CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
To keep myself busy and useful over the next few weeks, I worked with the women in the gardens. I tilled the soil, weeded, and harvested for the evening meals until my arms shook with exhaustion.
The work was a great distraction from being held against my will. I found the constriction I’d placed around my heart began to loosen like the soil, with each passing hour I spent in the company of the Hundi.
The heart-to-heart with Jahnu was truly meaningful.
I’d never really talked to anyone about my father or Jonathan or the fear I carried that I would always be abandoned by those I loved.
There was a part of me that wished I had never spoken of it.
I’ve used that hurt as a protective shield to survive life.
Jahnu had ripped it down without even trying, which caused me to wonder at this power he seemed to have—an ability to see things you want to keep hidden.
I’ve thought a lot about home since being here.
In America there exists a low tolerance for discomfort, and a drive to escape inconvenience.
Inventing ways that make life easier is one of the things that sets the western world apart from the rest—large and small-scale conveniences.
Why spend hours cultivating the land for food, or carrying buckets of water from the river to the gardens when a machine could easily do it for you, giving you more time and making you more profitable in the process?
Why wash your clothes by hand, hanging them in the sun to dry, when electricity could bring inventions to peoples’ front doors?
I knew there were better, more efficient ways of doing things, But as I worked myself to exhaustion each day, I came to realize the conveniences I’d come to expect in a way made me weak.
With each time-saving invention that was so commonplace in my world, I realized I traded something of myself for it.
That ‘something’ usually came from the inside.
Something from my grit and character. Something of my fortitude that I would never get back, even when I tried to replace the exertion of useful labor for the repetitiveness of the gym, or the jungle’s simplicity for meditation.
I missed the self-care of my skin care routine, my weekly yoga class, and grabbing drinks with friends, but found all those needs were being met in other ways here in the wilderness.
The simple work of my hands in the dirt gave me a place to spread out my thoughts in ways I’d never experienced before.
I felt a tranquil embodiment as I actively engaged the work, slowing down enough to press into the present moment instead of constantly focusing on something that’s coming or something’s that passed, which was so prevalent in the states.
A strange peace settled into my mind, and with it, a new confidence at the strength my circumstances had forced from within me.
Since our intimate night in the cave a week or more ago, and our secret fishing excursion, I’d only seen Jahnu from across the communal hut during meals.
He didn’t approach me and, in fact, paid me little attention, as if I’d blended into the background of his tribe.
It was such a strange contrast to the way he’d been before.
Had our time together not effected him the way it had me?
I waited for opportunities to speak with him, to broach the subject of my return, but he seemed to be avoiding me and, because of that, I was more hurt than angry.
What had I done? I was the victim here! I tried to not let it bother me but focused on what was right in front of me, instead of worrying.
The work didn’t afford me much time, and when things were quiet, I was so exhausted my mind didn’t have the chance to wander.
The intimacy we shared seemed to only drive a wedge between our budding relationship, and I told myself the reason I felt disappointed, instead of relieved, was because it only prolonged my being here.
But I knew it was more than that. I found myself missing Jahnu.
I missed our easy conversations and the way I felt like a cherished friend or confidant to him.
Excitement permeated the tribe the next few days as preparations began for the wedding of Talula, Sali’s great granddaughter, to her betrothed, Stahgan. I was pulled into the work as well, weaving baskets to hold the gifts from the outlying tribes as they shared in the celebration.
A huge Sago palm was chosen from the dense foliage surrounding the village, and several of the men worked to chop it down, using sharp stones as tools.
We gathered like an audience and watched the giant palm plummet, then thud, to the earth.
The swish of its leaves and branches mixed with yipping shouts of victory as it fell.
Then the men and some of the older boys went to work peeling away the thick skin from the trunk.
Using their long, wooden scythes they began to pound out the fibrous tree into wood chips.
The wood chips, Sali told me, with enough processing would eventually be ground into the precious sago powder, which was a staple food source in the tribe.
The pounding took days, and we alternated when others tired.
I got my hands on one of the smooth, wooden tools and sat next to ten others along the length of the tree, working, singing, talking, pounding.
Our feet braced the dwindling trunk while the yellowish wood chips and powder grew in mounds between our legs.
Then, as if my thoughts could produce him, Jahnu appeared beside me, nudging one of the young men out of the way and taking his turn with the scythe. He nudged a greeting, which brought a smile to my face.
“And where have you been lately?” I asked, with a nudge of my own. “Avoiding me?”
He seemed surprised at my boldness, and shrugged his shoulders, and began to chip away at the trunk with his scythe.
“Yes,” he confessed, opting for honesty.
For some reason, I appreciated it. “There is unrest in the eastern tribe. I go to settle arguments.” I wondered briefly if the arguments had anything to do with my being here.
Sali had mentioned as much when Jahnu had gone the first time, a couple weeks prior.
I began to form my question about returning to Makia when he said,
“I bet you do not havta pound a tree to powder for your dinner in America.”
I laughed, “No. Food is pretty easily available where I come from.”
“And what do you like to eat?”
I told him of hamburgers, pizza, and ice cream and we fell into compatible conversation as we continued to work.
“It’s called a microwave. It’s like an electric box you put your food in and it cooks it for you in seconds.”
“Yes, I’ve heard of this, but do not know how it works.”
“Well, it’s something about electromagnetic waves being absorbed into the molecules of the food. It creates heat to cook the food from the inside out.”
“That sounds…complicated. What is electromagnetic and molecules? I do not know these words.”
I laughed at his pronunciation and tried to think of an easy answer as the sounds of pounding and conversation rose around us.
“Um…electromagnetism is like a force that happens between electrical currents—like electricity, and the particles they charge. Molecules are a group of two or more atoms, or substances, that make up a thing. Everything in the world is made up of atoms.”
“I know you are a nurse, Sid-de-nee, and smart,” His eyebrows arched in disbelief, “but it sounds like you’re making this up. Is it a story of your people?”
I just laughed at him. “No, it’s not a story. It’s a real invention.”
“Have you heard the story of how Mount Giluwe shared his food?”
“I’m sure I haven’t.”
“This is a tale from the Imbonggu district. It is at the foot of Mount Giluwe. The soil in Imbonngu is hard to grow in. There aren’t many crops because all the food has been shared out to other places by the mountain.
Once, the mountain come up with an idea and say, ‘Tomorrow, early in the morning, I’ll share all my food so all the people nearby must come and get a share each.
’ Early the next morning while the Imbonngu people, who live right at the foot of the mountain, were still sleeping, the people from far away already came to the mountain.
The mountain was pleased with them and gave them all the best food.
After the people from the distant areas were gone, the Imbonggu people arrived, late, with their big string bags, their bilum, to fill with food.
But the mountain say, ‘Sorry, because you are late, all the best food was taken away by other people.’ Today, you will see that the soil in Imbonggu is still dry, and you cannot grow the best crops there.
The lesson in the story is, if you are invited to an occasion, do not be late,” he winked.
“I suppose a story about a talking mountain is about as believable as a box that cooks food in seconds,” I nudged him and he just raised his eyebrows like we might both be a little crazy.
I laughed and he smiled, nudging me again, when one of the little boys on the other side of the trunk began to yammer and point at us with amusement.
Jahnu shouted at him and reached for a small finger-full of the sago, tossing it in the boy’s direction. It floated to the ground.
“What’s he saying?” I asked, taking a break from the pounding, my hands beginning to form blisters.
“Not’ing. Alo is being a pest, as usual.” But the boy returned with a few others, their lean, shirtless, dark-skinned bodies active with pent-up energy.
They began to mimic two people flirting and kissing and pointed at the two of us, laughing. I blushed, picking up on their meaning when a handful of sago went flying.
Jahnu jumped up on the palm log and the boys joined in, playing a form of chicken, trying to push each other off the trunk.