GEORGINA PARFITT
  • Home
  • Contact
  • Diary
  • Understory

Sumatra So Far...

10/19/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
I’ve been in Sumatra, Indonesia for ten days. The first four were a stormy, friendly, strange adventure. I met Annie, a birder from the UK who has traveled around the world in search of species with a sketchbook and “a short attention span,” and with the most positive and adventurous spirit I think I’ve ever met. I joined Annie on four outings. We did a night drive through the forest with a big spotlight and found deer, monkeys, and one very slow loris. We rode in a safari jeep with an open top under a cage. It was thrilling even if we hadn’t see anything. And of course I kept imagining tigers and wild pigs and dragons all making their homes in the dark. On another outing we went in a smoky boat up the Way Kanan river (or down perhaps… I think we were going towards the coast), and saw all the colourful life around the banks. Purple herons loping through the air. Tiny crimson sunbirds. Rumors of a crocodile from the warning calls of the mecaques.  

More about those adventures later as I enjoy remembering the details… 

On day five or so, I suddenly felt very unwell, with a fever and an awful headache. With four days of rest and rehydration, I think it’s nothing serious and I feel practically normal again, but it was a bit scary and stressful and gave a new perspective to my trip. You can’t always choose your own adventure.
 

​On Being Sick in Sumatra

Symbols — I realize how I use symbols every day, how suspicions and markers help me keep time and rally myself. For the first five days of being here, I had pastel blue bed sheets with a lovely patterned throw on top. Under the first sheet, just when I was getting into bed there was a second sheet, a pretty rainbow-striped one. When I was ill, the sheets were changed to a sick-room blue stripe and white, without the flourishes. Today, after about four days of being ill, the rainbow-stripe sheet has returned and makes me feel happier just looking at it.

Kisses — Indonesian children blow kisses to white girls and the girl nextdoor blows plenty to me even though I look like I just came off a bad sea voyage. 

Laughing — is good and can be created out of nothing — ie the Indonesian people laugh a lot, and they laugh when they’re nervous or surprised. Many people are offended at being laughed at, until they know, then they tend to laugh along. I think it’s great just to laugh, for no reason at all, or because you’re scared or embarrassed. It’s the only really common language I’ve found here and it works every time.

Reading — For the upteenth time in my life I’ve rediscovered the pleasure and power of reading. I feel like reading has saved me in unlikely situations; when I’m sad or lonely I can go into a book and everything outside — even if it takes some patience — drops away. Once when I was little a teacher told me that a particular book had saved his life at college, and I didn’t know what he meant but I absolutely do now. 

While being here I’ve snuck in to the little library cabinet in the lodge office and have taken out a few books. One on birds of Indonesia, one adventure story about a boy who goes to live with African elephants, and one about a pair of twins trying to solve a row between their parents. All solid choices. 

It also reminds me as a writer to look in unexpected places for wonderful writing. In the adventure story for example, some of the most precise metaphors and similes can be found — drawing two species of the animal kingdom together — like in describing a witch doctor stalking towards a panther, “He swayed like a lame heron as he walked.” I thought that was very good. 

My family — self-explanatory :)
0 Comments

Sounds

10/13/2016

0 Comments

 
The first sound of the day is the 4.30am call to prayer. With the large hollow tone of the microphone the prayer leader sings out over the village, into the stuck-still air above my pillow.

The other early morning sounds follow in a circus, as if brought into existence by the prayer caller. The screech of a macaque, the two-tone calls of sun birds, the whine of a something I can’t name, the bray of something else. And then, among them, the wheeze of... an elephant? Oh yes, I think, an elephant. And then I gasp. Apparently the elephants here are notorious for stamping on crops in the night. The thumping drum that follows the elephant sound is a farmer trying to scare them away. 

Then there are other, less simple sounds that are either human or animal or neither. I can tell how I’m feeling by how I hear them. A laugh so fierce it’s either a drunk woman or a mecaque in trouble. A juddering motorcycle answered by a juddering cockeral, or is it the other way round?

I’m feeling a little shy, so will try my best to add my own voice to the mix somehow too :).
0 Comments

From Singapore to Sumatra

10/12/2016

0 Comments

 
Travelling between islands is very different from imagining travelling between islands. The land’s long, low and foggy. Flying over the sea is dim blue. When I arrive in Jakarta (which I realise I’ve been saying too leisurely, in three elongated syllables and should be said like someone cutting up a fruit with three quick strikes) the airport is a quiet corridor with wood carvings on the walls — then a bus ride to the other terminal, which is a modern glassy hangar. Food so far is stuffed rolls and cakes. 

My next leg is to Bandar Lampung (Lampoong) and when I arrive at 6 I’m surprised to find it already dark. 

The next few scenes are dreamlike — like set pieces spotlit and complete darkness in between. A conveyer belt with a crowd of people standing over it; a kind man with my name on a sign and a leopard print umbrella; a strip of one-story buildings with men standing around in groups of three or four, each with an umbrella and a friend with a car. 

Then it’s a two-hour drive east of Lampung to the Satwa Elephant Ecolodge next to a national park called Way Kambas. The drive is unlikely — kind of peaceful and comforting — like being a child driven home in the dark. And also, because when we’re out of the city the land planes away, blue and unfussy, it reminds me of Norfolk. But as we pass through towns and villages, it’s very different and I can’t pretend I’m anywhere I know. Life is lived along the road, in open porches and around open kiosks, as the traffic streams past in a constant negotiation of overtaking. You’d think it never rains. Mosques are frequent and important. The houses are small with arched roofs and prominent doors. Their owners sit or lounge outside. Someone plays a drum. Someone sits on a motorcycle. 


Then we’re back in the dark again. The road gets bumpier. “Nearly, nearly,” the driver says. And the next moment we’re heaving off the road into the walled compound of the lodge.
0 Comments

Kingfisher

10/4/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
0 Comments

Haw Par Villa

10/3/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
Today I took a trip to Haw Par Villa, which used to be Tiger Balm Gardens. The little jars of Tiger Balm my dad kept in his tennis bag were a mysterious sign of his past life in Singapore when I was a child, so I came to uncover the myth. 
Picture
It's a quiet day, after a thundery night. Haw Par Villa is under construction, but the statues and dioramas are still visible for the few groups who've come by.

For Singaporeans, the Villa is a famous school trip spot and its bright and violent characters have been the villains of many a Singaporean bad dream.   
Picture
Reading the ancient stories as I climb around owls and tigers, gentle monks and spear-wielding thieves, I try to collect some knowledge about these founding myths of Chinese culture, but the characters are so loud and strange that they jump in together and soon they're just one big pile of myth. 

There's the Monkey God, a clever-looking blue-haired upstanding monkey who can travel many miles on a cloud. There's poor Pigsy, cursed because lust always gets the better of him. There's Madame White Snake and her brave son; Scarlet Child  soaring in on wheels made of fire; and laughing at everybody is the Buddha, with a giant, rain-stained belly. 

I may be not much more the wiser about my Chinese mythology, but the Haw Par Villa has a mythology all its own that I think I understand quite well!
0 Comments

Monkey Stories, Part 1

9/28/2016

0 Comments

 
For the past few days I've settled in around my new digs near the botanic gardens and the Mcritchie Reservoir, trying to get a writing routine going. But there's been no less to discover. In the back garden of the house is a ravine where macaques live. Here's what they're up to at lunchtime today:
Picture
1. A monkey takes to the heliconia -- for a moment he sits higher than the forest in the full blessing of the sun -- copper silk hair turned precious gold -- as he stretches his back trying to increase his riches, the giant plane leaf bows for him and he drops back into the forest. 
2. A large monkey excuses herself from the ravine and climbs a nearby tree. In the shadow where the trunk splits into branches she lays down, with her face on the bark and her arms folded under her belly for a nap. 
3. On the path than runs like a seam between the house and the forest a mother and her almost-grown child sit together. The mother pushes the child's shoulder as she tries to pick through the fine brown fur on his back,until the child tips over. The mother continues, kneading the little monkey's back while he lays comfortably in the sun. 
0 Comments

Post-Museum

9/23/2016

0 Comments

 
"No need to ask, these are all treasures..."
Picture
The Substation is a little hub of contemporary art in Singapore, but for the month of September the centre has been taken over by an art collective called Post-Museum. The usual door is closed and visitors are invited to find the red door to enter behind the scenes.

I get a kick out of only getting to see the Substation in its new temporary taken-over state.   
Picture
In one corner the Foodscape Collective plants herbs in a row of broken egg shells. In another is a new take on taxidermy, the natural slump of the dead Myna preserved on a page. 

My favourite pieces are by Jennifer Ng, called Treasures. "No need to ask," Jennifer writes next to an intricate tower, made with such obsessive care and particularity that it seems as personal as a dream or a diary entry, "these are all treasures." 
Picture
0 Comments

Karamat Sultan Iskandar Shah

9/22/2016

2 Comments

 
Picture
The shrine to the sultan is deserted, except for the pigeons, who have created a heirarchy on the rafters, and one by one come and visit the Shah, checking on his pile of yellow flowers. 

On my first proper day in Singapore, I find myself in Fort Canning. The fort is a hill — carefully kept green grass, a winding brick path, and the summit protected by trees and gardens. As I wind my way up, in the humid air that I’m not quite used to yet, I take a roundabout route past the fancy Hotel Fort Canning, a colonial building with a palatial white facade. It was built in 1926 and housed the administrative offices of British Military members. Just like Singapore, the building was occupied by the Japanese Military in the last years of World War II, and then again by the British. 

I can only peer over the wall at the swimming pool and spa, trying to catch sight of the guests but there’s no one around. 

The fort itself is just as empty. A single lunch-break jogger comes through the massive iron gateway. In the distance a man in yellow wellies shifts some plants around. As I follow the trail around the fort, just as I hoped would happen, my mind turns from planes and Airbnbs and bus stops and Skype calls into nature. 

There are vast trees every so often, with branches like ribbons falling down to the ground. There are patches planted like vegetable patches, but instead of carrots and potatoes it’s cinnamon and ginger. The air is spicy. 

In Malay culture, a mountain or a hill is said to be where our ancestors rest. For that reason Fort Canning was called the Forbidden Hill before the days of occupation, because it was said to be the resting place for the kings of Singapore. 

When I find the shrine I’m not surprised. The fort seems just right for a place of peace. The dim tiled square and the roof with its dark wooden rafters, and the quiet keramat in the centre, loved on by pigeons and leftover offerings, fits right in among the spices. 

2 Comments

Free day in San Francisco

9/19/2016

0 Comments

 
The number two thing to do when you're stuck for a day in the airport is the rollercoaster...
0 Comments

Free day in San Francisco

9/19/2016

0 Comments

 
The number one thing to do if you're stuck in San Francisco airport for a day is the Aviation Museum... 
Picture
0 Comments
<<Previous
Forward>>

    Archives

    November 2018
    October 2018
    October 2016
    September 2016