notes from a trip upstream

As we leave the open water to re-enter the jungle, we pass through an arch of hanging roots and towering mangrove trees. The river is dark, and through the dense tangle of wood and leaves and life, there is not even a glimpse of land – only roots and the shimmer of blackwater. It is as if the plants themselves have created the earth of water and sun.

In a sky-boat. Racing along lines that won't stay straight. Steady hum over the jungle's voices, over motor and city.

Nose up, I can see only where I am, and where I've been, and the sky beneath us in blackwater.

I share this boat with factory men, my friend AGE, and precious cargo: sacks of potatoes and onions, big tins of paint thinner, and our carefully water-proofed boxes of teaching supplies. And the wind, always the sound and the fury of the wind of constant motion. When we stop, here and there for Pudding, our driver, to assess the danger of a submerged tangle of roots or wood, I'm pleased to find that the reality I'd grown accustomed to was not reality at all. The jungle's voice rises up in the quiet that had been the engine's roar, and there is laughter in the splash of water against the sides of our wooden boat.

Tonight we will sleep beneath grasshoppers clinging to our bed-nets, and albino geckos racing along the rafters in search of the mosquitoes that would feed on us. But before we sleep, we will meet some of the women who live here in the jungle at this factory 'camp' for most of the year. We will sit on benches on the dock with them, bugs buzzing in the lamp-light, and we will talk about health. They are full of questions, because they rarely have anyone to ask. And I am new at this, but amazed to find that I have some helpful words. And amazed by their lives - there are few choices, but they have chosen to live here, far from their families, because here they'll have steady and strenuous work, and something to send home. Toil: I haven't ever, though I am working hard here with them.

The minutes here pass in a blur, but there is such a collection of moments left in my mind. I'm a world away again, trying to write something sensible for an article, wondering about them. I don't know, either, if there is anything left of me there, nor whether it matters. There's a lot of there left in me, for what it's worth. Slowly decompressing, to become, I hope, something bigger in me than the space it will fill.

Perhaps more musings later. For now bed.