Belimbing Series: Of tents&impermanence
Continued from Belimbing Series:Permission
The 18 km of Jamursba-Medi are divided into three stretches of beach. The WWF headquarters (white house in the background of the above photo) are located on the middle beach called Batu Rumah (=stone house in Indonesian) because of the big rock that is located just offshore. 
“Home” became my yellow tent on the beach for many weeks. I was provided a thick inflatable mattress--a wonderful surprise--which made my little tent quite the five-star hotel accommodation! I loved falling asleep to the sound of crashing waves or the pitter-patter of rain on my tent (after trying to ignore the many, many sand fly bites that would start to itch horribly every night).
Yes, the thought of a tsunami crossed my mind several times either while falling asleep or while walking along the beach where the mountains dropped steeply down to the sand. I had learned about the impermanence of things through the concept of “maya” or illusion in Hinduism, I had watched Buddhist monks create the most exquisite sand “mandalas” only to destroy them to symbolize the impermanence of life, I had been taught about continental drift and plate tectonics in school, and yet somewhere I had foolishly believed in the permanence of land…. until the tsunami last year. I realized that parts of the Nicobar Islands where I had spent a very memorable period of my life 15 years ago no longer existed… And among the many memories of the Nicobars that Irian Jaya brought back me, one was of the Nicobarese living along the coast--many of them probably didn’t survive the tsunami, but their unconditional kindness that made a 21-year old’s first sea turtle project in those remote, primitive conditions so much more comfortable all those many years before cannot be forgotten...
TO BE CONTINUED...