rat that huge. I hear the sound again, racing across my roof. The rat must be fleeing something large. I can feel the fear in its footstep flying across the drywall ceiling. I hope it doesn’t step through the plastic. There is so much to fear in Bali. Would I be afraid if I were not alone?
I walk the dark rocky street to my villa, accompanied at night my small flashlight. On a street without lights, I see an erratic dark image coming toward my head. A huge bat swoops down from the banana tree. This must be a fruit bat. I have seen them in zoos, but they were behind glass cages and not free to nest if my hair if so desired. I hunch my shoulders and stoop as it darts overhead. The fear. I need mace or a gun. I have only my dog whistle, and I am too frightened to fish it out of my pocket. The dogs are barking in an unending chorus at the bats and at me.
I was told that the dogs are no threat. They stand in every doorway growling as I pass. Most begin with a low guttural sound, as they defend their spot for the night. They are skinny with mange, and I pretended to ignore them as I pass by on my way to the Main Street of Ubud. The Balinese dogs look hungry. If they are family pets, food is not wasted on their behalf. They appear to have to fend for themselves. I hope they don’t like to munch on the legs of a tourist. It was recommended to bring my dog whistle to keep them from getting to close. The one time I blew it, they followed behind howling even louder. I try to keep the fear hidden. They can sense fear. I don’t want to give them an advantage. My heart races despite the logic of my brain which is retreating beneath my fear.
I was told that rabies is a problem in Bali. There is a program to get the dogs vaccinated. I did not take the rabies vaccine before my travels. It cost a thousand dollars. I was too cheap to pay so much for the inoculation. I was assured by my doctor that unless I was around bats, I did not need to worry about rabies. Another bat swoops by. I stoop again. The fear.
Other than the series of three shots for rabies which I decided to decline, I have had every other inoculation available to prevent diseases spread from the water, the soil, and insects. Months before my departure, I begged my doctor for shots that have yet to be invented. Why haven’t they come out with a prevention for the plague? I want it. There are rats here. I read Camus’ book. I even read it in French. I know what a rat can spread. I saw a large one on the wall of my bathroom garden. I adjust the mosquito netting to make sure there are no gaps. I want to insure that my sleeping perimeter is secure from rats, bats, dogs, and mosquitoes.
Malaria is a huge problem in Africa. It kills thousands each year. Here in Bali, malaria is not a concern. I have packed my prophylactic Malarone pills, just in case I get an email from the CDC saying that things have changed. It was only by chance that I checked their website and discovered a vaccination that I lacked, Japanese Encephalitis. I only had time for two of my three shots. There was no time to be inoculated fully before my departure. I am at risk. Fear.
I loved traveling to Africa. Every shot possible was required before entering the country of Burundi. I had to produce an inoculation record which was presented at the airport at Bujumbura. How nice to make sure that everyone has had their shots.
Before I left for Africa, my friend Henry and I were discussing elephantiasis. Henry was laughing at my fear. I was not. Testicular elephantiasis can be found in Burundi. He had seen it on the internet. We looked together in horror at the images of the poor souls disfigured by this disease which is born on the wings of a mosquito. There is hope for a vaccination by the year 2020. 2020! That is ten years away! Six percent of the country’s populations suffer from this disease. What will I do if I get testicular elephantiasis? Henry assures me that this is impossible. The female alternative is unimaginable. There is no cure for elephantiasis. The only treatment is to bathe your skin in Clorox. I have packed a Clorox pen, my mosquito netted pants, my clothes treated with insecticide, and a case of Deet. I am sure that if the mosquitoes don’t get me, then skin cancer will.
They laughed when I arrived in Africa. They said that there had never been anyone who traveled to their country more prepared that me. I am sure that REI’s stock skyrocketed after I purchased my equipment. Despite their laughter, before my departure from Gitega, the staff begged for my supplies. I told them that I had been a Girl Scout, and that I was always prepared. Actually, it was the fear that had pushed me to prepare so well.
I took my dive knife on my trip just in case I had to slash ferocious African animals or a terrorist on my way to the latrine at night. There were neither ferocious animals nor terrorists around us, and we had the luxury of indoor bathrooms. I used my dive knife to sharpen pencils used for drawing a mural on the wall of a school. Everyone was glad that I had brought it. There were no pencil sharpeners.
I also brought my water purifier. Water is a problem throughout the third world. Bad water produces parasites. All kinds of hideous worms come from bad water and ultimately attack the whites of your eyes, coil beneath your skin, or cause diarrhea, dehydration, and sometimes death. I had done my internet homework. I knew what was lurking in the water. My doctor warned that if I returned from Africa with a rash that moved beneath my skin, to contact him immediately. Not to worry doc. You’ll get my call from the tarmac. I want an ambulance with anesthesia sent to my plane. I want to be hospitalized immediately.
When bathing or washing my hands in Africa, I chanted, “Water is poison. Water is poison.” With the smallest break in concentration, I might open my mouth in the shower and unwittingly let the water come in. I told my doctor that he should come with me to Africa because he had the skills to be of great service. He said he would never go there. Perhaps he felt the fear too. Always remember doc, “Water is poison. Water is poison.”
As for Africa, one thing you need not worry about is ice. There is none. In Bali, I order my drinks without rocks. But it was hot today, and I was thirsty. I had a coke at dinner with frosty cubes of ice. They assured me that bottled water was used, and that I was safe. I feel my stomach tighten and churn as I sit in bed looking toward the ceiling. I fear getting sick and spending the evening on the floor of my bathroom. There was a rat on the bathroom wall and mosquitoes will be attracted to the light above the sink. There is also the matter of something unidentifiable thumping above my head. There is goes again. Thump. Thump-thump-thump. Thump. I breathe deeply and ignore the cramps in my stomach. Nothing will make me emerge from beneath my mosquito net. I freeze into stillness and think happy thoughts. I think of hand sanitizer.
Hand sanitizer is the blessing of third world travel. I keep it by my sink with a bottle of water to remind me that I am not at home. My favorite smell when traveling is that of sanitizer. Five years ago on a cruise to Alaska, the ship was blessed with the Norwalk Virus. The employees washed every wall with sanitizer several times a day. Sanitizer dispensers were placed by each stairwell and every elevator. The captain of the ship refused to shake anyone’s hand at dinner. We were asked to bump elbows as a new way of greeting other passengers. The ship smelled cleaner than a hospital. I am sure that you could have performed surgery on the floor of the hall outside or my room. I was in heaven.
We tend to want sanitized lives. It is all born from fear like the sleeping sickness parasite that comes on the wings of a tzetze fly. We have brains to inform us when shots are need, Deet should be applied, and hands should be washed. We can listen to the government reports, walk in pairs, and avoid dangerous street corners. I read every government report before I flew to Africa. When information was difficult to find about the emerging violence in Burundi, I called the embassy in Bujumbura and spoke with a marine named Phil. Phil assured me that the country was quiet, and described the previous day that he had spent on the beach at Lake Tanganyika. He recommended going to the beach. He had not heard my mantra that, “Water is poison.”
Phil was right. Once I arrived in Burundi and met the people who live there, I felt no more fear. The unknown had become the known. The known had vanquished my fear. I walked on the rutted orange dirt road behind the Gitega Orphanage and greeted the people with a smiling Amahoro. Amahoro means peace. It is a fitting way for people who are tired of civil war and mass murder to greet each other. I clasped their hands in mine in the tradition way of showing respect. After extending your right had to shake, you grasp your right forearm with your left hand. In that way the left hand can offer no harm to the other person. Peace, may no harm come to you.
When you meet an orphan, it is a special and blessed experience. This is a human being, whether young or old, boy or girl, who has had a difficult life by no will of their own. To see the smile of a child in an orphans home eliminates the need to sanitize your hands. You want to hug their shoulders, pat their hair, clasp their hands, and offer any encouragement that you can.
In Africa, their parents have usually died in the genocide, or by disease. In Indonesia, the parents are more than likely alive, just too poor to care for all of their children. Some children are sent from their homes at the age of five to work in the rice fields of Bali for food. At six, a dear friend from Burundi watched his parents and thirty-two members of his family die at the hands of neighbors with machetes. He, his sister, and cousin hid in the fields until he was rescued and eventually found his way into an orphanage.
The question I always get is, “Will you come back?” and, “When will you come back.” I tell them that I will, and their next smile comes with a large sigh of relieve. They do not want to be forgotten. The cry from the poorest on earth is the same, We are here. Thank you for coming. Do not forget us. Please return.
Remembering the voices of the poor has caused me to forget the sounds on my roof. Perhaps there has been no sound for a while, only the gentle hum of cool air blowing from the air conditioner. Even the dogs are quiet. My thoughts have silenced the sounds.
I am now remembering my testimony before the Anglican Church in Bujumbura. I was terrified. I had written about my faith. I had read my writings in class to a handful of encouraging other writers, but I had never witnessed before a group. I had no idea that the church would be so large.
Three of us were driven in a van on the first morning of our arrival into Africa, to a large cinderblock building down the typical red dirt road. A small child stood in the doorway, and through the darkness we could see that the service was already in progress. We were told that church services in Africa could last for hours. Praise the Lord, our host exclaimed. We were also told that we would leave early, before noon so that our group could have lunch and journey on to the mountain town of Gitega. Praise the Lord, we thought.
The fear grew when I entered the enormous one roomed building and saw twelve hundred worshipers staring toward the door at the only white faces entering their sanctuary. We bowed our heads. They smiled in curiosity and continued to sing along with the choir which rocked in unified rhythm before the raised stage where the pulpit stood. We were seated to the right of the stage, just below the pulpit, and in front of the visiting choir dressed in black and white. I was wearing a black skirt and a white blouse. I fit right in.
The spirit of the congregation was infectious. I swayed to the hymns that sounded like melodies from the Caribbean. Africans were brought to the Caribbean as slaves. With them, they brought their music. I had the honor to listen to the origins of music that I have always loved. When my translator was not paraphrasing the message of the minister, I was running through a speech in my head that I hoped to remember when it was my time to climb on the stage with my fear.
I heard my voice as I began to speak. It was tenuous. I spoke slowly and at each pause, the translator would begin. The congregation was so large that the people in the back were barely visible. Round dark heads like rows of tiny dark bubbles filled the room. My eyes focused on the microphone in my hand. I spoke of a message that I had heard in England exactly one year before from the head of the Anglican Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Our mission in life, he explained, was to take one step at a time, and hopefully with a little help from our friends. That was all. The translator translated. I was their friend. The members of our team that had come to Africa were their friends. People from America that they may never meet were their friends, and cared what had happened to them. I wanted to let the worshipers know that Burundi mattered, and that we would be with them as they took their steps along the way. The fear was gone. I was speaking with intensity. When my last words were finished and the translator was quiet, I could hear the congregation clapping. How could I have been so afraid to begin talking? I was humbled by the appreciation for a simple message. No more fear.
Fear is appropriate at times. At dusk on the street corner in Gitega waiting for our hosts to buy three cases of Coke and Fanta for our dinner, I saw a group of men standing beneath a ramshackle tin awning. I knew that this was a group to be wary of, to fear. One night, when the guard who patrolled our twig and leaf security fence that bordered most the Gitega Orphanage discovered a thief, fear was natural. The guard always carried a machine gun. As we lay in our bed, we held our breath. We could hear the cries from the beating. We feared the sound of gunfire. Gratefully, it never came. However, the fear disappeared in the morning with the sun and smiling children.
The fear of death still concerns me. In January, when I took my scuba certification test, I accidentally disconnected the primary hoses to my air tank. I breathed in salt water rather than oxygen in my practice rescue exercise. I knew at the time that I was drowning. There were no thoughts of life, God, or love. Only panic and fear. The voice in my brain cursed violently. I did not want to die. So much for the peace of the Lord. All I needed was for the Lord to hurry up and get me some air. He did. My instructor placed the secondary regulator in my mouth. I had a tank full of air the entire time. I had forgotten about it, when panic and fear took over.
The lessons learned from scuba diving are life lessons; Stay calm, assess your situation, and above all breathe. I hear the sound of an animal slamming into my ceiling and scuttling over to the opposite corner of the room. It was a difficult landing for the creature visiting my house. I laugh this time. I wonder if the unknown brute is bruised from his haste in bounding so recklessly onto my roof. Something that clumsy will not cause me to be afraid.
Neither will the dogs. I will ignore them and carry my umbrella when I walk down my road to the fabulous Japanese restaurant near the corner. As for the mosquitoes, diseases and parasites, that’s what Deet and the pharmacy in my closet are for. Of all the drugs that I brought with me to Indonesia in April and Africa in September, I have yet to use a single pill. What a shame to have missed the scuba diving off of Sulawesi or the songs sung with orphaned children in Gitega for fear of a mosquito or tainted water. I grew up in the south. Mosquitoes were everywhere.
Fear comes from physical things, the animals that fly, crawl or slither. It comes from psychological things such as being alone or forgotten. And then there is always that fear of death or the unknown. I am happy to remember my diving lessons. I take a deep breath, relax, and think calmly. I am under my mosquito net. I am in a safe country, in a beautiful villa, under warm covers in an air-conditioned room. When the sun rises, I will meet a new friend, travel to a beautiful beach, and jump off a boat into some of the most breathtaking coral reefs in the world. Once under the water, I will remember how to breathe again. I will relax. My breaths will slow, and I will achieve a Zen-like state as I float in harmony, in rhythm with my lungs and heart. No fear at all.
I have traveled a little through this world alone and yet was never alone. My friends and family are always an internet click away. I have met new friends everywhere that I have gone. I am grateful that fear has not prevented me from taking my journey. I can hardly wait to see where each new day will lead.
Tomorrow I will ask what resides in my roof. I will turn the unknown into the known. For now, I will turn off the lights and sleep. No fear. Simply sweet dreams of diving and another beautiful day in Bali.
Blessings- part 1
I am overwhelmed. It is difficult to know where to begin; to describe paradise so that those reading can participate through words. I can only start as I know how, with one step, my first step, the first morning in Bali.
I awoke to a symphony of sound. The roosters were crowing. I had seen them the night before as I walked to dinner down Jalan Sandat, the long rocky road where I will live for the next month. As the night was getting darker, the rooster owners were covering them with three foot tall woven domes that resembled the caned seats of café chairs. The black and white skinny birds were darting through the leaves of plants by the road. They did not want to be caught. This morning they crowed continually to be released. Now I know why. It’s not to wake the humans on Jalan Sandat and announce the morning sun. I saw the rat that ran across the wall in my lovely open air bathroom. If I were in a caned cage on the earth, I would cry for release if rats were crawling nearby.
I took a deep breath. This is a beautiful bathroom. The Heliconia hang in lush red and yellow pendulums from long green leaves. There are at least twenty blossoms lining the wall. I am showering in botanical garden. The rat that ran across the top of the wall disappeared into the greenery. So did a black and blue butterfly. A squirrel jumped to a nearby vine. All the animals were waking up. None of them seemed too interested in me. Since the bedrooms are the only closed areas of my house, I decided to keep the doors and windows shut at all times. Just in case.
I continued to listen, and beyond the rooster cries, the birds called in chirps and trills along with the frogs. Dogs barked back and forth to each other. Behind the specific sounds of the animals that I could identify, is a constant hum. In New York, it would be the background noise of taxis, trucks, and construction equipment. Here it is of life. The morning has begun.
Number 30 Jalan Sandat is located at the end of the road, off the main Street of Ubud. It is in a compound of homes called Banjar Taman. Taman means garden. Mine is the largest home in the compound. It has three bedrooms, a study lined with books and magazines, a large kitchen, a dining room and living room with paintings and a television. The lower terrace opens to a lotus pond with bamboo sofas, tables and chairs. The white tile floor and white upholstered cushions provide the perfect backdrop to the thick green jungle that forms the walls of my house.
I had hoped to have friends join me in Bali which is why I rented such a large home. I knew that the other residents and the staff of our compound were curious as to why a single American woman needed so much space. Through my reservation process, I was constantly asked why I was renting the largest villa. When my possessions emerged from the van that drove me to Ubud from the airport, my new neighbors could see that I was a person of excess. I had flown to Indonesia with the limits of my allowed luggage. The ninety-eight pounds, crammed into my suitcases, contain my artist supplies, my diving equipment, and of course, clothes for any occasion. I also had my REI backpack and large carryon purse. I would promptly take the coat hangers from all three bedrooms and wish that I had more.
The older bearded gentleman, who occupies the small house at the entrance to number thirty, looked up at me from his computer in that knowing, holy man sort of way. I introduced myself. With all of my luggage, I don’t think he needed explanation that I was from the United States. He smiled and in broken English explained that he was originally from France and lived most of the year in India. He words were slow and reserved. In a search for truth and enlightenment, he fit my stereotype of someone who has insight into life. Or perhaps the slowness in his speech is less from a wise and thoughtful perspective, as it is from the communications barrier of not speaking the same language. It will be interesting to try and talk with him during the next few weeks. I can tell that a month will not be enough time to accomplish all that I have planned to do in Bali.
When I finished my shower and had washed off the sweat from thirty two hours of travel, I emerged from my air-conditioned bedroom to find the kitchen doors opened and Ketut (pronounced: Ka-took) working inside. With a bright smile, she greeted me and asked if I would like some pancakes for breakfast. I was embarrassed to have her cook for me, so I said I would just get a piece of toast and peanut butter. I have been invited to her birthday party on Sunday. She will be 27 years old. As we spoke, her husband, Kale (Ka-la), whisked into my bedroom, turned off the air-conditioning, and opened the windows. So much for being sealed against the rats. He proceeded to make my bed, wash the floors, and place fresh red hibiscus and white Plumeria on the bedspread beneath the mosquito net. I had not expected such pampering.
Katuk carried a platter of fresh fruit and another with toast and hot banana pancakes to the table on the lower terrace. I had enough food for both husband and wife to join me. She presented me with fresh pineapple jelly and my requested peanut butter. She laughed when I pointed to the passion fruit and asked what it was. I clearly don’t have enough passion fruit in my life. She also identified the mangos, pomegranates, pineapple and bananas beautifully displayed for my breakfast. If you don’t know, passion fruit is filled with a sweet seeded jelly that looks like something from your nose. I would not have tasted this tropical delicacy if it had been given another name, such as “snot fruit”. Therefore, one of today’s lessons comes from the passion fruit. You cannot make assumptions based on looks. Our mothers taught us this. We just have to remember.
I am here in Bali to remember. While a snow white butterfly flits above the coy swimming in my pond, I know it will be difficult to tear myself away from this moment to reflect on a year filled with blessings. My blessings extend beyond the fresh passion fruit on my plate, the birds of paradise in the vase on my table or the lotus pond beside which I eat. My year began with blessings from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.
I had just returned from Paris to find the letter of blessings from the Archbishop waiting to be opened. God has a way of giving us wonderful gifts, just when we need them. Three months earlier I had been waiting for a return flight home from Las Vegas, when I received the call from my son that I would be alone for Christmas. I used to be the holiday queen. I decorated anything that did not move, and celebrated every holiday for which Hallmark designed a card. My two sons had decided that for Thanksgiving and Christmas, they would alternate visiting my ex husband’s home and Seattle, where I live. The fact that I would be alone that Christmas lay as heavy on my heart as the lead apron during an x-ray. I couldn’t seem to tear it off my chest. When we boarded the flight to Seattle, I sat beside a woman who explained that she had just won two tickets in a contest to Paris for Christmas. Her fiancé could not leave his job to travel, and she was planning to put them up for sale on EBay for $500 each. I told her that I would buy them.
After an appeal on Face Book for a holiday traveling buddy, my friend Lee and I found ourselves flying to Paris together. We ushered in the New Year on the Champs de Elysee, standing directly in front of the Arc de Triumph with partiers from Lebanon, Boston, Spain and Germany. We downed our champagne in the middle of the boulevard and laughed our way into 4am, my personal best for a New Year’s celebration. We had breakfast in a café on the Left Bank and still managed to rise before noon and jog to the Peace Monument behind the Tour Eiffel. It was the perfect way to begin the New Year.
Lee is a wonderful traveling companion. She is an accomplished artist, and we share the same love for art and architecture. Traveling with a talented artist is important if you want excellent photographs of yourself as a souvenir. I have never looked better than in my Paris photos, thanks to Lee. She was my driver through Paris to the French countryside. She knew which restaurants should not be missed, and patiently taught me the workings of the Paris metro. She also needed her time alone, which in turn enabled me to learn to be more independent.
I had made great strides. I was in Paris, communicating in broken French to tolerant and generous Parisians. I was dining in restaurants and savoring each moment of excellent food without the need of dinner conversation. I had begun 2010, alone at the base of the Peace Monument, happy to be alive, grateful for my health, and eager to begin a year in which I had promised myself to not let a single opportunity pass me by. I had made it to Paris by saying yes to a stranger. Yes would be the watch word for this New Year. I would take a portion of my remaining funds and live. I would travel and gain experiences. I would let God lead me and listen carefully for his voice. I knew that I would be led to meet special people chosen to help take me through the next journey, the last part of my life.
At Chartres Cathedral, my favorite cathedral from my many years of studying the history of art, I was overcome with awe while standing in the nave surrounded by the gorgeous red and blue stained glass windows for which it is famous. I was also overcome with an intestinal bug that was in the process of draining my color and guaranteeing that my evening would be spent on the floor of my bathroom. The priest in charge of Chartres came up to me in the aisle and said in his best English, that he would pray for me. He must have feared that I would die before seeing the New Year. His prayers worked. I lived through the night and with the blessings from Chartres, managed to celebrating the arrival of 2010 in style.
When I returned home, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s envelope was waiting. He had read the piece that I had sent to his office. I had described for him my journey to England which had brought me to him. My travels to Lambeth Palace began with a road trip throughout the western US states the previous fall. I had prayed for signs to God for a revelation as to which direction I should be traveling in my life. It was a physical as well as spiritual journey. God continued to place signs before me. Each one got larger and large until, on my way home, I received a phone message from my friend Marshall. It was an urgent call, and he wanted me to contact him immediately. He stated that he knew what a hard year I had experienced with the divorce. He wanted me to accompany him to a dinner in England with the Archbishop. I knew my response. Yes.
In the presence of fifty bishops from around the Anglican community, I listened to the Archbishop’s simple message of meaning for our lives. I thought he was speaking to me. I felt this was God’s message to give me hope and to know that I was on the right path. The Archbishop’s wisdom of “one step at a time” was mine for a while. I would realize later that that message was mean for a larger audience, a congregation of 1200 believers in the heart of Africa. I had no clue that God was planning to send me to Africa. I had never wanted to go to there. I could not have known then that exactly one year later, I would be traveling to Burundi, and that for the rest of my life, I would be trying to figure out how to get back.
I placed the letter from Rowan Williams in the cubby at the front of my desk, and displayed the photos with him on my mantel as a constant reminder that the equivalent of the Pope for an Episcopalian, was praying on my behalf. I knew I was blessed. I planned to continue on through the year by saying yes to opportunity and to the Lord.
In April I went to Indonesia for the first time. I had taken up scuba diving in the winter, just before my trip to Paris. I was driving home from the gym, when asked my new I-phone for the location of the closest dive shop. My miraculous phone showed that I was only two blocks away. I did a quick U turn and found Silent World, moments before they closed. There was one spot left for the lessons which were to begin in a week. I did not know at the time that my learning to dive was part of a greater plan which would ultimately bring blessings to Africa.
From Scuba diving in the Puget Sound to the landlocked country of Burundi, God was yelling at me to stop and listen to his voice. The times that I had not allowed my world to be silent, when I begged for God to let me direct my own outcome, those were the times when my life fell out of balance. I learned many lessons from the instructors at Silent World. The most important ones went far beyond surviving underwater.
I felt that I did not deserve to complete my dive course. My instructors will tell you otherwise. I had the sensation of drowning during my certification test. I would have packed away my very expensive BC, regulator, and computer, if I had not paid for a costly scuba trip to the number one dive spot in the world, Wakatobi, Indonesia. I had hung up my dry suit and upon my return from Paris, refused to go beneath the water’s surface. I had five dives under my dive belt. The trip was leaving in April. Most of the other travelers were professional photographers, instructors, or long time divers. I was the only beginner. I was flying to Indonesia, because I had no other choice. I was too cheap to cancel the trip. I would now travel half way around the world with a group of strangers to do something that terrified me. What was I thinking?
Upon arriving at the Island of Tolondono, Indonesai, home to the Wakatobi Dive Resort, was I given a patient and sweet instructor from Holland named Marielle. With her underwater dive slate, she cooed confidence in my abilities. I will always be grateful to her for showing me the most beautiful area on earth, the coral reefs to the southeast of Sulawesi. I fell in love with diving and the abundant sea life at Wakatobi. Our incredible trip ended on the Island Bali for the four final days of our vacation. I knew when I arrived that this was the most incredible spot yet.
God is everywhere in Bali. It is a Hindu Island, the only one in an archipelago of thousands of islands. The Balinese people take their religion very seriously. They make offerings to their Gods several times a day. Small displays of fruit or flowers are placed upon folded palm leaves and left lovingly outside of shops and homes in hopes of securing blessing for the day. To walk the irregular brick sidewalks of Ubud in Bali is a feat in itself. However, as you walk, you must step over and around the tiny offerings that line the sidewalks and paths. You would never think to dishonor those who made an offering by trampling it as you entered a shop. Walking is therefore the negotiation of an unending obstacle course made of broken tile pavers, open trenches, uneven sidewalks and hundreds of offerings strewn on the ground every few feet. It’s a dance of travel that reminds you, the visitor that God is not to be forgotten on this island.
And God had not forgotten me either. He had blessed me with an introduction to this exotic and beautiful island. I could see for the first time, that there are creative and imaginative options for life. B is for the Beauty of the sea, the jungle, and the people of Bali. Yes. A is for an Alternative, Another path to take on life’s journey. Yes. L if for that journey in Life, meant to be danced through and around with Life’s obstacles in a Loving ballet. Yes. And I is for the Imagination to see it, and the Instinct to believe that it is all possible. Yes. I would return to Bali at the end of the year. I would come back not as a tourist, but in search of my role in this distant place. Yes.
In May, my cousin Brad called to tell me about his upcoming mission trip to Africa. At the very mention of his plan, I knew that I had to be a part of it. He asked that I pray first, to see if something this difficult was right for me. Travel to one of the poorest countries on earth, with limited creature comforts, and the risk of danger in the wake of a fragile peace, would have risks that should be weighed carefully. I could hear God’s voice loud and clear. There were no risks that would prevent me from going with him to Africa. I had no choice. It was my mission too.
The trip would cost $2900 dollars and involve fundraising to provide the materials and labor for a foundation for a new orphanage building. We would pay for as many homes for the Batwa as we could fund. The Batwa are the pygmy tribe who are the poorest of the Burundian population. We would build a playground for the orphanage and paint a mural for the school. We would run an afterschool art program as well. Yes. I was in.
In June I went to visit my cousin and his wife, Ann, in South Carolina. I noticed a change in Brad’s life. His faith had gotten stronger. He was proud to talk about his beliefs. He had made the decision that anything that did not further his faith in God was not time well spent. His good works for others occupies most of his time now that he is retired. We walked his dog on the beach and planned for our greatest journey which was about to unfold, traveling to the middle of Africa on a mission to help an orphanage. God was leading me from one part of the globe to another.
The blessings that followed were as rich and bountiful as any moment in my life. I had been blessed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the head priest at Chartres. But nothing will compare to the blessing that I received on my last day at the Youth for Christ Orphanage in the mountain town of Gitega. Gitega is the old capital of Burundi. It is located in the exact center of the country, so measured by the Belgium colonialists years before, when they abandoned Burundi into civil war and genocide. We were told that Burundi is shaped like a human heart. It lies in the middle of the continent. Our team could feel the strong pulse of life which cried to be heard from the heart of Africa.
On the last day of our mission in Gitega, a circle of ladder backed chairs were set on the sloping dry lawn in the center of the orphanage buildings. Our team was seated, and the children gathered around us. They ran to each one of us, choosing who they would embrace. Three tiny figures, two boys and a girl, came to me and wrapped their arms around me. They placed their hands on my shoulders and knees. We were told that they would pray for us.
We had come to Africa to help them. We had given the children the only playground in the entire country. It was a playground worthy of any American child and large enough for an entire orphanage of children to play on at the same time. We had carried rocks from the sixteen truck loads that had been dumped up the hill and would form the foundation for a new orphan’s home below. We had worked beside the African men and women who bore large stones on their heads in an endless procession. We were shamed that we could not work as hard as they. We had decorated the area school with the only monumental art in the country. With the exception of a few fence panels around the zoo in Bujumbura, a few political slogans, and a hand full of advertisements, there is no other outdoor art to be found in Burundi. Our mural of Noah’s Ark is a message of hope to the hundreds of people who pass by on the red dirt road behind the New Hope School. And yet, with all of our gifts to them, these children were gathered around to pray for us.
They began their pray. Their tiny voices melded together in chant-like sound, words in Kirundi that I did not understand. They held me and as they prayed, I began to cry. Thiers was the voice of God, and I was privileged to be listening. I did not know what they were saying, but I knew their words were holy. Their sounds lifted higher, and everyone in the circle was crying. Yes, I was blessed, blessed by angels whose voices were sweet and clear. Their quiet prayers call out from the center of Africa, from a country too long forgotten. I did not want to leave them. I will never forget the wonderful day that I received my holiest blessing. It was a blessing that came without cassock or robe, from children with crosses made from Popsicle sticks that hung around their necks.
My mother was right. You cannot make assumptions based on looks. Doing so this morning would have prevented me from tasting the sweet passion fruit on my plate for breakfast. God comes in many forms. If we presume to know his exact appearance, then we may very well miss him completely. I am grateful to God for so many blessings this year. I am most grateful to have been able to look into his face through the smiles of his beloved orphaned children who live in the remote mountains of a war torn country.
The faces of God are all around me in Bali. They smile from the restaurants, the streets, the shops, and the temples. They look up in pain as they beg for handouts on the sidewalks of Ubud. They are all around us, no matter where we live. As I step over the obstacles in my own live, dancing my way through this journey, may I see the offerings place by God in my path. May I recognize them as holy and treat them as such.
I awoke to a symphony of sound. The roosters were crowing. I had seen them the night before as I walked to dinner down Jalan Sandat, the long rocky road where I will live for the next month. As the night was getting darker, the rooster owners were covering them with three foot tall woven domes that resembled the caned seats of café chairs. The black and white skinny birds were darting through the leaves of plants by the road. They did not want to be caught. This morning they crowed continually to be released. Now I know why. It’s not to wake the humans on Jalan Sandat and announce the morning sun. I saw the rat that ran across the wall in my lovely open air bathroom. If I were in a caned cage on the earth, I would cry for release if rats were crawling nearby.
I took a deep breath. This is a beautiful bathroom. The Heliconia hang in lush red and yellow pendulums from long green leaves. There are at least twenty blossoms lining the wall. I am showering in botanical garden. The rat that ran across the top of the wall disappeared into the greenery. So did a black and blue butterfly. A squirrel jumped to a nearby vine. All the animals were waking up. None of them seemed too interested in me. Since the bedrooms are the only closed areas of my house, I decided to keep the doors and windows shut at all times. Just in case.
I continued to listen, and beyond the rooster cries, the birds called in chirps and trills along with the frogs. Dogs barked back and forth to each other. Behind the specific sounds of the animals that I could identify, is a constant hum. In New York, it would be the background noise of taxis, trucks, and construction equipment. Here it is of life. The morning has begun.
Number 30 Jalan Sandat is located at the end of the road, off the main Street of Ubud. It is in a compound of homes called Banjar Taman. Taman means garden. Mine is the largest home in the compound. It has three bedrooms, a study lined with books and magazines, a large kitchen, a dining room and living room with paintings and a television. The lower terrace opens to a lotus pond with bamboo sofas, tables and chairs. The white tile floor and white upholstered cushions provide the perfect backdrop to the thick green jungle that forms the walls of my house.
I had hoped to have friends join me in Bali which is why I rented such a large home. I knew that the other residents and the staff of our compound were curious as to why a single American woman needed so much space. Through my reservation process, I was constantly asked why I was renting the largest villa. When my possessions emerged from the van that drove me to Ubud from the airport, my new neighbors could see that I was a person of excess. I had flown to Indonesia with the limits of my allowed luggage. The ninety-eight pounds, crammed into my suitcases, contain my artist supplies, my diving equipment, and of course, clothes for any occasion. I also had my REI backpack and large carryon purse. I would promptly take the coat hangers from all three bedrooms and wish that I had more.
The older bearded gentleman, who occupies the small house at the entrance to number thirty, looked up at me from his computer in that knowing, holy man sort of way. I introduced myself. With all of my luggage, I don’t think he needed explanation that I was from the United States. He smiled and in broken English explained that he was originally from France and lived most of the year in India. He words were slow and reserved. In a search for truth and enlightenment, he fit my stereotype of someone who has insight into life. Or perhaps the slowness in his speech is less from a wise and thoughtful perspective, as it is from the communications barrier of not speaking the same language. It will be interesting to try and talk with him during the next few weeks. I can tell that a month will not be enough time to accomplish all that I have planned to do in Bali.
When I finished my shower and had washed off the sweat from thirty two hours of travel, I emerged from my air-conditioned bedroom to find the kitchen doors opened and Ketut (pronounced: Ka-took) working inside. With a bright smile, she greeted me and asked if I would like some pancakes for breakfast. I was embarrassed to have her cook for me, so I said I would just get a piece of toast and peanut butter. I have been invited to her birthday party on Sunday. She will be 27 years old. As we spoke, her husband, Kale (Ka-la), whisked into my bedroom, turned off the air-conditioning, and opened the windows. So much for being sealed against the rats. He proceeded to make my bed, wash the floors, and place fresh red hibiscus and white Plumeria on the bedspread beneath the mosquito net. I had not expected such pampering.
Katuk carried a platter of fresh fruit and another with toast and hot banana pancakes to the table on the lower terrace. I had enough food for both husband and wife to join me. She presented me with fresh pineapple jelly and my requested peanut butter. She laughed when I pointed to the passion fruit and asked what it was. I clearly don’t have enough passion fruit in my life. She also identified the mangos, pomegranates, pineapple and bananas beautifully displayed for my breakfast. If you don’t know, passion fruit is filled with a sweet seeded jelly that looks like something from your nose. I would not have tasted this tropical delicacy if it had been given another name, such as “snot fruit”. Therefore, one of today’s lessons comes from the passion fruit. You cannot make assumptions based on looks. Our mothers taught us this. We just have to remember.
I am here in Bali to remember. While a snow white butterfly flits above the coy swimming in my pond, I know it will be difficult to tear myself away from this moment to reflect on a year filled with blessings. My blessings extend beyond the fresh passion fruit on my plate, the birds of paradise in the vase on my table or the lotus pond beside which I eat. My year began with blessings from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.
I had just returned from Paris to find the letter of blessings from the Archbishop waiting to be opened. God has a way of giving us wonderful gifts, just when we need them. Three months earlier I had been waiting for a return flight home from Las Vegas, when I received the call from my son that I would be alone for Christmas. I used to be the holiday queen. I decorated anything that did not move, and celebrated every holiday for which Hallmark designed a card. My two sons had decided that for Thanksgiving and Christmas, they would alternate visiting my ex husband’s home and Seattle, where I live. The fact that I would be alone that Christmas lay as heavy on my heart as the lead apron during an x-ray. I couldn’t seem to tear it off my chest. When we boarded the flight to Seattle, I sat beside a woman who explained that she had just won two tickets in a contest to Paris for Christmas. Her fiancé could not leave his job to travel, and she was planning to put them up for sale on EBay for $500 each. I told her that I would buy them.
After an appeal on Face Book for a holiday traveling buddy, my friend Lee and I found ourselves flying to Paris together. We ushered in the New Year on the Champs de Elysee, standing directly in front of the Arc de Triumph with partiers from Lebanon, Boston, Spain and Germany. We downed our champagne in the middle of the boulevard and laughed our way into 4am, my personal best for a New Year’s celebration. We had breakfast in a café on the Left Bank and still managed to rise before noon and jog to the Peace Monument behind the Tour Eiffel. It was the perfect way to begin the New Year.
Lee is a wonderful traveling companion. She is an accomplished artist, and we share the same love for art and architecture. Traveling with a talented artist is important if you want excellent photographs of yourself as a souvenir. I have never looked better than in my Paris photos, thanks to Lee. She was my driver through Paris to the French countryside. She knew which restaurants should not be missed, and patiently taught me the workings of the Paris metro. She also needed her time alone, which in turn enabled me to learn to be more independent.
I had made great strides. I was in Paris, communicating in broken French to tolerant and generous Parisians. I was dining in restaurants and savoring each moment of excellent food without the need of dinner conversation. I had begun 2010, alone at the base of the Peace Monument, happy to be alive, grateful for my health, and eager to begin a year in which I had promised myself to not let a single opportunity pass me by. I had made it to Paris by saying yes to a stranger. Yes would be the watch word for this New Year. I would take a portion of my remaining funds and live. I would travel and gain experiences. I would let God lead me and listen carefully for his voice. I knew that I would be led to meet special people chosen to help take me through the next journey, the last part of my life.
At Chartres Cathedral, my favorite cathedral from my many years of studying the history of art, I was overcome with awe while standing in the nave surrounded by the gorgeous red and blue stained glass windows for which it is famous. I was also overcome with an intestinal bug that was in the process of draining my color and guaranteeing that my evening would be spent on the floor of my bathroom. The priest in charge of Chartres came up to me in the aisle and said in his best English, that he would pray for me. He must have feared that I would die before seeing the New Year. His prayers worked. I lived through the night and with the blessings from Chartres, managed to celebrating the arrival of 2010 in style.
When I returned home, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s envelope was waiting. He had read the piece that I had sent to his office. I had described for him my journey to England which had brought me to him. My travels to Lambeth Palace began with a road trip throughout the western US states the previous fall. I had prayed for signs to God for a revelation as to which direction I should be traveling in my life. It was a physical as well as spiritual journey. God continued to place signs before me. Each one got larger and large until, on my way home, I received a phone message from my friend Marshall. It was an urgent call, and he wanted me to contact him immediately. He stated that he knew what a hard year I had experienced with the divorce. He wanted me to accompany him to a dinner in England with the Archbishop. I knew my response. Yes.
In the presence of fifty bishops from around the Anglican community, I listened to the Archbishop’s simple message of meaning for our lives. I thought he was speaking to me. I felt this was God’s message to give me hope and to know that I was on the right path. The Archbishop’s wisdom of “one step at a time” was mine for a while. I would realize later that that message was mean for a larger audience, a congregation of 1200 believers in the heart of Africa. I had no clue that God was planning to send me to Africa. I had never wanted to go to there. I could not have known then that exactly one year later, I would be traveling to Burundi, and that for the rest of my life, I would be trying to figure out how to get back.
I placed the letter from Rowan Williams in the cubby at the front of my desk, and displayed the photos with him on my mantel as a constant reminder that the equivalent of the Pope for an Episcopalian, was praying on my behalf. I knew I was blessed. I planned to continue on through the year by saying yes to opportunity and to the Lord.
In April I went to Indonesia for the first time. I had taken up scuba diving in the winter, just before my trip to Paris. I was driving home from the gym, when asked my new I-phone for the location of the closest dive shop. My miraculous phone showed that I was only two blocks away. I did a quick U turn and found Silent World, moments before they closed. There was one spot left for the lessons which were to begin in a week. I did not know at the time that my learning to dive was part of a greater plan which would ultimately bring blessings to Africa.
From Scuba diving in the Puget Sound to the landlocked country of Burundi, God was yelling at me to stop and listen to his voice. The times that I had not allowed my world to be silent, when I begged for God to let me direct my own outcome, those were the times when my life fell out of balance. I learned many lessons from the instructors at Silent World. The most important ones went far beyond surviving underwater.
I felt that I did not deserve to complete my dive course. My instructors will tell you otherwise. I had the sensation of drowning during my certification test. I would have packed away my very expensive BC, regulator, and computer, if I had not paid for a costly scuba trip to the number one dive spot in the world, Wakatobi, Indonesia. I had hung up my dry suit and upon my return from Paris, refused to go beneath the water’s surface. I had five dives under my dive belt. The trip was leaving in April. Most of the other travelers were professional photographers, instructors, or long time divers. I was the only beginner. I was flying to Indonesia, because I had no other choice. I was too cheap to cancel the trip. I would now travel half way around the world with a group of strangers to do something that terrified me. What was I thinking?
Upon arriving at the Island of Tolondono, Indonesai, home to the Wakatobi Dive Resort, was I given a patient and sweet instructor from Holland named Marielle. With her underwater dive slate, she cooed confidence in my abilities. I will always be grateful to her for showing me the most beautiful area on earth, the coral reefs to the southeast of Sulawesi. I fell in love with diving and the abundant sea life at Wakatobi. Our incredible trip ended on the Island Bali for the four final days of our vacation. I knew when I arrived that this was the most incredible spot yet.
God is everywhere in Bali. It is a Hindu Island, the only one in an archipelago of thousands of islands. The Balinese people take their religion very seriously. They make offerings to their Gods several times a day. Small displays of fruit or flowers are placed upon folded palm leaves and left lovingly outside of shops and homes in hopes of securing blessing for the day. To walk the irregular brick sidewalks of Ubud in Bali is a feat in itself. However, as you walk, you must step over and around the tiny offerings that line the sidewalks and paths. You would never think to dishonor those who made an offering by trampling it as you entered a shop. Walking is therefore the negotiation of an unending obstacle course made of broken tile pavers, open trenches, uneven sidewalks and hundreds of offerings strewn on the ground every few feet. It’s a dance of travel that reminds you, the visitor that God is not to be forgotten on this island.
And God had not forgotten me either. He had blessed me with an introduction to this exotic and beautiful island. I could see for the first time, that there are creative and imaginative options for life. B is for the Beauty of the sea, the jungle, and the people of Bali. Yes. A is for an Alternative, Another path to take on life’s journey. Yes. L if for that journey in Life, meant to be danced through and around with Life’s obstacles in a Loving ballet. Yes. And I is for the Imagination to see it, and the Instinct to believe that it is all possible. Yes. I would return to Bali at the end of the year. I would come back not as a tourist, but in search of my role in this distant place. Yes.
In May, my cousin Brad called to tell me about his upcoming mission trip to Africa. At the very mention of his plan, I knew that I had to be a part of it. He asked that I pray first, to see if something this difficult was right for me. Travel to one of the poorest countries on earth, with limited creature comforts, and the risk of danger in the wake of a fragile peace, would have risks that should be weighed carefully. I could hear God’s voice loud and clear. There were no risks that would prevent me from going with him to Africa. I had no choice. It was my mission too.
The trip would cost $2900 dollars and involve fundraising to provide the materials and labor for a foundation for a new orphanage building. We would pay for as many homes for the Batwa as we could fund. The Batwa are the pygmy tribe who are the poorest of the Burundian population. We would build a playground for the orphanage and paint a mural for the school. We would run an afterschool art program as well. Yes. I was in.
In June I went to visit my cousin and his wife, Ann, in South Carolina. I noticed a change in Brad’s life. His faith had gotten stronger. He was proud to talk about his beliefs. He had made the decision that anything that did not further his faith in God was not time well spent. His good works for others occupies most of his time now that he is retired. We walked his dog on the beach and planned for our greatest journey which was about to unfold, traveling to the middle of Africa on a mission to help an orphanage. God was leading me from one part of the globe to another.
The blessings that followed were as rich and bountiful as any moment in my life. I had been blessed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the head priest at Chartres. But nothing will compare to the blessing that I received on my last day at the Youth for Christ Orphanage in the mountain town of Gitega. Gitega is the old capital of Burundi. It is located in the exact center of the country, so measured by the Belgium colonialists years before, when they abandoned Burundi into civil war and genocide. We were told that Burundi is shaped like a human heart. It lies in the middle of the continent. Our team could feel the strong pulse of life which cried to be heard from the heart of Africa.
On the last day of our mission in Gitega, a circle of ladder backed chairs were set on the sloping dry lawn in the center of the orphanage buildings. Our team was seated, and the children gathered around us. They ran to each one of us, choosing who they would embrace. Three tiny figures, two boys and a girl, came to me and wrapped their arms around me. They placed their hands on my shoulders and knees. We were told that they would pray for us.
We had come to Africa to help them. We had given the children the only playground in the entire country. It was a playground worthy of any American child and large enough for an entire orphanage of children to play on at the same time. We had carried rocks from the sixteen truck loads that had been dumped up the hill and would form the foundation for a new orphan’s home below. We had worked beside the African men and women who bore large stones on their heads in an endless procession. We were shamed that we could not work as hard as they. We had decorated the area school with the only monumental art in the country. With the exception of a few fence panels around the zoo in Bujumbura, a few political slogans, and a hand full of advertisements, there is no other outdoor art to be found in Burundi. Our mural of Noah’s Ark is a message of hope to the hundreds of people who pass by on the red dirt road behind the New Hope School. And yet, with all of our gifts to them, these children were gathered around to pray for us.
They began their pray. Their tiny voices melded together in chant-like sound, words in Kirundi that I did not understand. They held me and as they prayed, I began to cry. Thiers was the voice of God, and I was privileged to be listening. I did not know what they were saying, but I knew their words were holy. Their sounds lifted higher, and everyone in the circle was crying. Yes, I was blessed, blessed by angels whose voices were sweet and clear. Their quiet prayers call out from the center of Africa, from a country too long forgotten. I did not want to leave them. I will never forget the wonderful day that I received my holiest blessing. It was a blessing that came without cassock or robe, from children with crosses made from Popsicle sticks that hung around their necks.
My mother was right. You cannot make assumptions based on looks. Doing so this morning would have prevented me from tasting the sweet passion fruit on my plate for breakfast. God comes in many forms. If we presume to know his exact appearance, then we may very well miss him completely. I am grateful to God for so many blessings this year. I am most grateful to have been able to look into his face through the smiles of his beloved orphaned children who live in the remote mountains of a war torn country.
The faces of God are all around me in Bali. They smile from the restaurants, the streets, the shops, and the temples. They look up in pain as they beg for handouts on the sidewalks of Ubud. They are all around us, no matter where we live. As I step over the obstacles in my own live, dancing my way through this journey, may I see the offerings place by God in my path. May I recognize them as holy and treat them as such.
A Month of Reflections
Introduction
I cannot see the Pacific Ocean. It is hidden beneath the clouds. We are flying somewhere between two solid white layers of sky that obstruct all color and form from the window of the airplane. Only the bright light of the sun streams in. Most passengers have closed their shades and settled back for the eleven hour flight to Tokyo. I keep looking toward the light. I have opened my laptop and decided to let the words flow. I am asking them to flow across the keyboard, to add form and color to a journey that began three years ago, in the fall of 2007.
This month I will spend in Bali, Indonesia. I want to go on record as saying that my journey had nothing to do with the book, Eat, Love, Pray, or with the movie by the same name. I was in Indonesia seven months ago on a scuba diving vacation. I fell in love with diving, the sea, and the vast coral reefs to the east of Sulawesi. I also fell in love with the Indonesian people. Collectively, they smile at everyone they meet. It is hard for me not to smile when I see a face. It’s the instinctive reaction of an infant, and for some reason, I still have that instinct. I loved being with people who reacted to others as I do.
When the dive portion of my April trip had ended, our group flew to the Island of Bali for our final four days. Our Balinese tour guide began his monologue from the bus’ microphone by saying that Bali would take on a different meaning for each of us. It would be up to us individually to determine what that meaning would be. To him, the B stood for beauty, the A for art, the L for love, and the I for imagination. I did not need to look for any further meaning. I could feel that I was in the right place; a beautiful, spiritual island, half way around the globe from my home.
The side benefit of Bali is that it is very inexpensive. Having limited funds and no career, I decided to return for an extended stay, as an experiment to see if I could live in Indonesia. I love the United States. It is safe, and it is my home. Now, I was considering the possibility of living overseas. There is an adventuring side of my personality that I had forgotten existed. I was doing things that, before my awakening from thirty-two years of marriage hibernation, I would never have dreamt possible; things as simple as checking into a hotel room alone for the first time, to swimming with sea snakes and sharks. Now, I would see if I could make connections that would last beyond the duration of a tourist experience in Indonesia.
For three years I had been looking for signs and listening to voices as to where I should go on this journey of my new life. No, I am not schizophrenic. The voices are not in my head. They come from God, and yes, I not only believe, but I know from prayerful experience, that it is through silence that the voice of God can be heard. I had made a promise to myself alone in meditative silence at sunset in the Badlands of South Dakota, to never miss another opportunity in my life. This promise led me to learn to scuba dive, to fly with strangers to Indonesia, and ultimately find Bali.
It had taken me three years from when I found myself alone, to have the courage to take a trip to a place as far from my home as Indonesia. I had just been accepted into an MFA program in writing and literature. It will take another three years to finish my degree. With a degree that qualifies me to teach writing, the reality of finding a job at my age is remote. I hear the objections of my friends as they shake their heads and offer the encouragement that all things are possible. Yes, and that possibility does exist. However, the reality of statistics for an older homemaker turned first time professional in this day and age is not as encouraging as my friends would try to believe. I have therefore decided to open myself to a more imaginative approach. I could live overseas for a period of time. So why not check it out? This is my last big trip of a year that I filled with travel and exploration, in an effort to make connections around the globe, as I search for my place in this life.
None of us know how much time we have to savor life on this earth. I have friends that have died of disease and by accident. Disease is not a shock. Accident is. Neither seems to come at a convenient time. My time clock is ticking loudly. All of ours are, in a cacophony of sound that we ignore for most of our lives. I hear the clock now, the screaming siren of warning not to waste a moment. Another voice to be heeded.
At this moment the icon of my plane shows me somewhere between Juneau and Anchorage. The sun is brightly streaming in from a blue sky. The distance has taken form. The shadows on the fluffy round clouds give them a three dimensionality and the appearance of solid and substantial structures. It’s merely an illusion. I could no more tell you the outcome of my three year adventure, as I could walk upon the clouds above Alaska. I cannot tell you if the path I have chosen is the right one, and if my plan will ultimately crystallize into a life of meaning and independence. This is my hope. It shines brightly as the glaring sun.
The landscape has changed again. It always does. The billows of clouds have transformed into a smooth ocean of white which spreads flat to the horizon. The streams of light from the sun radiates like a star slashing through a perfect blue sky. There is no sense of motion in flight as all reference points have vanished. The plane is as still as a prayer.
Tokyo is our first destination. I have never been to Japan. I was supposed to have spent the year after my graduation from Duke living with a Japanese family. I had studied Japanese art with the world’s leading authority on the subject. I had studied Japanese religion and been encourage to travel and experience the culture first hand. I knew no Japanese, but I had decided that Japan would be the place where I would attain enlightenment. My Episcopalian upbringing had been pushed aside for the seductive concept of rebirth and karma. I had a dark blue MG Midget that I sold for the price of the airfare. I was terrified and excited to be looking for higher truths first hand.
Then my father died. He was fifty-four years old. He died of a heart attack the week before Christmas. It was not the type of Christmas surprise a family wants. From that day, I have hated surprises. The fear of going to Japan alone, which had been subjugated by the excitement of travel, art, and enlightenment, returned. I dropped my plans for living abroad. I settled down at home, entered graduate school, and ultimately got married without finishing my degree. The thought of going to Japan in search of life was as remote and indistinct as the disappearing cloud forms outside of the airplane window. Now I am on my way to Japan.
Most people I talk to, lived their lives on the front end. They traveled through Europe with friends after college. They hopped in their cars and worked their way across America. They partied and lived each moment as if it were their last, maximizing every second. I guess they have earned the right to recline now and enjoy the peace they find as they grow older. I am doing it all in reverse order. If you know me, you are smiling. It makes perfect sense.
For the previous thirty some years, I thought my life was methodically progressing into the completed picture of retirement with grandchildren on a wealthy barrier island off of Charleston, South Carolina. I had the puzzle pieces of my life laid out on the table. I love puzzles. The box lid was face up, and I was on the lid picture holding hands with little ones in the surf of the Atlantic Ocean. It was a beautiful image. I was eager to put it all together. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the right picture for me. When the photograph on the lid was destroyed, I had no choice. I had to keep fitting puzzle pieces together. Without a picture I had to simple try and find which piece fit next, one at a time. I had no map to follow. I was in essence, flying by the seat of my pants.
Inexplicably to me at the time, the pieces were still fitting one to another. Each step I took followed in sequence from the previous one. I had been blessed in the fall of 2009 to meet the Archbishop of Canterbury. His message was simple. Our job, he explained, was not to save the world. It was to take one step at a time. And, in offering apologies to the Beatles, each step, he explained, taken with a little help from our friends. I knew that God had spoken through the Archbishop to me. I had made fledgling steps; my first steps toward independence, with my friends holding me up. I took a step a day with them beside me. What I did not know, was that message was not meant for me alone. It was for all of us, and given to me specifically to take to others in Africa a year later.
What a wondrous life with which I have been blessed. This year began with a letter at the first of January from the Archbishop to me, saying that he would pray for me. It has been a year filled with prayer and contemplation. April brought me to Bali, an island known for spirituality. September took me to Africa where the Holy Spirit thrives as I have never experienced before. The year brought new and lasting friendships throughout the United States, Canada, Indonesia, and Africa. All of these experiences were life changing. But as the landscape changes below me now, life changes with each individual moment. It is our job to savor those moments and live them to the fullest, one moment at a time, as long as we have together.
Finally after thirty-seven years, I am on my way to Japan. However, Japan is not my destination. It is merely a layover on a journey that neither begins nor ends with this flight. My trip to Indonesia is a step. One more step. The enlightenment for me will come not through a bash on the head while seated in a lotus position. Hopefully it will come while holding the hand of a child who has no parents, or helping to feed a man whose clothes are in rags and tries to sleep in the cold without a blanket, or dancing beside a woman who has nothing to offer in return for a gift except a dance offered from her soul.
We chase the sun as we fly west. We fly into the light. I will spend this next month remembering my year and my experiences. I will think how they have helped me grow. I am thankful for the opportunity to have lived them. This will be my month of reflection. In looking back, possibly a clearer image of what lies ahead will form. Perhaps without internet, television, or telephone, the time in silence, prayer and contemplation will reveal the truths for which I have been searching. One thing is for sure, this is another step; one in a series that I could not have made without my friends by my side.
We have left Alaska and the boundaries of the United States behind. There are many hours of water yet to traverse. The fear has once again been subjugated by the excitement of an adventure. The clouds are forming into solid billowy shapes again. I think I will get up from my row and see who I can meet. We are all flying this moment together, in the same direction, and to the same destination. Japan, here we come on our way to wherever. Let us all be blessed on our travels, wherever we are lead.
Peace
October 31, 2010
I cannot see the Pacific Ocean. It is hidden beneath the clouds. We are flying somewhere between two solid white layers of sky that obstruct all color and form from the window of the airplane. Only the bright light of the sun streams in. Most passengers have closed their shades and settled back for the eleven hour flight to Tokyo. I keep looking toward the light. I have opened my laptop and decided to let the words flow. I am asking them to flow across the keyboard, to add form and color to a journey that began three years ago, in the fall of 2007.
This month I will spend in Bali, Indonesia. I want to go on record as saying that my journey had nothing to do with the book, Eat, Love, Pray, or with the movie by the same name. I was in Indonesia seven months ago on a scuba diving vacation. I fell in love with diving, the sea, and the vast coral reefs to the east of Sulawesi. I also fell in love with the Indonesian people. Collectively, they smile at everyone they meet. It is hard for me not to smile when I see a face. It’s the instinctive reaction of an infant, and for some reason, I still have that instinct. I loved being with people who reacted to others as I do.
When the dive portion of my April trip had ended, our group flew to the Island of Bali for our final four days. Our Balinese tour guide began his monologue from the bus’ microphone by saying that Bali would take on a different meaning for each of us. It would be up to us individually to determine what that meaning would be. To him, the B stood for beauty, the A for art, the L for love, and the I for imagination. I did not need to look for any further meaning. I could feel that I was in the right place; a beautiful, spiritual island, half way around the globe from my home.
The side benefit of Bali is that it is very inexpensive. Having limited funds and no career, I decided to return for an extended stay, as an experiment to see if I could live in Indonesia. I love the United States. It is safe, and it is my home. Now, I was considering the possibility of living overseas. There is an adventuring side of my personality that I had forgotten existed. I was doing things that, before my awakening from thirty-two years of marriage hibernation, I would never have dreamt possible; things as simple as checking into a hotel room alone for the first time, to swimming with sea snakes and sharks. Now, I would see if I could make connections that would last beyond the duration of a tourist experience in Indonesia.
For three years I had been looking for signs and listening to voices as to where I should go on this journey of my new life. No, I am not schizophrenic. The voices are not in my head. They come from God, and yes, I not only believe, but I know from prayerful experience, that it is through silence that the voice of God can be heard. I had made a promise to myself alone in meditative silence at sunset in the Badlands of South Dakota, to never miss another opportunity in my life. This promise led me to learn to scuba dive, to fly with strangers to Indonesia, and ultimately find Bali.
It had taken me three years from when I found myself alone, to have the courage to take a trip to a place as far from my home as Indonesia. I had just been accepted into an MFA program in writing and literature. It will take another three years to finish my degree. With a degree that qualifies me to teach writing, the reality of finding a job at my age is remote. I hear the objections of my friends as they shake their heads and offer the encouragement that all things are possible. Yes, and that possibility does exist. However, the reality of statistics for an older homemaker turned first time professional in this day and age is not as encouraging as my friends would try to believe. I have therefore decided to open myself to a more imaginative approach. I could live overseas for a period of time. So why not check it out? This is my last big trip of a year that I filled with travel and exploration, in an effort to make connections around the globe, as I search for my place in this life.
None of us know how much time we have to savor life on this earth. I have friends that have died of disease and by accident. Disease is not a shock. Accident is. Neither seems to come at a convenient time. My time clock is ticking loudly. All of ours are, in a cacophony of sound that we ignore for most of our lives. I hear the clock now, the screaming siren of warning not to waste a moment. Another voice to be heeded.
At this moment the icon of my plane shows me somewhere between Juneau and Anchorage. The sun is brightly streaming in from a blue sky. The distance has taken form. The shadows on the fluffy round clouds give them a three dimensionality and the appearance of solid and substantial structures. It’s merely an illusion. I could no more tell you the outcome of my three year adventure, as I could walk upon the clouds above Alaska. I cannot tell you if the path I have chosen is the right one, and if my plan will ultimately crystallize into a life of meaning and independence. This is my hope. It shines brightly as the glaring sun.
The landscape has changed again. It always does. The billows of clouds have transformed into a smooth ocean of white which spreads flat to the horizon. The streams of light from the sun radiates like a star slashing through a perfect blue sky. There is no sense of motion in flight as all reference points have vanished. The plane is as still as a prayer.
Tokyo is our first destination. I have never been to Japan. I was supposed to have spent the year after my graduation from Duke living with a Japanese family. I had studied Japanese art with the world’s leading authority on the subject. I had studied Japanese religion and been encourage to travel and experience the culture first hand. I knew no Japanese, but I had decided that Japan would be the place where I would attain enlightenment. My Episcopalian upbringing had been pushed aside for the seductive concept of rebirth and karma. I had a dark blue MG Midget that I sold for the price of the airfare. I was terrified and excited to be looking for higher truths first hand.
Then my father died. He was fifty-four years old. He died of a heart attack the week before Christmas. It was not the type of Christmas surprise a family wants. From that day, I have hated surprises. The fear of going to Japan alone, which had been subjugated by the excitement of travel, art, and enlightenment, returned. I dropped my plans for living abroad. I settled down at home, entered graduate school, and ultimately got married without finishing my degree. The thought of going to Japan in search of life was as remote and indistinct as the disappearing cloud forms outside of the airplane window. Now I am on my way to Japan.
Most people I talk to, lived their lives on the front end. They traveled through Europe with friends after college. They hopped in their cars and worked their way across America. They partied and lived each moment as if it were their last, maximizing every second. I guess they have earned the right to recline now and enjoy the peace they find as they grow older. I am doing it all in reverse order. If you know me, you are smiling. It makes perfect sense.
For the previous thirty some years, I thought my life was methodically progressing into the completed picture of retirement with grandchildren on a wealthy barrier island off of Charleston, South Carolina. I had the puzzle pieces of my life laid out on the table. I love puzzles. The box lid was face up, and I was on the lid picture holding hands with little ones in the surf of the Atlantic Ocean. It was a beautiful image. I was eager to put it all together. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the right picture for me. When the photograph on the lid was destroyed, I had no choice. I had to keep fitting puzzle pieces together. Without a picture I had to simple try and find which piece fit next, one at a time. I had no map to follow. I was in essence, flying by the seat of my pants.
Inexplicably to me at the time, the pieces were still fitting one to another. Each step I took followed in sequence from the previous one. I had been blessed in the fall of 2009 to meet the Archbishop of Canterbury. His message was simple. Our job, he explained, was not to save the world. It was to take one step at a time. And, in offering apologies to the Beatles, each step, he explained, taken with a little help from our friends. I knew that God had spoken through the Archbishop to me. I had made fledgling steps; my first steps toward independence, with my friends holding me up. I took a step a day with them beside me. What I did not know, was that message was not meant for me alone. It was for all of us, and given to me specifically to take to others in Africa a year later.
What a wondrous life with which I have been blessed. This year began with a letter at the first of January from the Archbishop to me, saying that he would pray for me. It has been a year filled with prayer and contemplation. April brought me to Bali, an island known for spirituality. September took me to Africa where the Holy Spirit thrives as I have never experienced before. The year brought new and lasting friendships throughout the United States, Canada, Indonesia, and Africa. All of these experiences were life changing. But as the landscape changes below me now, life changes with each individual moment. It is our job to savor those moments and live them to the fullest, one moment at a time, as long as we have together.
Finally after thirty-seven years, I am on my way to Japan. However, Japan is not my destination. It is merely a layover on a journey that neither begins nor ends with this flight. My trip to Indonesia is a step. One more step. The enlightenment for me will come not through a bash on the head while seated in a lotus position. Hopefully it will come while holding the hand of a child who has no parents, or helping to feed a man whose clothes are in rags and tries to sleep in the cold without a blanket, or dancing beside a woman who has nothing to offer in return for a gift except a dance offered from her soul.
We chase the sun as we fly west. We fly into the light. I will spend this next month remembering my year and my experiences. I will think how they have helped me grow. I am thankful for the opportunity to have lived them. This will be my month of reflection. In looking back, possibly a clearer image of what lies ahead will form. Perhaps without internet, television, or telephone, the time in silence, prayer and contemplation will reveal the truths for which I have been searching. One thing is for sure, this is another step; one in a series that I could not have made without my friends by my side.
We have left Alaska and the boundaries of the United States behind. There are many hours of water yet to traverse. The fear has once again been subjugated by the excitement of an adventure. The clouds are forming into solid billowy shapes again. I think I will get up from my row and see who I can meet. We are all flying this moment together, in the same direction, and to the same destination. Japan, here we come on our way to wherever. Let us all be blessed on our travels, wherever we are lead.
Peace
October 31, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
A Trilogy (2 of 3 posted)
An Amoeba Observed
By Tula Homes
You came to me
the perfect creation;
a single cell amoeba,
the beginning of life.
I watched in the lens
when your shape changed.
The smooth wall grew rough like cancer.
Through the microscope of time,
I observed your cell divide
as an hourglass.
The fantasy separated from the
binding thread.
Once a single entity,
now two.
Perhaps the next observer will see you clearly,
when you float,
avoiding the microscope.
Burning Poem
By Tula Holmes
Yellow smoke rises from scorched paper.
Words in red
bubble in toxic sores,
and fire consumes the page.
I hold the corner to keep flames burning.
Like the souls of the dead,
I feel your spirit leave.
Grey ash falls to the asphalt
like the dead leaves of winter.
The evening rain washes away
all reminders of you.
By Tula Homes
You came to me
the perfect creation;
a single cell amoeba,
the beginning of life.
I watched in the lens
when your shape changed.
The smooth wall grew rough like cancer.
Through the microscope of time,
I observed your cell divide
as an hourglass.
The fantasy separated from the
binding thread.
Once a single entity,
now two.
Perhaps the next observer will see you clearly,
when you float,
avoiding the microscope.
Burning Poem
By Tula Holmes
Yellow smoke rises from scorched paper.
Words in red
bubble in toxic sores,
and fire consumes the page.
I hold the corner to keep flames burning.
Like the souls of the dead,
I feel your spirit leave.
Grey ash falls to the asphalt
like the dead leaves of winter.
The evening rain washes away
all reminders of you.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Scheherazade and the Orangutan
“Did I ever tell you the story of fighting the orangutan at the state fair? “
His stories were hysterically funny. She began to laugh even before this one began. She shook her head no.
“You are from Tennessee. Didn’t you go to the fair? Didn’t you see the orangutan cage?”
Of course she had been to the fair with her parents. Every year they would throw rings at coke bottles in hopes of winning a stuffed animal, and they would eat fried dough. She had never seen the cage with an orangutan.
“Yes, but an orangutan? PETA would never allow that nowadays.”
“PETA? Hell Bird, PETA should have been there protecting me!”
Her name was common. Janie. They called her Janie. She was creative, and the one who made up the nicknames for her friends. Now he had created a nickname for her. At first he had called her J and used it in the internet chats that had begun six months before. That abbreviation had turned into Jay, then Jay Bird, and now just Bird. She was Bird. She liked being a bird.
She was laughing the entire time he spoke, quietly, so that she would not interrupt the flow of his words. He leaned back in the Adirondack chair and took a long drag from his cigarette. The craving for nicotine was overpowering. He had not smoked all day, with the exception of the drive out to the resort when he followed her in his Firebird. Despite the hot beach air, he had kept the windows down. He didn’t want to smell of cigarettes. He chewed gum. She did not know that he was a smoker, and he wanted to look good in her eyes. Before dinner she had figured it out, and she seemed OK with his bad habit. He was planning to quit at the first of August. This was July. There were lots of cigarettes to be enjoyed before the arrival of that dreaded date of self control. As he stared forward into the darkness, he savored every breath of sweet smoke and remembered the Tennessee State Fair in the fall of 1971.
He began his tale. “We were drunk. Bruce, Ace, and Hunk were there. We came up to this large cage with an orangutan sitting in the corner. He had his head resting on his hand. Just sitting there, docile, with this stupid look on his face. The barker was goading us to go into the cage. You could win a lot of money, two hundred dollars, if you stayed in with the orangutan for two minutes. You didn’t even have to fight him. Just stay in the cage. Two minutes. I was drunk on my ass. The guys started daring me. You know, you can’t turn down a dare.” He paused and looked up to see her expression.
She laughed as if she understood. But she didn’t. A group of drunken frat boys dare you to do something dangerous, and you do it because of their taunts? She never did understand the need for men to demonstrate their prowess with bravado, fighting, or going to cages with wild animals.
“Davey, you are crazy. I can’t believe you got in a cage with an orangutan!”
“I had to Bird. They were all laughing at me. And they were yelling that the Hump didn’t have the balls to last. I didn’t have to fight the thing. Just stay in the cage with him.” He took another long draw of breath from the cigarette, and then pulled a fresh one from the pack. He lit the end of the new one from the remains of the old. He continued to smoke. A faraway look had come across his face. He looked into the darkness toward the ocean. The breeze was stronger now, and the air felt cool. He was entering the cage in his mind. She watched as his expression changed and saw his mind leave her to tell his story.
“The damn monkey wasn’t even that big. He had boxing gloves on his hands and feet.”
She interrupted, pulling him back from his thoughts. She couldn’t resist. Restraint wasn’t her strong suit. “Boxing gloves?” She laughed hard enough to cause her to cover her mouth with her hands.
“Yeah. Those things have nails. They can do some serious damage. I always wondered if the barker had given that damn orangutan boxing lessons.”
“He probably gave him lessons in how to look helpless in the corner. To drag you silly ATO’s into the cage!” She shook her head as her laughter died down, and his story continued.
“Well, I’m locked in this cage. The guys are hysterical. Yelling at the Hump to nail the monkey. So I’m looking at this thing, head on its hand, and what looks to be a small smile creeps on its face.” He paused again, breathed a puff, and made a silly smile as he propped his hand under his chin. He flicked an ash and continued.
“Well, the barker put down his megaphone and blew on a whistle. Even while I was staring at the monkey, he jumped from his crouch at the corner of the cage and flew across the air to the top left side. I figured if I could keep my eye on him, I would be able to make it. Then, faster than I could see, he flew across the top of the cage to the right side.” He has shifted to the edge of his Adirondack chair. His words were flying faster now.
“Then, without warning, he was behind me.” She was mesmerized. Her eyes were wide.
“I didn’t see him back there. I was blindsided. He came flying at my head and hit me. But not once. It was a series of punches. Four of them. Bam, bam, bam bam! I was knocked flat on the ground.”
“Oh my God.”
“Yeah Bird, it was scary. I was dragging myself back to my feet, looking around for that damn monkey, when he came swinging down from the top of the cage on the right. Bam, bam, bam, bam! He slammed me again. I was down.”
“Dave, Oh my God! I am so glad you weren’t killed.”
“Yeah. The guys were laughing their asses off. I was dazed and looking up for that bastard when, bam, he came at me from the left. Bam, bam, bam, bam. I looked up from the ground at the barker, and thought I was going to cry. I told him enough, and he blew that damn whistle.”
He stopped. They could hear the ocean in the distance. It had grown so late that there were no other hotel guests on the patio. They were alone under the stars. He had retreated to his memories. Janie could tell that for some reason this story was significant. She waited quietly for his words to continue.
“Yeah, the guys loved it. The Hump had gone down. I was hoping one of those bastards would go in the cage too, but they were chicken shits. Then I thought we would hang around for a while and watch some Tennessee boys get their butts kicked, so I could laugh.”
‘Dave, those Tennessee boys are too smart to fight orangutans. They are not like you Vanderbilt ATOs”
“I guess so. But I never saw it coming. He was flying so fast across that cage; I couldn’t see where he was.” He shook his head now. He felt as if he never saw things coming at him. His wife Patty had given him no warning either. She had blindsided him, and with that stupid redneck from down the street. They had partied together. They were neighborhood friends.
“It must have been awful in that cage. I am just so glad that you were ok.”
“Yeah. And the stupid expression on that monkey’s face. Just sitting there waiting for the whistle to blow, so he could kick my ass!” He felt stupid. He sat in his home while Patty screwed their neighbor. He didn’t know until friends at the bar told him about the affair. Everyone in Chattanooga seemed to know. He must have had clues. He couldn’t remember. Then she came back. She had to. Her boyfriend didn’t get divorced. He didn’t take her in. She had nowhere else to go. The Hump took her back. They had kids. He needed to make it work for the kids.
“I bet that that orangutan was smiling, because you walked in the cage. He was waiting for someone to wander in and beat the crap out of!”
“Yeah.” He looked in Janie’s direction, but was really caged in the memories of his life, getting blindsided. After a few years, Patty got pregnant again. Their youngest was born. But she was still screwing that uneducated, redneck neighbor. He was not a Vanderbilt grad. He was the manager of the Buy Low. Jesus! He had not even seen it coming. Bam, bam, bam. He let her stay again. This time, he let her stay for his youngest. But he wasn’t stupid. The Hump had his limits. He let her stay, but he never trusted her or loved her. Now, it was finally over. He had blown the whistle. He lit another cigarette from the dying one in his hands. He looked up at the stars and stared.
Janie needed to draw him back in to her again.
“Did I tell you about the whipped cream?”
He looked to the side, remembering that he was at a beautiful beach resort with her. They had typed back and forth for months on line and had never met. They had not even heard each other’s voices on the telephone. He knew she liked him. She was on him like white on rice, but he could read the signs that she was tired of the internet. He liked anonymous conversations, and didn’t want to lose his late night buddy who listened to his stories. It took his mind off the divorce and helped pass the lonely evening hours. She told her stories. They were funny. He looked forward to them each night. When she wasn’t around on line, he missed her. They were both at the beach this week. He was driving to meet his frat brothers for their yearly men’s trip. She was visiting her cousin and escaping the chilly weather in New Hampshire. He had agreed at the last minute to see her. What the hell? It was only to have lunch. The day had turned into the night, and there they sat, telling their stories.
She had called herself Scheherazade, the storyteller from the The Arabian Nights. She had woven her tales for 180 evenings. She liked to amuse him, herself, and to keep him interested. Sometimes they talked until the dawn broke and their stories had to end. They would wait eagerly until their next conversation together.
“Well, I was just married. I was whipping some cream in our tiny little apartment kitchen. I was using the avocado green hand mixer that I had gotten for a wedding present.”
“Uh huh.” He loved her details. Her stories were filled with great details.
“The cord kept falling off the stupid mixer. Well, it fell in the whipped cream. So, I picked it up, and the end was covered in whipped cream.”
Oh Lord, he thought. “No.”
“Yes. So, I looked at the cord, and the whipped cream on it, and stuck it in my mouth to lick it off!” She held her fist to her mouth and made a jerking motion, imitating being electrocuted. “Zzzzt, Zzzzt, Zzzzt, Zzzzt.” Then she pulled her fist from her mouth as if the electricity had been wrenched away, and ceased her jerking. Dave was laughing out loud.
“Yeah. They would have found me hours later, dead on the floor, with whipped cream still on my face!”
“Bird, you are crazy!”
“I was nearly a Darwin Award winner. As it stands, I could be a Darwin Award runner up. I didn’t die!” They both laughed and then fell into silence as they looked up at the canopy of stars that surrounded them. The ash hung long on his cigarette. He had forgotten to smoke.
In the quiet, her thoughts raced. She didn’t know anyone else who would have stuck an electrical cord in their mouth, because it had whipped cream on it. It was a bad choice. She had always made bad choices. Marrying Bill was a bad choice. They had never loved each other. He had loved his secretaries, his female partners, and a host of escort women, but not her. She had ignored the obvious signs, convinced herself that his lies were true, and lived hoping for a happy future together. She patiently waited for her fantasy, that when their kids were grown, they would fall in love for the first time. Another bad decision.
“Bird, the Darwin Award winners are always men. Men who have been drinking and have fire arms or dynamite!”
“True, true. Women are too smart to be in that book!” She didn’t feel smart. She knew that her lack of restraint kept her from being smart. Why else would she not take the cord out of the bowl, unplug it, wipe it clean, and taste the whipped cream with a spoon? She loved sweet things. She wanted the cream right then, and did not want to wait. She was too impetuous to see if a live cord was hidden within. She was always charging ahead. Not checking for the secret dangers. She married Bill without looking for what lay beneath the surface. She felt stupid. Now she tried to remind herself to wait and to look carefully before acting.
She looked down at Dave’s hand on the arm of his chair. It was just inches from hers. She wanted to touch it while he talked. She wanted to hold it after he had finished his story, when he had gotten quiet, and she knew that his mind was elsewhere. If she had been with a girlfriend that night, she would have held her hand and given her a hug of encouragement. But she could not with Dave. She was afraid to touch him. He may have been frightened. There could be electricity hidden within, beneath the whipped cream. She had to teach herself to wait and watch for signs.
“Look at my phone. I have an App that tells where the constellations are.” She fiddled with her I-Phone to show a map of the stars. “Darn it. I can’t get it to work.” She handed it to him.
He laughed, propped his cigarette on the arm of the chair and took the phone. She seemed completely incompetent. “How much did you pay for this App, Bird?”
“It was free.”
“Well then, you got what you paid for,” and he laughed. He found her charming. He had not laughed so much, since he had moved out of his house. Out of his family’s home. It felt good to sit in the dark, enjoy his smokes, have no idea what stars were overhead, and laugh. The orangutan in his mind was quiet now, asleep in its cage.
Janie enjoyed his willingness to help her figure out the phone, even if neither one of them could make it work. They looked up at the stars, and together they found the Big Dipper. They had sat in the hotel patio chairs for so long, that their only constellation had migrated across the evening sky. They had laughed the night away below the moving stars. It was three a.m. The resort employees had gone to sleep with the exception of the desk clerk and the valet, who yawned and waited for them to claim the rental car. Janie had neatly wound up the dangerous electrical cord in her mind and put it away. Neither the orangutan nor the electrical cord would cause them any problems for the rest of the evening.
“Davey, I have got to go to sleep. Its three a.m.!”
“Bird, you have done it again. You have kept me up all night talking.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. You!”
They both laughed. They tipped the valet and drove to Dave’s Firebird which was parked near the resort’s exit gate.
“It was really nice to meet you.” She felt like she had known him since college.
“Yeah. Thanks. It was a fun.”
He leaned in and gave her a light kiss before he left to get in his car. She led him out of the gate to the highway, then turned back and headed toward her cousin’s beach house. She resolved to buy a can of whipped cream when she returned home to New Hampshire. She would leave it in the refrigerator door. She would practice control. She would not touch it.
He drove up the coast in the opposite direction, where his old friends were waiting. He would stop smoking soon. He unrolled his window to smell the salty beach air. As he drove, the dawn was breaking. It was a new day.
His stories were hysterically funny. She began to laugh even before this one began. She shook her head no.
“You are from Tennessee. Didn’t you go to the fair? Didn’t you see the orangutan cage?”
Of course she had been to the fair with her parents. Every year they would throw rings at coke bottles in hopes of winning a stuffed animal, and they would eat fried dough. She had never seen the cage with an orangutan.
“Yes, but an orangutan? PETA would never allow that nowadays.”
“PETA? Hell Bird, PETA should have been there protecting me!”
Her name was common. Janie. They called her Janie. She was creative, and the one who made up the nicknames for her friends. Now he had created a nickname for her. At first he had called her J and used it in the internet chats that had begun six months before. That abbreviation had turned into Jay, then Jay Bird, and now just Bird. She was Bird. She liked being a bird.
She was laughing the entire time he spoke, quietly, so that she would not interrupt the flow of his words. He leaned back in the Adirondack chair and took a long drag from his cigarette. The craving for nicotine was overpowering. He had not smoked all day, with the exception of the drive out to the resort when he followed her in his Firebird. Despite the hot beach air, he had kept the windows down. He didn’t want to smell of cigarettes. He chewed gum. She did not know that he was a smoker, and he wanted to look good in her eyes. Before dinner she had figured it out, and she seemed OK with his bad habit. He was planning to quit at the first of August. This was July. There were lots of cigarettes to be enjoyed before the arrival of that dreaded date of self control. As he stared forward into the darkness, he savored every breath of sweet smoke and remembered the Tennessee State Fair in the fall of 1971.
He began his tale. “We were drunk. Bruce, Ace, and Hunk were there. We came up to this large cage with an orangutan sitting in the corner. He had his head resting on his hand. Just sitting there, docile, with this stupid look on his face. The barker was goading us to go into the cage. You could win a lot of money, two hundred dollars, if you stayed in with the orangutan for two minutes. You didn’t even have to fight him. Just stay in the cage. Two minutes. I was drunk on my ass. The guys started daring me. You know, you can’t turn down a dare.” He paused and looked up to see her expression.
She laughed as if she understood. But she didn’t. A group of drunken frat boys dare you to do something dangerous, and you do it because of their taunts? She never did understand the need for men to demonstrate their prowess with bravado, fighting, or going to cages with wild animals.
“Davey, you are crazy. I can’t believe you got in a cage with an orangutan!”
“I had to Bird. They were all laughing at me. And they were yelling that the Hump didn’t have the balls to last. I didn’t have to fight the thing. Just stay in the cage with him.” He took another long draw of breath from the cigarette, and then pulled a fresh one from the pack. He lit the end of the new one from the remains of the old. He continued to smoke. A faraway look had come across his face. He looked into the darkness toward the ocean. The breeze was stronger now, and the air felt cool. He was entering the cage in his mind. She watched as his expression changed and saw his mind leave her to tell his story.
“The damn monkey wasn’t even that big. He had boxing gloves on his hands and feet.”
She interrupted, pulling him back from his thoughts. She couldn’t resist. Restraint wasn’t her strong suit. “Boxing gloves?” She laughed hard enough to cause her to cover her mouth with her hands.
“Yeah. Those things have nails. They can do some serious damage. I always wondered if the barker had given that damn orangutan boxing lessons.”
“He probably gave him lessons in how to look helpless in the corner. To drag you silly ATO’s into the cage!” She shook her head as her laughter died down, and his story continued.
“Well, I’m locked in this cage. The guys are hysterical. Yelling at the Hump to nail the monkey. So I’m looking at this thing, head on its hand, and what looks to be a small smile creeps on its face.” He paused again, breathed a puff, and made a silly smile as he propped his hand under his chin. He flicked an ash and continued.
“Well, the barker put down his megaphone and blew on a whistle. Even while I was staring at the monkey, he jumped from his crouch at the corner of the cage and flew across the air to the top left side. I figured if I could keep my eye on him, I would be able to make it. Then, faster than I could see, he flew across the top of the cage to the right side.” He has shifted to the edge of his Adirondack chair. His words were flying faster now.
“Then, without warning, he was behind me.” She was mesmerized. Her eyes were wide.
“I didn’t see him back there. I was blindsided. He came flying at my head and hit me. But not once. It was a series of punches. Four of them. Bam, bam, bam bam! I was knocked flat on the ground.”
“Oh my God.”
“Yeah Bird, it was scary. I was dragging myself back to my feet, looking around for that damn monkey, when he came swinging down from the top of the cage on the right. Bam, bam, bam, bam! He slammed me again. I was down.”
“Dave, Oh my God! I am so glad you weren’t killed.”
“Yeah. The guys were laughing their asses off. I was dazed and looking up for that bastard when, bam, he came at me from the left. Bam, bam, bam, bam. I looked up from the ground at the barker, and thought I was going to cry. I told him enough, and he blew that damn whistle.”
He stopped. They could hear the ocean in the distance. It had grown so late that there were no other hotel guests on the patio. They were alone under the stars. He had retreated to his memories. Janie could tell that for some reason this story was significant. She waited quietly for his words to continue.
“Yeah, the guys loved it. The Hump had gone down. I was hoping one of those bastards would go in the cage too, but they were chicken shits. Then I thought we would hang around for a while and watch some Tennessee boys get their butts kicked, so I could laugh.”
‘Dave, those Tennessee boys are too smart to fight orangutans. They are not like you Vanderbilt ATOs”
“I guess so. But I never saw it coming. He was flying so fast across that cage; I couldn’t see where he was.” He shook his head now. He felt as if he never saw things coming at him. His wife Patty had given him no warning either. She had blindsided him, and with that stupid redneck from down the street. They had partied together. They were neighborhood friends.
“It must have been awful in that cage. I am just so glad that you were ok.”
“Yeah. And the stupid expression on that monkey’s face. Just sitting there waiting for the whistle to blow, so he could kick my ass!” He felt stupid. He sat in his home while Patty screwed their neighbor. He didn’t know until friends at the bar told him about the affair. Everyone in Chattanooga seemed to know. He must have had clues. He couldn’t remember. Then she came back. She had to. Her boyfriend didn’t get divorced. He didn’t take her in. She had nowhere else to go. The Hump took her back. They had kids. He needed to make it work for the kids.
“I bet that that orangutan was smiling, because you walked in the cage. He was waiting for someone to wander in and beat the crap out of!”
“Yeah.” He looked in Janie’s direction, but was really caged in the memories of his life, getting blindsided. After a few years, Patty got pregnant again. Their youngest was born. But she was still screwing that uneducated, redneck neighbor. He was not a Vanderbilt grad. He was the manager of the Buy Low. Jesus! He had not even seen it coming. Bam, bam, bam. He let her stay again. This time, he let her stay for his youngest. But he wasn’t stupid. The Hump had his limits. He let her stay, but he never trusted her or loved her. Now, it was finally over. He had blown the whistle. He lit another cigarette from the dying one in his hands. He looked up at the stars and stared.
Janie needed to draw him back in to her again.
“Did I tell you about the whipped cream?”
He looked to the side, remembering that he was at a beautiful beach resort with her. They had typed back and forth for months on line and had never met. They had not even heard each other’s voices on the telephone. He knew she liked him. She was on him like white on rice, but he could read the signs that she was tired of the internet. He liked anonymous conversations, and didn’t want to lose his late night buddy who listened to his stories. It took his mind off the divorce and helped pass the lonely evening hours. She told her stories. They were funny. He looked forward to them each night. When she wasn’t around on line, he missed her. They were both at the beach this week. He was driving to meet his frat brothers for their yearly men’s trip. She was visiting her cousin and escaping the chilly weather in New Hampshire. He had agreed at the last minute to see her. What the hell? It was only to have lunch. The day had turned into the night, and there they sat, telling their stories.
She had called herself Scheherazade, the storyteller from the The Arabian Nights. She had woven her tales for 180 evenings. She liked to amuse him, herself, and to keep him interested. Sometimes they talked until the dawn broke and their stories had to end. They would wait eagerly until their next conversation together.
“Well, I was just married. I was whipping some cream in our tiny little apartment kitchen. I was using the avocado green hand mixer that I had gotten for a wedding present.”
“Uh huh.” He loved her details. Her stories were filled with great details.
“The cord kept falling off the stupid mixer. Well, it fell in the whipped cream. So, I picked it up, and the end was covered in whipped cream.”
Oh Lord, he thought. “No.”
“Yes. So, I looked at the cord, and the whipped cream on it, and stuck it in my mouth to lick it off!” She held her fist to her mouth and made a jerking motion, imitating being electrocuted. “Zzzzt, Zzzzt, Zzzzt, Zzzzt.” Then she pulled her fist from her mouth as if the electricity had been wrenched away, and ceased her jerking. Dave was laughing out loud.
“Yeah. They would have found me hours later, dead on the floor, with whipped cream still on my face!”
“Bird, you are crazy!”
“I was nearly a Darwin Award winner. As it stands, I could be a Darwin Award runner up. I didn’t die!” They both laughed and then fell into silence as they looked up at the canopy of stars that surrounded them. The ash hung long on his cigarette. He had forgotten to smoke.
In the quiet, her thoughts raced. She didn’t know anyone else who would have stuck an electrical cord in their mouth, because it had whipped cream on it. It was a bad choice. She had always made bad choices. Marrying Bill was a bad choice. They had never loved each other. He had loved his secretaries, his female partners, and a host of escort women, but not her. She had ignored the obvious signs, convinced herself that his lies were true, and lived hoping for a happy future together. She patiently waited for her fantasy, that when their kids were grown, they would fall in love for the first time. Another bad decision.
“Bird, the Darwin Award winners are always men. Men who have been drinking and have fire arms or dynamite!”
“True, true. Women are too smart to be in that book!” She didn’t feel smart. She knew that her lack of restraint kept her from being smart. Why else would she not take the cord out of the bowl, unplug it, wipe it clean, and taste the whipped cream with a spoon? She loved sweet things. She wanted the cream right then, and did not want to wait. She was too impetuous to see if a live cord was hidden within. She was always charging ahead. Not checking for the secret dangers. She married Bill without looking for what lay beneath the surface. She felt stupid. Now she tried to remind herself to wait and to look carefully before acting.
She looked down at Dave’s hand on the arm of his chair. It was just inches from hers. She wanted to touch it while he talked. She wanted to hold it after he had finished his story, when he had gotten quiet, and she knew that his mind was elsewhere. If she had been with a girlfriend that night, she would have held her hand and given her a hug of encouragement. But she could not with Dave. She was afraid to touch him. He may have been frightened. There could be electricity hidden within, beneath the whipped cream. She had to teach herself to wait and watch for signs.
“Look at my phone. I have an App that tells where the constellations are.” She fiddled with her I-Phone to show a map of the stars. “Darn it. I can’t get it to work.” She handed it to him.
He laughed, propped his cigarette on the arm of the chair and took the phone. She seemed completely incompetent. “How much did you pay for this App, Bird?”
“It was free.”
“Well then, you got what you paid for,” and he laughed. He found her charming. He had not laughed so much, since he had moved out of his house. Out of his family’s home. It felt good to sit in the dark, enjoy his smokes, have no idea what stars were overhead, and laugh. The orangutan in his mind was quiet now, asleep in its cage.
Janie enjoyed his willingness to help her figure out the phone, even if neither one of them could make it work. They looked up at the stars, and together they found the Big Dipper. They had sat in the hotel patio chairs for so long, that their only constellation had migrated across the evening sky. They had laughed the night away below the moving stars. It was three a.m. The resort employees had gone to sleep with the exception of the desk clerk and the valet, who yawned and waited for them to claim the rental car. Janie had neatly wound up the dangerous electrical cord in her mind and put it away. Neither the orangutan nor the electrical cord would cause them any problems for the rest of the evening.
“Davey, I have got to go to sleep. Its three a.m.!”
“Bird, you have done it again. You have kept me up all night talking.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. You!”
They both laughed. They tipped the valet and drove to Dave’s Firebird which was parked near the resort’s exit gate.
“It was really nice to meet you.” She felt like she had known him since college.
“Yeah. Thanks. It was a fun.”
He leaned in and gave her a light kiss before he left to get in his car. She led him out of the gate to the highway, then turned back and headed toward her cousin’s beach house. She resolved to buy a can of whipped cream when she returned home to New Hampshire. She would leave it in the refrigerator door. She would practice control. She would not touch it.
He drove up the coast in the opposite direction, where his old friends were waiting. He would stop smoking soon. He unrolled his window to smell the salty beach air. As he drove, the dawn was breaking. It was a new day.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
A Tale of Fiction from Indonesia
The speed boat bounced across the surf past Lintea Island without slowing. La Ane could count six white people. They would be visiting just before dinner, the highlight of his day. Tourists traveled from the fancy dive resort once every two weeks. Today felt special to La Ane. He sensed that this would be a day blessed by the gods. The afternoon would pass slowly as he waited for good fortune to arrive.
With tourists coming, he had not been allowed to fish with his father, La Pudda. His mother was planning to spend her day cooking. He was instructed to keep his younger brothers and sisters out of trouble. At the age of ten, he wanted to be with the men farming the seaweed. It was a hot day, and it would have been cooler to be fishing with the sea air on his face. Now he was stuck in the island heat.
He herded his two younger brothers under a large curving palm where the sun was filtered. Their skin was light like that of his mother’s. La Ane was proud that the sun had darkened his arms and face like the fishermen. He was nearly a man, and he told his brothers constantly.
La Ane was to spend this day watching over his three younger sisters as well. He would have to think of ways to amuse to them all. It was too hot to sit and do nothing at all. He held the baby in his arms as he led the line of skipping children in an out of the palms that lined the narrow beach. His six year old sister begged for La Ane to carry her pick her up. She ran behind him. With a leap, she tried to straddle his back. He reprimanded her. He was holding the baby. Grow up, he thought. He was grown. It was time she was too. He was in charge. He directed the children in a parade around the island which lasted for the afternoon.
La Ane wanted the tourist boat to return. He loved the left over sandwiches, freshly cut pineapple, and chocolate cookies that would be given to the children before the boat went back to the private resort on the island in the distance. He gathered the little ones around him.
“We need to make an offering.” He watched his mother make offerings several times a day. He knew how it was done.
The younger brothers and sisters stood still, while La Ane gathered shells from the beach and placed them on a folded strip of a palm frond. They were instructed to remain prayerfully silent. They did as he directed. He spoke a few quiet words, and then placed his offering by a log that had washed ashore. The gods would be pleased. Good fortune was now assured.
La Ane stared to sea as the tour boat pulling the three yellow kayaks disappeared to the north and headed toward the stilt village. The white visitors were annoying, he thought. They insisted on taking his photograph. They rubbed the hair on his head. Adults were not to touch in public. He had been scolded by mother several times to not move, and to let them touch him. The strangers did not know the rules and were not required to obey. He was ten, and too old to be petted like a child. After all, he went fishing with the men of the village. La Ane looked up from his offering. He could hear his mother calling for him to come back to the house in order to change clothes.
Jennifer’s eyes were shaded by her dark blue baseball cap and her Oakley sunglasses. This was the farthest from the Untied States that she had traveled. She was now exactly half way around the globe from home. It was thrilling to be skimming across the turquoise water on this glorious sunny day with Alice and four other friends from the dive resort. None of them had been to Indonesia before. Their eyes scanned the horizon for the stilt village promised in their afternoon tour. They had given up a lunchtime dive to visit the neighboring island and see how the native people live.
It had been suggested that they bring items from American to donate to the area children. Jennifer had brought brightly colored water soluble markers. She had given the art supplies to the front desk of the resort, so that they could be distributed to the local school. When she spotted the first rickety shack on stilts, she wished that she had brought more things to give.
Jennifer squinted at the sun which backlit the tiny blue building that clung to the surface of the water. They bounced along the surf until they were fifty yards from the small rectangular structure. Jennifer tried to remain stoic as she stared at the hut. A dark, tan figure of a man peered around the wall, through the opening that formed the doorway, and stared back at the looking tourists. He checked the watch on his left arm and then ducked behind the privacy of the three quarter wall that formed his house. As the motor boat came closer, Jennifer could see that the thatched grass forming the walls and roof were draped with a blue tarp. This was the same tarping she had used to cover the floor of her garage when she spray painted her lawn furniture at the beginning of the summer. It all looked so flimsy to her. In the distance, rows of huts appeared, lining the horizon like an apartment complex on the surface of the water. Her sympathy for the man hiding behind the wall prevented her from noticing the other details; the solar panel, the wires from the eaves of the roof, and the lucrative piles of seaweed on blue pontoon platforms.
“Oh God, Alice.”
Alice nodded in acknowledgement. Nothing more need be said. They watched the blue hut disappear behind them, as their boat accelerated toward the horizon and their next stop: the stilt village. To their east, Lintea sped by. The small island village would be their last stop. Children ran along the beach, tiny dark figures poking their heads around palm trees to get a better look at the tourists. The white observers were too far from shore to see the smiling face of La Ane, as he watched the boat from the shore. Cameras from the boat snapped in an attempt to freeze the scene, as it disappeared on their left.
With the wind in her face, it was hard for Jennifer to be heard. She yelled to Alice.
“I could have built those huts, and I don’t know how to hammer a nail in straight. Did you see them? Not one wall or roofline was plumb. What do they do in a storm?”
“Storm? What do they do in the rain? There are no windows or doors.”
They fell back into silence as the ramshackle huts, framed by a thick band of waving green palms, merged into mangroves and a coral rimmed coastline. They watched the montage of scenery unfold. A documentary on local Indonesian life opened before them that afternoon, a short boat ride removed from the luxurious five-star hotel. The two guides carefully watched as well. It was their job to see that the visitors from so far away had a pleasant afternoon, and that all of their expectations were met.
The resort boat neared the silt village. The midday sun shone bright and hot on the huts above the water, the elevated walkways, and the canoes tethered to the pylons. It washed away the color and blurred the details of the brown figures looking at the boat passing them by. Men and boys stood by their doorways and stared out at the tourists with their three yellow kayaks. The tourist boat slowed. Hands waved greetings.
“Obama, Obama,” voices could be heard chanting above the motor and surf.
“Obama, Obama,” came the chorus of reply from the boat.
“Everyone loves Obama,” laughed Alice, a democrat.
Now that the stilt village had been seen, the boat accelerated. There were other stops to be made before the sunset cruise back to the hotel and a gourmet dinner. The guides were happy that the tourists were appropriately sympathetic. So far, so good.
The boat and kayaks pulled into a white beach along the black coral coast. Trash littered the uninhabited shore. Pieces of blue tarp, torn strips of netting and empty water bottles dotted the sand. Alice and Jennifer instinctively began to pick up trash and place it into the last canoe. They would leave the beach cleaner than they found it. The tide would bring more trash to the shore as soon as they paddled away. Back at the dive resort, employees were picking up the plastic that was washing ashore. In the morning, they would repeat their endless task.
La Ane and his brothers kicked through the trashed that had washed ashore behind his uncle’s hut. The girls were uninterested in the free treasures that could be found daily on the beach. They sat on a smooth coral rock with the baby and played with her hair. They threaded a pink bow through the dark wisps on the top of her head.
One sister rose to walk along the beach. Her bangs fell in her face as she dreamily looked for bits of red and orange coral at the water’s edge. A grey face with teeth smiled out of a hole. She bent down to pluck a tree-shaped fragment of coral and placed it in her jumper pocket. The eel watched her and receded back into the coral, his eyes shining in the dark recess of his hiding place.
The youngest brother laughed when he found a large pink flip flop that was wedged beneath a palm log on the beach. His two brothers ran closer. La Ane picked up the day’s find and smiled. This was a good omen. He deserved the fortune that would be his today. He had taken good care of his brothers and sisters. He turned when he heard his mother calling again, and gathered them into a line for a parade back to their hut. Their mother waited at the top of the ladder. It was time to change and get ready for the tourists. They would be arriving in an hour or so, and there was a lot to be done. The palm mats need to be put into place. Shirts and shorts needed to be changed, and the ribbons taken out of the hair. All part of a day’s work for the village, and the payment for the visit would be helpful. La Ane knew that he would reap benefits today as well. Like plucking treasures from the shore, good fortune would hand him gifts today. It was just a matter of time.
Alice and Jennifer made good paddling companions. Jennifer dug her paddle into the green water, and Alice steered them safely around the grey trunks of the mangrove trees which looked like southern magnolias growing up from the ocean. They ducked beneath the low hanging branches of large glossy flat leaves. It could have been a swamp thought Jennifer, but the water was clear. They watched blue striped fish and pointed at red crabs. They did not see the anaconda that swam near the narrow yellow kayak. The two guides had failed to mention that there would be large snakes swimming in the Indonesian mangrove forest. Jennifer was not fond of snakes. Her limited knowledge of the surroundings kept her from worrying about danger. Alice was cautious, and watched the branches closely as they glided quietly through the maze of mangrove saplings that buffered the forest from the ocean. The sun sparkled off the top of the water, and the shadows of the trees were disturbed only by the dipping and stoking of paddles. A flying tree snake dropped from the top of a mature mangrove, parachuting through the air to a lower branch, unnoticed by the passing tourists.
Their kayak adventure ended on another liter strewn beach with a rooster waiting in the sand by the shore. He was a striking bird with purple, yellow and black feathers, and a bright red comb. Everything in Indonesia was colorful. While the kayakers landed, Sjarif, the day’s adventure guide, hopped out of the boat and distributed iced white washcloths. It was hot on the island, and the Americans wiped the sweat from their foreheads. Such luxury in the jungle! The cooler was opened, and everyone enjoyed the fresh pineapple, apple slices, and pears. There was so much food that the six tourists left the cookies untouched.
“Would you like to walk through the jungle?” asked Sjarif.
Of course! They were supposed to be going to a seaweed village. Perhaps they would arrive on foot, like native islanders. The six started off in flip flops through the greenery. The coral was uneven, sharp, and unstable. The path was dangerous. Jennifer immediately tore her shoe. Alice twisted her ankle, but not so badly that she could not walk. She had to go slower and watch her steps.
“Oh my,” chuckled Jennifer. “If we were filming an episode of Survivor, we would be all dead by the end of the first night! How do the islanders make it to their village in the dark?”
The iced towels seemed a long way away.
“We are here.”
Sjarif smiled and pointed to the trees in the clearing. The group looked around. They stood in the center of the island jungle in a small open space. Green leaves surrounded them. Vines and bushes merged together into a thick mass of oversized foliage. Only the long leaves sprouting from the top of the few banana trees that encircled them broke the monotony of the landscape.
“This is a banana grove.”
The amazed tourists stared at their guides and took long swigs from their bottled water.
“I thought we were going to a village,” Jennifer whispered to Alice.
The cameras continued to click as the banana trees were photographed. The green bunches of fruit were zoomed in for close ups. A fat pink flower on a thick ribbed stalk curved down from the bananas. It looked like a football suspended in the air. Small new trees grew up from rhizomes that had survived the coral path, as they had. The air was steamy, and there was no village to be seen.
“Would you like to walk further?” they were asked by the guides.
“Is there a village?”
“No.”
“We’ll go back.”
The tourists took photos of their group in the clearing, framed by banana trees. In their pictures, they glistened with sweat. Their eco friendly shirts had been christened by a real jungle. The unnoticed green tree viper and the reticulated python lounged on nearby low branches. They watched the group head back to the beach and the waiting rooster. After the kayaks were tied to the back of the boat, the group motored away through the low light of the late afternoon. They had been in a jungle. It had been hot and rocky. There had not been a village to tour. The only animals they had observed had been crabs, fish, and a rooster. There was one stop remaining on the day’s adventure tour.
La Ane was finally free of his brothers and sisters. He rushed back to the shore. A black chicken ran beneath an elevated hut and hid behind a large woven basket. Mother watched from the top of the three stepped bamboo ladder in the shade of the overhanging thatched roof. She was finished with her cooking. The smell of fried chicken, sambal, and rice wrapped in banana leaves filled the air.
The boys had changed from their surfer shorts into t-shirts and old slacks. The mats had been put in place. The baby cuddled in her mother’s arms. The pink ribbon was folded and placed in a carved wooden box. The two older girls clung to her skirt. They had reluctantly changed out of dresses and into pajama tops and sweat pants. They were ready to receive the western guests. La Ane heard the sound of the motor boat, and now he could see it approaching around the end of the island. He was running so fast that his bare feet barely touched the sand.
The tourists were excited as well. They had been waiting all day to come to the island of seaweed farmers. They watched a small band of young children sprint along the shore to see where the boat would land. Their clothes were as colorful as crayons in a box with their brightly dyed t-shits and unmatched pants.
Alice turned to Jennifer and put her hand on her friend’s shoulder.
“Aren’t they adorable?”
The cameras clicked off photos of the children as the boat pulled into shore. La Ane was in the front, the first ambassador to the seaweed village. The six children stood still, and waited as the six tourists emerged onto the beach. The Americans wore brightly colored clothing. To the boys and girls, they looked like the new colorful markers from school. The divers squatted to be at their level and smiled.
“Hello. Do you speak English?”
“Hello, hello,” parroted the children.
“Do you speak English?”
“Hello, Hello,” came the response. This was the only English word the children knew.
Jennifer pulled her small digital camera from the pocket of her shorts. La Ane and his brothers ran to her side and looked at the camera. They knew what would come next. It was always the same.
“May we take your picture?”
Jennifer held the camera out in straight arms, and then made a gesture with her index finger as if she were taking a photograph. Alice brought her outstretched arms together, trying to make the children group together for a better composition.
“Do you speak English? May we take your picture?”
The photographers’ heads moved up and down as if answering their own inquiry by nodding . Jennifer touched the arm of the eldest boy. She patted it softly and showed him the camera. La Ane stiffened, and the smile faded from his face. He did not like the touch. His brothers and sisters saw his expression, and their faces became serious too. Alice gently moved the children close together, and a picture was quickly snapped.
Jennifer turned the camera for the staring children to see. They were thrilled at their image on the screen. They began to laugh and grab for the camera. The photographers laughed. They had communicated without words. Jennifer was pleased.
“Did you see your frozen expression?” La Ane’s younger brother teased in Indonesian. “You look like you stepped on a stone fish, and he turned your face to stone. You are a stone face stone fish!”
“Shut up!”
“Stone face! Stone face!”
La Ane pushed his laughing brother in the soft sand.
Jennifer began to walk toward the first elevated hut by the water. Two women sat on their knees working with a pile of seaweed, seemingly oblivious to the tourist who had just bent down and joined them beneath the floor of the hut. Jennifer smiled.
“Do you speak English?”
The two women continued with their work and giggled, as they made eye contact. Jennifer showed them the camera, opened her eyes in appeal, and made an exaggerated gesture of taking a photograph. She nodded her head up and down. They nodded back. Several pictures clicked, as they threaded wet pieces of golden seaweed onto long blue cords.
Jennifer nodded a goodbye and emerged from beneath the hut feeling awkward. She had intruded. She felt for the first time that she was in a place she should not be, an interloper in the lives of others. She wondered how the islanders felt about the cameras and stares. Even with smiles, the tour was beginning to feel like a trip to the zoo. She wondered who was watching whom. She needed to walk through the village alone, without the children, and without the other tourists. She took photographs, as she wandered to the center of a circle of huts, away from the water.
There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the construction of the structures. Some were lower to the ground with short wooden ladders at the entrance. Others were built on higher stilts with taller bamboo ladders at the front. One wall might be made from panels of intricately woven palm fronds, while another, of roof thatching held in place by random strips of wood. Nothing appeared orderly or measured. Every hut had bundles of wood, burlap sacks, and water jugs beneath the floor. Wet clothes were hung on the lines that had been strung between the supporting stilts. As she peered around the houses, chickens and ducks ran in the sand. Jennifer continued to worry that a storm would blow the inhabitants away. She was happy to see one porch covered with corrugated tin. Finally a building material with which she could relate.
In the center of the village was a circle of black coral rocks. Sjarif had joined her and explained that this was a temporary grave. There was no cemetery on the island. The dead were cremated, an important part of the religion and culture. If the family of someone who died was too poor to afford the elaborate meals, decorations and carvings required for the cremation ceremony, the dead would have to rest in the ground for a while. Eventually a public cremation would be held, and the village would share the cost. This might take as long as ten years. It was a humbling experience for a family to wait for cremation. Sjarif paused in his explanation. Jennifer looked at the simple circle of stone in the sand and the folded green palm leaf offering in the center. She felt humbled too.
Her thoughts were broken by the confusion of the rush of children grabbing for her camera. A crowd had gathered. The younger ones begged to be photographed. Several adults had come down from the ladders. A woman in a yellow t-shirt stopped grinding tapioca in a flat round basket , dusted the white powder from her hands, and left her cell phone on the floor of the porch before she climbed down to join the group in the village center. La Pudda had appeared. He stood near the grave.
Sjarif explained to the dive group, that La Pudda was the oldest member of the village and their chief. He was fifty-eight years old and looked eighty. Alice and Jennifer felt very old. They were both fifty-eight. La Pudda stood no taller than Jennifer, who was short. He puffed out his chest and crossed his arms as he posed for dozens of photographs. He had a grey goatee and bushy grey eyebrows. He felt handsome in his red and blue polo shirt, narrow black hat and baggy black drawstring pants. He had produced sixteen children with four wives. He had populated a village. The blood flowed well in the middle section of his body. He turned to pinch and grab at the guides.
“What’s happening?” Alice asked.
“He wants to know if my blood flow is good. If I can have sixteen children.”
Sjarif was a Muslim and embarrassed with prodding in front of the women. Everyone laughed and stared at Sjarif. It was an interesting thought. Could Sjarif have sixteen children?
“Where are La Pudda’s other wives. Did they die?”
“No. They live on nearby islands. He visits them from time to time. Gives them fish or money when he has it.”
La Pudda came closer and laughed through his missing teeth. He poked at Sjarif again. Jennifer was single. She was grateful that she did not live on this island with La Pudda strutting around, looking for blood flow, and single handedly populating this part of Indonesia. She did not see Sjarif place money in the pocket of his baggy pants. They spoke in Indonesian. She felt terrible that she had not learned more than a few simple words of greetings. She wished that she had something to give, something to leave behind of herself. The art markers that she had brought from home had been given away. She should have brought more.
The afternoon was almost gone. The sky was streaked with purple and pink. The reflections of the sun in the water to the west were bright and long. It was time for the tourists to say goodbye and leave for their resort where their huts had internet connections, warm showers, and freshly folded towels waiting on the beds for them. They had all the comforts of home with the exception of televisions. By at night, the divers were too tired to watch television anyway. They were on a remote island. They were grateful for the showers.
As they stepped into the boat to leave, Jennifer watched the oldest boy in the bright green shirt and the yellow pants waving goodbye by the shore. She knew then what needed to be done. She turned to climb out of the boat. The guides were pushing the bow back into the surf when they stopped her.
“No. No. Don’t get out.”
“I want to give him my hat.”
She pointed to La Ane and began to pull her Duke hat from her head. Her blond pony tail had been drawn through the back. The blue hat dropped into the water. Sjarif retrieved it.
“Please. Please give it to the boy in the green shirt.”
La Ane watched as the guide picked the lady’s hat out of the ocean. He could not figure out why she was trying to get out of the boat. Then the guide came right to him and presented him with the baseball cap. La Ane placed it on his head, and ran back to the other children who were waving on the beach behind him.
The boat pulled away. The three yellow canoes trailed in the failing light of the day. The tourists had remained longer than had been arranged. The children ran toward the pile of cookies, apples, and fresh pineapple. The baby sat in her mother’s lap with a chocolate chip cookie smeared on her face. La Ane was first to grab a fat sweet section of cut pineapple. His brother poked a finger at the brim of the baseball cap.
“Hey. Did you get anything else from the tourists other than that hat?”
La Ane’s mouth was full of pineapple. He shook his head no. His brother looked disappointed.
“You didn’t get those sunglasses.”
“No. And they were nice. They were Oakleys.”
“The hat’s ok.”
“Wish it had been a UNC cap. I like Michael Jordan. Anyway, I was rooting for Butler during the NCAA basketball championship last week. Not Duke.”
La Ane was beginning to feel that fortune had let him down. He had made offerings and everything. He was trying to figure out where he had gone wrong.
“Oh well. They will bring more people back again in a couple of weeks. Maybe we will get something better then. Let’s go in and watch ESPN. We can find a good game to watch during dinner. The World Cup is coming up soon.”
The two boys headed back toward their hut. Their mother had already removed the palm mats covering the flat screen television. CNN played in the background. She talked with her older sister on Tomea Island on her cell phone, while she dished out rice, sambal, and fried chicken. She had driven the jeep back from behind the bushes and parked it under the hut. The pink ribbon had been tied in the baby’s hair. Family life was back to normal, for at least two weeks, until the tourists returned.
Jennifer walked to the bar at the end of the resort dock. Alice was already there, red wine in hand and enjoying a bowl of cashews. The other divers, who had missed the tour to the stilt village, were firing off questions about the excursion. Jennifer told the details of the trip. She ended her tale simply.
“It was moving.”
The six tourists who had traveled together that day, all agreed how lucky they were. Thanks to good fortune, they were born in the US. Fate had smiled on them. Jennifer was happy that her hat was now living on Lintea Island. She wondered how her gift might affect the child in the green shirt. Perhaps one day, he might come to the United States for school. She knew that her gift had affected her. She would remember this child forever, and pray for his future.
“Let’s head to dinner.” Alice put down her empty wine glass. “I want to see if anyone has heard how the Yankee game turned out. This is about the only news I miss out here in the middle of nowhere.”
Sjarif and the other guide smiled from the bar. Their mission had been accomplished. The tour was successful. The anaconda, the python, the cell phone, and the flat screen had all been avoided. The tourist had enjoyed the jungle and a native Indonesian village. The two guides would have a beer when the resort guests left the bar for their gourmet dinner in the dining room. It had been a good day for almost everyone.
La Ane threw the blue cap in a large carved wooden box in the corner of his hut. It fell on top of a pile of other baseball caps. He now realized what he really needed in life. He needed a new pair of sunglasses. He would dream of Oakley sunglasses that night and make offerings to the gods in the morning. He felt sure that on the next tourist visit, the gods would bless him. Good fortune would come his way. Sunglasses would be in his future.
In the background, the Red Socks were losing to the Yankees on television. The black chicken hid beneath the hut, grateful that it had not been the evening meal. On another part of the island, the python slid from the tree and headed toward the beach and the waiting rooster.
With tourists coming, he had not been allowed to fish with his father, La Pudda. His mother was planning to spend her day cooking. He was instructed to keep his younger brothers and sisters out of trouble. At the age of ten, he wanted to be with the men farming the seaweed. It was a hot day, and it would have been cooler to be fishing with the sea air on his face. Now he was stuck in the island heat.
He herded his two younger brothers under a large curving palm where the sun was filtered. Their skin was light like that of his mother’s. La Ane was proud that the sun had darkened his arms and face like the fishermen. He was nearly a man, and he told his brothers constantly.
La Ane was to spend this day watching over his three younger sisters as well. He would have to think of ways to amuse to them all. It was too hot to sit and do nothing at all. He held the baby in his arms as he led the line of skipping children in an out of the palms that lined the narrow beach. His six year old sister begged for La Ane to carry her pick her up. She ran behind him. With a leap, she tried to straddle his back. He reprimanded her. He was holding the baby. Grow up, he thought. He was grown. It was time she was too. He was in charge. He directed the children in a parade around the island which lasted for the afternoon.
La Ane wanted the tourist boat to return. He loved the left over sandwiches, freshly cut pineapple, and chocolate cookies that would be given to the children before the boat went back to the private resort on the island in the distance. He gathered the little ones around him.
“We need to make an offering.” He watched his mother make offerings several times a day. He knew how it was done.
The younger brothers and sisters stood still, while La Ane gathered shells from the beach and placed them on a folded strip of a palm frond. They were instructed to remain prayerfully silent. They did as he directed. He spoke a few quiet words, and then placed his offering by a log that had washed ashore. The gods would be pleased. Good fortune was now assured.
La Ane stared to sea as the tour boat pulling the three yellow kayaks disappeared to the north and headed toward the stilt village. The white visitors were annoying, he thought. They insisted on taking his photograph. They rubbed the hair on his head. Adults were not to touch in public. He had been scolded by mother several times to not move, and to let them touch him. The strangers did not know the rules and were not required to obey. He was ten, and too old to be petted like a child. After all, he went fishing with the men of the village. La Ane looked up from his offering. He could hear his mother calling for him to come back to the house in order to change clothes.
Jennifer’s eyes were shaded by her dark blue baseball cap and her Oakley sunglasses. This was the farthest from the Untied States that she had traveled. She was now exactly half way around the globe from home. It was thrilling to be skimming across the turquoise water on this glorious sunny day with Alice and four other friends from the dive resort. None of them had been to Indonesia before. Their eyes scanned the horizon for the stilt village promised in their afternoon tour. They had given up a lunchtime dive to visit the neighboring island and see how the native people live.
It had been suggested that they bring items from American to donate to the area children. Jennifer had brought brightly colored water soluble markers. She had given the art supplies to the front desk of the resort, so that they could be distributed to the local school. When she spotted the first rickety shack on stilts, she wished that she had brought more things to give.
Jennifer squinted at the sun which backlit the tiny blue building that clung to the surface of the water. They bounced along the surf until they were fifty yards from the small rectangular structure. Jennifer tried to remain stoic as she stared at the hut. A dark, tan figure of a man peered around the wall, through the opening that formed the doorway, and stared back at the looking tourists. He checked the watch on his left arm and then ducked behind the privacy of the three quarter wall that formed his house. As the motor boat came closer, Jennifer could see that the thatched grass forming the walls and roof were draped with a blue tarp. This was the same tarping she had used to cover the floor of her garage when she spray painted her lawn furniture at the beginning of the summer. It all looked so flimsy to her. In the distance, rows of huts appeared, lining the horizon like an apartment complex on the surface of the water. Her sympathy for the man hiding behind the wall prevented her from noticing the other details; the solar panel, the wires from the eaves of the roof, and the lucrative piles of seaweed on blue pontoon platforms.
“Oh God, Alice.”
Alice nodded in acknowledgement. Nothing more need be said. They watched the blue hut disappear behind them, as their boat accelerated toward the horizon and their next stop: the stilt village. To their east, Lintea sped by. The small island village would be their last stop. Children ran along the beach, tiny dark figures poking their heads around palm trees to get a better look at the tourists. The white observers were too far from shore to see the smiling face of La Ane, as he watched the boat from the shore. Cameras from the boat snapped in an attempt to freeze the scene, as it disappeared on their left.
With the wind in her face, it was hard for Jennifer to be heard. She yelled to Alice.
“I could have built those huts, and I don’t know how to hammer a nail in straight. Did you see them? Not one wall or roofline was plumb. What do they do in a storm?”
“Storm? What do they do in the rain? There are no windows or doors.”
They fell back into silence as the ramshackle huts, framed by a thick band of waving green palms, merged into mangroves and a coral rimmed coastline. They watched the montage of scenery unfold. A documentary on local Indonesian life opened before them that afternoon, a short boat ride removed from the luxurious five-star hotel. The two guides carefully watched as well. It was their job to see that the visitors from so far away had a pleasant afternoon, and that all of their expectations were met.
The resort boat neared the silt village. The midday sun shone bright and hot on the huts above the water, the elevated walkways, and the canoes tethered to the pylons. It washed away the color and blurred the details of the brown figures looking at the boat passing them by. Men and boys stood by their doorways and stared out at the tourists with their three yellow kayaks. The tourist boat slowed. Hands waved greetings.
“Obama, Obama,” voices could be heard chanting above the motor and surf.
“Obama, Obama,” came the chorus of reply from the boat.
“Everyone loves Obama,” laughed Alice, a democrat.
Now that the stilt village had been seen, the boat accelerated. There were other stops to be made before the sunset cruise back to the hotel and a gourmet dinner. The guides were happy that the tourists were appropriately sympathetic. So far, so good.
The boat and kayaks pulled into a white beach along the black coral coast. Trash littered the uninhabited shore. Pieces of blue tarp, torn strips of netting and empty water bottles dotted the sand. Alice and Jennifer instinctively began to pick up trash and place it into the last canoe. They would leave the beach cleaner than they found it. The tide would bring more trash to the shore as soon as they paddled away. Back at the dive resort, employees were picking up the plastic that was washing ashore. In the morning, they would repeat their endless task.
La Ane and his brothers kicked through the trashed that had washed ashore behind his uncle’s hut. The girls were uninterested in the free treasures that could be found daily on the beach. They sat on a smooth coral rock with the baby and played with her hair. They threaded a pink bow through the dark wisps on the top of her head.
One sister rose to walk along the beach. Her bangs fell in her face as she dreamily looked for bits of red and orange coral at the water’s edge. A grey face with teeth smiled out of a hole. She bent down to pluck a tree-shaped fragment of coral and placed it in her jumper pocket. The eel watched her and receded back into the coral, his eyes shining in the dark recess of his hiding place.
The youngest brother laughed when he found a large pink flip flop that was wedged beneath a palm log on the beach. His two brothers ran closer. La Ane picked up the day’s find and smiled. This was a good omen. He deserved the fortune that would be his today. He had taken good care of his brothers and sisters. He turned when he heard his mother calling again, and gathered them into a line for a parade back to their hut. Their mother waited at the top of the ladder. It was time to change and get ready for the tourists. They would be arriving in an hour or so, and there was a lot to be done. The palm mats need to be put into place. Shirts and shorts needed to be changed, and the ribbons taken out of the hair. All part of a day’s work for the village, and the payment for the visit would be helpful. La Ane knew that he would reap benefits today as well. Like plucking treasures from the shore, good fortune would hand him gifts today. It was just a matter of time.
Alice and Jennifer made good paddling companions. Jennifer dug her paddle into the green water, and Alice steered them safely around the grey trunks of the mangrove trees which looked like southern magnolias growing up from the ocean. They ducked beneath the low hanging branches of large glossy flat leaves. It could have been a swamp thought Jennifer, but the water was clear. They watched blue striped fish and pointed at red crabs. They did not see the anaconda that swam near the narrow yellow kayak. The two guides had failed to mention that there would be large snakes swimming in the Indonesian mangrove forest. Jennifer was not fond of snakes. Her limited knowledge of the surroundings kept her from worrying about danger. Alice was cautious, and watched the branches closely as they glided quietly through the maze of mangrove saplings that buffered the forest from the ocean. The sun sparkled off the top of the water, and the shadows of the trees were disturbed only by the dipping and stoking of paddles. A flying tree snake dropped from the top of a mature mangrove, parachuting through the air to a lower branch, unnoticed by the passing tourists.
Their kayak adventure ended on another liter strewn beach with a rooster waiting in the sand by the shore. He was a striking bird with purple, yellow and black feathers, and a bright red comb. Everything in Indonesia was colorful. While the kayakers landed, Sjarif, the day’s adventure guide, hopped out of the boat and distributed iced white washcloths. It was hot on the island, and the Americans wiped the sweat from their foreheads. Such luxury in the jungle! The cooler was opened, and everyone enjoyed the fresh pineapple, apple slices, and pears. There was so much food that the six tourists left the cookies untouched.
“Would you like to walk through the jungle?” asked Sjarif.
Of course! They were supposed to be going to a seaweed village. Perhaps they would arrive on foot, like native islanders. The six started off in flip flops through the greenery. The coral was uneven, sharp, and unstable. The path was dangerous. Jennifer immediately tore her shoe. Alice twisted her ankle, but not so badly that she could not walk. She had to go slower and watch her steps.
“Oh my,” chuckled Jennifer. “If we were filming an episode of Survivor, we would be all dead by the end of the first night! How do the islanders make it to their village in the dark?”
The iced towels seemed a long way away.
“We are here.”
Sjarif smiled and pointed to the trees in the clearing. The group looked around. They stood in the center of the island jungle in a small open space. Green leaves surrounded them. Vines and bushes merged together into a thick mass of oversized foliage. Only the long leaves sprouting from the top of the few banana trees that encircled them broke the monotony of the landscape.
“This is a banana grove.”
The amazed tourists stared at their guides and took long swigs from their bottled water.
“I thought we were going to a village,” Jennifer whispered to Alice.
The cameras continued to click as the banana trees were photographed. The green bunches of fruit were zoomed in for close ups. A fat pink flower on a thick ribbed stalk curved down from the bananas. It looked like a football suspended in the air. Small new trees grew up from rhizomes that had survived the coral path, as they had. The air was steamy, and there was no village to be seen.
“Would you like to walk further?” they were asked by the guides.
“Is there a village?”
“No.”
“We’ll go back.”
The tourists took photos of their group in the clearing, framed by banana trees. In their pictures, they glistened with sweat. Their eco friendly shirts had been christened by a real jungle. The unnoticed green tree viper and the reticulated python lounged on nearby low branches. They watched the group head back to the beach and the waiting rooster. After the kayaks were tied to the back of the boat, the group motored away through the low light of the late afternoon. They had been in a jungle. It had been hot and rocky. There had not been a village to tour. The only animals they had observed had been crabs, fish, and a rooster. There was one stop remaining on the day’s adventure tour.
La Ane was finally free of his brothers and sisters. He rushed back to the shore. A black chicken ran beneath an elevated hut and hid behind a large woven basket. Mother watched from the top of the three stepped bamboo ladder in the shade of the overhanging thatched roof. She was finished with her cooking. The smell of fried chicken, sambal, and rice wrapped in banana leaves filled the air.
The boys had changed from their surfer shorts into t-shirts and old slacks. The mats had been put in place. The baby cuddled in her mother’s arms. The pink ribbon was folded and placed in a carved wooden box. The two older girls clung to her skirt. They had reluctantly changed out of dresses and into pajama tops and sweat pants. They were ready to receive the western guests. La Ane heard the sound of the motor boat, and now he could see it approaching around the end of the island. He was running so fast that his bare feet barely touched the sand.
The tourists were excited as well. They had been waiting all day to come to the island of seaweed farmers. They watched a small band of young children sprint along the shore to see where the boat would land. Their clothes were as colorful as crayons in a box with their brightly dyed t-shits and unmatched pants.
Alice turned to Jennifer and put her hand on her friend’s shoulder.
“Aren’t they adorable?”
The cameras clicked off photos of the children as the boat pulled into shore. La Ane was in the front, the first ambassador to the seaweed village. The six children stood still, and waited as the six tourists emerged onto the beach. The Americans wore brightly colored clothing. To the boys and girls, they looked like the new colorful markers from school. The divers squatted to be at their level and smiled.
“Hello. Do you speak English?”
“Hello, hello,” parroted the children.
“Do you speak English?”
“Hello, Hello,” came the response. This was the only English word the children knew.
Jennifer pulled her small digital camera from the pocket of her shorts. La Ane and his brothers ran to her side and looked at the camera. They knew what would come next. It was always the same.
“May we take your picture?”
Jennifer held the camera out in straight arms, and then made a gesture with her index finger as if she were taking a photograph. Alice brought her outstretched arms together, trying to make the children group together for a better composition.
“Do you speak English? May we take your picture?”
The photographers’ heads moved up and down as if answering their own inquiry by nodding . Jennifer touched the arm of the eldest boy. She patted it softly and showed him the camera. La Ane stiffened, and the smile faded from his face. He did not like the touch. His brothers and sisters saw his expression, and their faces became serious too. Alice gently moved the children close together, and a picture was quickly snapped.
Jennifer turned the camera for the staring children to see. They were thrilled at their image on the screen. They began to laugh and grab for the camera. The photographers laughed. They had communicated without words. Jennifer was pleased.
“Did you see your frozen expression?” La Ane’s younger brother teased in Indonesian. “You look like you stepped on a stone fish, and he turned your face to stone. You are a stone face stone fish!”
“Shut up!”
“Stone face! Stone face!”
La Ane pushed his laughing brother in the soft sand.
Jennifer began to walk toward the first elevated hut by the water. Two women sat on their knees working with a pile of seaweed, seemingly oblivious to the tourist who had just bent down and joined them beneath the floor of the hut. Jennifer smiled.
“Do you speak English?”
The two women continued with their work and giggled, as they made eye contact. Jennifer showed them the camera, opened her eyes in appeal, and made an exaggerated gesture of taking a photograph. She nodded her head up and down. They nodded back. Several pictures clicked, as they threaded wet pieces of golden seaweed onto long blue cords.
Jennifer nodded a goodbye and emerged from beneath the hut feeling awkward. She had intruded. She felt for the first time that she was in a place she should not be, an interloper in the lives of others. She wondered how the islanders felt about the cameras and stares. Even with smiles, the tour was beginning to feel like a trip to the zoo. She wondered who was watching whom. She needed to walk through the village alone, without the children, and without the other tourists. She took photographs, as she wandered to the center of a circle of huts, away from the water.
There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the construction of the structures. Some were lower to the ground with short wooden ladders at the entrance. Others were built on higher stilts with taller bamboo ladders at the front. One wall might be made from panels of intricately woven palm fronds, while another, of roof thatching held in place by random strips of wood. Nothing appeared orderly or measured. Every hut had bundles of wood, burlap sacks, and water jugs beneath the floor. Wet clothes were hung on the lines that had been strung between the supporting stilts. As she peered around the houses, chickens and ducks ran in the sand. Jennifer continued to worry that a storm would blow the inhabitants away. She was happy to see one porch covered with corrugated tin. Finally a building material with which she could relate.
In the center of the village was a circle of black coral rocks. Sjarif had joined her and explained that this was a temporary grave. There was no cemetery on the island. The dead were cremated, an important part of the religion and culture. If the family of someone who died was too poor to afford the elaborate meals, decorations and carvings required for the cremation ceremony, the dead would have to rest in the ground for a while. Eventually a public cremation would be held, and the village would share the cost. This might take as long as ten years. It was a humbling experience for a family to wait for cremation. Sjarif paused in his explanation. Jennifer looked at the simple circle of stone in the sand and the folded green palm leaf offering in the center. She felt humbled too.
Her thoughts were broken by the confusion of the rush of children grabbing for her camera. A crowd had gathered. The younger ones begged to be photographed. Several adults had come down from the ladders. A woman in a yellow t-shirt stopped grinding tapioca in a flat round basket , dusted the white powder from her hands, and left her cell phone on the floor of the porch before she climbed down to join the group in the village center. La Pudda had appeared. He stood near the grave.
Sjarif explained to the dive group, that La Pudda was the oldest member of the village and their chief. He was fifty-eight years old and looked eighty. Alice and Jennifer felt very old. They were both fifty-eight. La Pudda stood no taller than Jennifer, who was short. He puffed out his chest and crossed his arms as he posed for dozens of photographs. He had a grey goatee and bushy grey eyebrows. He felt handsome in his red and blue polo shirt, narrow black hat and baggy black drawstring pants. He had produced sixteen children with four wives. He had populated a village. The blood flowed well in the middle section of his body. He turned to pinch and grab at the guides.
“What’s happening?” Alice asked.
“He wants to know if my blood flow is good. If I can have sixteen children.”
Sjarif was a Muslim and embarrassed with prodding in front of the women. Everyone laughed and stared at Sjarif. It was an interesting thought. Could Sjarif have sixteen children?
“Where are La Pudda’s other wives. Did they die?”
“No. They live on nearby islands. He visits them from time to time. Gives them fish or money when he has it.”
La Pudda came closer and laughed through his missing teeth. He poked at Sjarif again. Jennifer was single. She was grateful that she did not live on this island with La Pudda strutting around, looking for blood flow, and single handedly populating this part of Indonesia. She did not see Sjarif place money in the pocket of his baggy pants. They spoke in Indonesian. She felt terrible that she had not learned more than a few simple words of greetings. She wished that she had something to give, something to leave behind of herself. The art markers that she had brought from home had been given away. She should have brought more.
The afternoon was almost gone. The sky was streaked with purple and pink. The reflections of the sun in the water to the west were bright and long. It was time for the tourists to say goodbye and leave for their resort where their huts had internet connections, warm showers, and freshly folded towels waiting on the beds for them. They had all the comforts of home with the exception of televisions. By at night, the divers were too tired to watch television anyway. They were on a remote island. They were grateful for the showers.
As they stepped into the boat to leave, Jennifer watched the oldest boy in the bright green shirt and the yellow pants waving goodbye by the shore. She knew then what needed to be done. She turned to climb out of the boat. The guides were pushing the bow back into the surf when they stopped her.
“No. No. Don’t get out.”
“I want to give him my hat.”
She pointed to La Ane and began to pull her Duke hat from her head. Her blond pony tail had been drawn through the back. The blue hat dropped into the water. Sjarif retrieved it.
“Please. Please give it to the boy in the green shirt.”
La Ane watched as the guide picked the lady’s hat out of the ocean. He could not figure out why she was trying to get out of the boat. Then the guide came right to him and presented him with the baseball cap. La Ane placed it on his head, and ran back to the other children who were waving on the beach behind him.
The boat pulled away. The three yellow canoes trailed in the failing light of the day. The tourists had remained longer than had been arranged. The children ran toward the pile of cookies, apples, and fresh pineapple. The baby sat in her mother’s lap with a chocolate chip cookie smeared on her face. La Ane was first to grab a fat sweet section of cut pineapple. His brother poked a finger at the brim of the baseball cap.
“Hey. Did you get anything else from the tourists other than that hat?”
La Ane’s mouth was full of pineapple. He shook his head no. His brother looked disappointed.
“You didn’t get those sunglasses.”
“No. And they were nice. They were Oakleys.”
“The hat’s ok.”
“Wish it had been a UNC cap. I like Michael Jordan. Anyway, I was rooting for Butler during the NCAA basketball championship last week. Not Duke.”
La Ane was beginning to feel that fortune had let him down. He had made offerings and everything. He was trying to figure out where he had gone wrong.
“Oh well. They will bring more people back again in a couple of weeks. Maybe we will get something better then. Let’s go in and watch ESPN. We can find a good game to watch during dinner. The World Cup is coming up soon.”
The two boys headed back toward their hut. Their mother had already removed the palm mats covering the flat screen television. CNN played in the background. She talked with her older sister on Tomea Island on her cell phone, while she dished out rice, sambal, and fried chicken. She had driven the jeep back from behind the bushes and parked it under the hut. The pink ribbon had been tied in the baby’s hair. Family life was back to normal, for at least two weeks, until the tourists returned.
Jennifer walked to the bar at the end of the resort dock. Alice was already there, red wine in hand and enjoying a bowl of cashews. The other divers, who had missed the tour to the stilt village, were firing off questions about the excursion. Jennifer told the details of the trip. She ended her tale simply.
“It was moving.”
The six tourists who had traveled together that day, all agreed how lucky they were. Thanks to good fortune, they were born in the US. Fate had smiled on them. Jennifer was happy that her hat was now living on Lintea Island. She wondered how her gift might affect the child in the green shirt. Perhaps one day, he might come to the United States for school. She knew that her gift had affected her. She would remember this child forever, and pray for his future.
“Let’s head to dinner.” Alice put down her empty wine glass. “I want to see if anyone has heard how the Yankee game turned out. This is about the only news I miss out here in the middle of nowhere.”
Sjarif and the other guide smiled from the bar. Their mission had been accomplished. The tour was successful. The anaconda, the python, the cell phone, and the flat screen had all been avoided. The tourist had enjoyed the jungle and a native Indonesian village. The two guides would have a beer when the resort guests left the bar for their gourmet dinner in the dining room. It had been a good day for almost everyone.
La Ane threw the blue cap in a large carved wooden box in the corner of his hut. It fell on top of a pile of other baseball caps. He now realized what he really needed in life. He needed a new pair of sunglasses. He would dream of Oakley sunglasses that night and make offerings to the gods in the morning. He felt sure that on the next tourist visit, the gods would bless him. Good fortune would come his way. Sunglasses would be in his future.
In the background, the Red Socks were losing to the Yankees on television. The black chicken hid beneath the hut, grateful that it had not been the evening meal. On another part of the island, the python slid from the tree and headed toward the beach and the waiting rooster.
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