It’s remarkable how much a month in someone else’s world can
affect your perspective. I recently returned from a month stint in the village
of Tembak, right in the heart of Borneo, and I feel like my brain had a little
bit of a rewiring.
Sticking my head through the jet of water coming out of the
bottom of the hydroelectric plant. The water is carried down a tube and shoots
out against the waterwheel, turning the wheel and generating electricity.
The oldest lady in the area, supposedly 135, though from the age of her kids, that might be debated (can women have children when they are 79?). The tale goes that if you look at her teeth, she will steal a year from your life and use it herself.
I guess the first
thing I should comment on is that I have had the world of internet at my
fingertips pretty much every day since I was 13 years old. I have spent a good
chunk of the last 10 years sat in front of a computer, browsing, gaming,
communicating and researching (and other things which I won’t go into…). On top
of that, I am in constant communication with friends and family by phone, and
it’s expected of me to be available to chat. To be thrown for over a month into
a world where many of the older generation have never even heard of the
internet and where getting good phone signal requires a 40 minute trek up telephone
hill (no joke) was a new experience. It
was OK at first, but after a few weeks, it felt so strange to know that the
world was going on behind closed doors. Emails, phone calls, Facebook comments
were all building up. The world could be falling to its knees and we wouldn’t
have a clue. To add to this, time started melt into itself. I find it almost
impossible to order the experiences that I had there. With a similar agenda
every day, and with no input from the outside world, there were no milestones
to mark intervals of time. Days of the week and times of the day became less
and less relevant. It was either dark or light, rainy or dry, too hot for work
or not. Eventually, though, like every new experience, you get used to it, and
it becomes normal.
So I guess the key skill I learnt on my time in Tembak was
letting go of time. In the culture I grew up in, we are constantly harassed by
deadlines, distractions and data. We have diaries, agendas and timetables which
must be adhered to in order to make life run smoothly. We always have tasks at
the back of our head and people breathing over our shoulders. There is very
little space for just sitting back and looking at the present, and instead many
of us complain about boredom when we have nothing to do. My time in Tembak
helped me to relieve this feeling and to realise that if I have time to sit
back and clear my mind, that’s OK, and even healthy.
I‘m sure being surrounded by nature is a huge catalyst for
this in Tembak. We all have an inbuilt love of the natural world and it can
spellbound us. That’s clear from the popularity of shows like Planet Earth. I
spent a lot of time during my stay on my own, just staring at the world around
me, whether that was in the rainforest or in the village on the veranda
watching the Gods piss from the skies. It feels so natural to be in nature,
especially in Borneo. Nature is so raw and complex here that even the most
hardened, city dwelling Eco-Warriors in the group have been entranced by it at
some point in this trip. It can squeeze all thoughts out of you like
toothpaste.
In addition, nature has its own set of deadlines and cycles
of time. There are periods of the year that you must plant your crops, and
parts of the year when you must harvest them. There are sustainable methods you
must use in order to maintain a quality environment, including not chopping
down all the trees good for timber without replacing them. But at the same
time, when you live in nature, there are often times when weather or the
environment does not permit you to work. For example, Tembak villagers do not
work in the rain, because generations of experience have told them that working
in the rain for an hour or two increases your chances of making you sick for
days. For this reason, the locals can often be found relaxing, and the pace of
life is much slower. Their concept of time is much more founded in the present.
Even their language reflects this, with the word “sudah” representing any time
in the past and “akan” representing any time in the future, unless a certain
time is specified (which more often than not it isn’t). “Mungkin nanti” or “maybe later” is a phrase
used often (frustratingly so) in Indonesia and especially in Tembak.
This is a refreshing way to live, but it provides a problem
if you have a task to fulfil and only a limited time to achieve it. We have had
80 days to come up and implement a sustainable reforestation, eco-tourism and
animal rehabilitation programme for Tembak, get to know the culture and
language, and do all of this whilst living and breathing this snail-paced life.
To make it even more complicated, locals are so brilliantly polite that they
will often tell you that something is fine to do just so as to be rude and tell
you that it’s not. We hit this wall over and over again, and it had some
frustrating consequences. For example, one of our key aims for our time in
Borneo was to set up a community seedling nursery for the village – somewhere
where locals can come to buy or swap useful timber, fruit and medicinal
seedlings to enrich their land and forests. We started 4 community nurseries.
Four bloody nurseries. Each time we would think we had found the perfect spot,
and confirmed the spot with the locals, another local would tell us about a
fundamental problem with it that the original locals knew but didn’t want to
tell us about out of politeness. It was a long process, but eventually, after a
lot of to-ing and fro-ing, we settled on a spot.
So now, one month down the line, we have a community nursery
ready for seedlings over the coming years. It may not seem much, but our
presence in Tembak and our enthusiasm for reforestation has certainly got
locals interested in getting involved, especially those locals who were
passionate about reforestation before we came. I can see exciting things
developing.
During our time in Tembak, we were joined by half a dozen
Action Agents from around the world – individuals who have raised $5000 for the
project in the last year and so were invited to join the Eco-Warriors in
Borneo. They were a fantastic bunch, and really brought a new energy to the
group dynamic. They have been so passionate about the project since it started
and getting to know them was really a privilege. I can’t wait to work with them
all in the future of the DeforestACTION project.
We will be returning to Tembak at the end of this week for 5
days, and we have plans to line the main street with fruit trees with the help
of the locals. It’s going to be incredibly sad to say goodbye. It has been such
a unique honour to get to know Tembak and its people and culture, but I do have
plans to return some time over the next few months, and hopefully one day I
will return for an even longer stint. After having my camera and photos stolen,
I need to go and recapture as much as I can! For now, Eco-Warrior Paul Daley
has kindly leant me some of the photos he took over the trip. Enjoy!
Agung, a local 21-year-old Dayak, has a smoking break next
to some polybags we have prepared for seedlings in the nursery. I hope to get
some snaps of the finished nursery when I return tomorrow.
Mixing the magic potion – in order to make the soil for the
seedlings more “fluffy”, so that the plants’ roots can grow uniformly, we mix
in some rice husk into the soil, which would otherwise be wasted. Along with this,
we chucked in some charcoal to provide some nutrients for the plants as they
grow.
Shaving jungle style, with blunt scissors and a tiny mirror,
and listening to a spot of Bon Iver. It was all fine till the power went out,
and then it was all about taking it slowly and cautiously.
Pak Tomo, the father of the house we stayed at, chilling whilst wearing one of the best t-shirts I've ever seen. He of course has no idea what it means.
A community vegetable garden in Tembak – all the locals are
involved, each with their own allotment. They cleared the land and built the
garden all within about 4 days. When they want things to happen quickly, it’s
quite remarkable.
Penari perempuaan, or traditional female dancers, celebrate
the arrival of the action agents to Tembak. The guy in the back represents a
traditional warrior with a simple machete and handcrafted shield. The dance is
enchanting, and the male dance and the female dance really emphasises gender
differences.
Action agents and Eco Warriors bonding for the first time in
the river. The fresh energy brought by the new arrivals was welcomed.
Pak Apui, a local Dayak, standing at the top of his
hydroelectric plant just 10 minutes walk out of the village. He was the first
person ever to build one of these plants in Borneo, after reading about them
from his adopted son from Germany. He built the entire plant himself in 3
months and the local villages said it would never work. The plant provides free
electricity for 7 houses, and now sits alongside 5 more plants in Tembak which
power the whole village. Other villages are naturally jumping on the band wagon
now.
Holding a local kid called Gusto. He has an incredible
energy, probably partly provided by the copious amounts of sugar that he and
the other local children consume on an almost hourly basis. Wherever you go in
Tembak, you can always expect to be greeted by this cheeky smile, and he’ll
probably demand that you swing him over your shoulder and throw him into the
air.
Snails up inside ya, finding an entrance where they can.
These delicious titbits can be found on most of the logs floating around the
river, and make a delicious garlic snack, especially alongside a bowl of ant
soup (yes, ant soup. They taste just like beans.)The oldest lady in the area, supposedly 135, though from the age of her kids, that might be debated (can women have children when they are 79?). The tale goes that if you look at her teeth, she will steal a year from your life and use it herself.
A beautiful honey tree in the heat of the day. As in my last
blog, these trees are used for nests by bees because their smooth trunks
prevent honey bears and other scavengers from climbing and stealing the honey. Somtimes I swear the world plays up to the camera. Sexy nature.
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