Guess where I've been this past week. You think I've just been drifting aimlessly, hitching from one place's excitement to the next? Guess again.
How well do you really know me? If you have to guess, well, obviously it means you don't really know me yet.
Hopefully, what I write here will help us get to know each other better.
I'm in parallel-worlds mode again. Specifically, I've been to a highland forest region. It's far away from home, but with many similarities that I find too familiar, it's so like home in many ways.
Montane rainforests. Trackless highlands of endless green foliage, watered by daily rain, touched by gentle fog. Rugged contours of the land, traced by flying clouds and their shadows on the ground. An endless dance of rivers twisting through deep gorges and breathtakingly beautiful valleys.
Our 20-seater twin-prop plane plods on to higher altitudes. I peer down to the scenes below.
In some areas, logging roads meander up and down the ridges -- the product of corporate greed. I imagine black machine oil drooling through sharp teeth of steel, devouring the virgin land hectare by hectare.
From the air, the logging roads look like broken strands of salmon-pink necklaces strewn across the green canopy. Shades of exposed red soil bleed out from the torn ragged edges of violated forests.
As our plane descends into the interior valley, rainclouds cascade down in thin wisps. Typical afternoon showers veil the tiny village houses, rice paddies, and orchard trees that dot the land below. Then, suddenly, gray clouds give way to resplendent sun, and our plane glides down to an old airfield.
The twin engines sputter to a halt. It's all quiet except for the click of seatbelts being unfastened. The tin roofs shine with the sun's newly washed face. I can hear children's shouts and chicken clucking from afar. Ah, finally. My kind of community.
"Ok, everybody get down, claim your baggages," says the captain, who ambles into the one-story airport building. We all climb down and haul out our baggages from the hold. No conveyor belts here. I hitch my two backpacks onto my shoulders, and follow the others into the building. It's all very informal, no paperwork, no claim tags. Ah, finally. My kind of airport.
Some of us go into the washroom to relieve ourselves. The urinals are dirty and rust-stained. They smell of stale urine, and the walls are full of dirty grafitti. There's no chrome-plated dispenser or hand drier. You have to supply your own toilet roll. Ah, finally. My kind of washroom.
"Ok, everybody here? All our stuff ready?" our team leader checks on people and baggage. "The trucks are here. Everyone on board. We start the war right .... here!"
Everyone helps stack the backpacks, carton boxes, a few laptop bags, onto the backs of two pickup trucks. We get on board. Since the cabs can't contain all of us, some clamber up the back for a punishing rough ride.
The air reeks of the earthy smell of rain-washed fields. The road is sticky with fine mud and lined with deep ruts and puddles. The engine gears groan with the load, and the wheels slosh through the mud. Ah, finally. My kind of road.
First stop at the huge village hall. There's a store where we can buy foodstuff. The trucks have to wait and load up supplies. Some of us, including me, are impatient to reach our destination before it gets dark. So we climb down the truck beds and start hiking uphill. My shoes sink halfway in mud. Ah, finally. My kind of shoes.
We meet two girls on board a motorbike. Their bike is splattered with mud and has no plate numbers. We chat with them for a few minutes. They are foreign volunteers who don't have local driver's licenses. Technically, they are committing an offense. But nobody makes an issue of it, and they go their way as we continue the hike. Ah, finally. My kind of traffic rules.
After a few kilometers of gently winding forest road, we arrive at the tribal longhouse. The trucks and the rest of the passengers and cargo soon follow.
The longhouse, nearly 150 meters long, is built of thick timber planks, each a meter wide and 40 meters long. It could easily house a clan of two dozen big families. We all remove our muddy boots and hiking shoes on the ladder landing. We go inside the longhouse and freshen up. Ah, finally. My kind of resthouse.
Dusk turns into evening. We all gather around the great fireplace in the cavernous kitchen hall, drinking mountain tea and fresh-brewed coffee. Each one of us has a name to introduce, a background to share, a story to tell. There's lots of good-natured banter and laughter. Most of us are meeting each other for the first time. Ah, finally. My kind of meeting.
Tomorrow will be a hard and long working day. But now, I enjoy the camaraderie with new friends.
You must be wondering by now. What's this place I've gotten myself into? What is this group I'm talking about? Who are these "new friends" I've found common cause with? Where are we, and what are we doing in this hidden, half-forgotten village in the middle of mountain forest?
Want some clues?
Ok, you probably have an inkling that I have a background of being part of a guerrilla movement. Have I rejoined them? No. At least not yet.
I work as a journalist. But I've been doing more than that. I'm an information technology professional. But I've been doing more than that, too. I'm an activist-educator, who loves to immerse himself in field work for weeks and months. But again, I've been doing more than that.
Let me now confess something I've never said openly at Soulcast before. My work is closely related to the programs of a number of UN agencies working in third-world countries. It is a serious, hard-driving, results-oriented kind of work. It's like waging war, but only without the guns.
I'm at ease working with professionals from various racial or ethnic backgrounds. I can do administrative, bureaucratic work although I hate it. But what we do here is different. It's intellectual collective work that requires research, critical thinking, and rigorous physical exertion in harsh rural settings.
So here. Meet my new friends... We look like guerrillas with digital guns. Some of us are from the U.S. and Canada, a couple of Europeans, a couple of Australians, a number from Southeast Asia and South Asia. There's one from South China that I've become very close to. We are an elite band of brothers and sisters.
Maybe you know me a little bit better now?
And yet... this might be the last time I will be working with a program like this. It's all good while it lasts. We achieve results as targeted. We enjoy the collective euphoria and camaraderie of success. But deep inside, all of these no longer makes sense to me like before. The emptiness gnaws more persistently now.
The colleagues I've been working with are still my friends. They will long remain as my friends. We will continue to keep in touch and help each other. But I now seek a different path. My kind of path. Mud-caked shoes and all.
So now, dear diary, I'm not sure that with this revelation you've come to know me a little bit better. I myself continue to wrestle furiously with my own sense of inner identity and direction.
Only Sophie knows the terrible dilemmas that I've gone through in taking this quest, and even she doesn't realize the full extent of my quandary. Ah, if only I could tell her now. Ah, if only I could tell anybody now.
Signing off for a little while, as I repack and get ready for my next journey. And I need to scrub off the mud from my hiking shoes.
Thank you for being patient with me.
