raising an eyebrow in disbelief as a cloud bank moves in to obscure the view.
I point indignantly to the ground below, outlining my very path with my finger, but she doesn’t think there’s anything there but clouds. The more she doubts my story, the more I believe it, until I’m shouting in her face, “I know the way I’ve come!”
The next morning, on taking my leave of Memnahop, I offer money to my host father, who refuses adamantly, then I press a can of sardines on the mother. Both she and her husband smile goodbye, still furrowing their brows.
As a cuckoo-dove coos overhead, the girls and I thread through dripping shrubs and disappear into a dark, muddy montane forest behind the village. The rain has just stopped, and cool morning mists are rising. Nigel warned me not to attempt the mountain if the ground is wet. What could he have meant? Even in the dry season, it rains at least once a day. I doubt that there ever comes a day when the ground isn’t wet.
Termite mounds and tall, pale pink orchids rise from the forest floor. In the thick underbrush, long vines lie among the rotting leaves, coiled like snakes, ignoring the girls and springing up to slash my legs and trip me. I become totally absorbed in watching my feet. Whenever I fall, all five girls turn and stare in disbelief, exclaiming
“Sori!”
and then seeing that I’m not hurt, dissolve into giggles.
My guides haven’t brought any drinking water for themselves. Perhaps they assumed that my little canteen would hold enough for six, for soon after we leave Memnahop, Sipin begins to complain to me in Pidgin that they’re thirsty.
I remember Nigel’s advice: “Don’t shortchange yourself on water. Believe me, your guides can function on little or no water—they’re used to it—but if you run out of water, you won’t make it to Bimin.” After what happened to my Oreos, I’m afraid to risk the girls’ draining my canteen. So I don’t offer to share. Still, I feel guilty. How could my guides have guessed I would want the canteen all to myself? Probably they had no way of imagining how much fluid a big, sweating American would need. Likewise, I fear, they probably have no idea how firm a foothold I’m going to need to bear my weight in the dangerous place.
After we’ve walked steadily uphill for an hour, we reach the spot where the mountain rises abruptly before us, an almost vertical wall of foliage. The sight of it makes my heart race with fear.
“Mi kisim wind fustaim”
(I’ll rest awhile), I announce, and sit down on a fallen log. Ana, the smallest and most ebullient of the five, starts to scale the mountain, grasping exposed tree roots and outcroppings of rock, gliding from handhold to handhold with the lightness of a butterfly, but Sipin calls her back. With a wry smile, Ana sits down and speaks animatedly in her soprano voice, while the others laugh.
I’ve come to the wrong place, I think, looking up at the cliff face. I don’t belong here. I should have gone to the steppes of Tibet, to those vast, open solitudes where lamas march for days and nights without stopping, their minds drawn inward, their gaze fixed far off into space, their hands absently clutching their magic daggers, their steps springy and rhythmic. Since I’ve rarely been present in my body for longer than a few minutes at a time, what the heck am I doing at the base of this cliff?
To quiet my heart, I look away from the cliff into the woods we’ve come from, thinking of last night’s dream and following it like a winding forest path, following it into memories of an enchanted childhood.
I’m four years old, standing in the middle of an intersection in Fukuoka, Japan. Buses and bicycles rush past. I don’t know where I am, but I’m not afraid, just tired and thirsty and ready to be found. Confident it will work, I sit down on the curb, my chin in my hands, and sob. I can’t tell if I’m managing real tears or if my cheeks are just
I point indignantly to the ground below, outlining my very path with my finger, but she doesn’t think there’s anything there but clouds. The more she doubts my story, the more I believe it, until I’m shouting in her face, “I know the way I’ve come!”
The next morning, on taking my leave of Memnahop, I offer money to my host father, who refuses adamantly, then I press a can of sardines on the mother. Both she and her husband smile goodbye, still furrowing their brows.
As a cuckoo-dove coos overhead, the girls and I thread through dripping shrubs and disappear into a dark, muddy montane forest behind the village. The rain has just stopped, and cool morning mists are rising. Nigel warned me not to attempt the mountain if the ground is wet. What could he have meant? Even in the dry season, it rains at least once a day. I doubt that there ever comes a day when the ground isn’t wet.
Termite mounds and tall, pale pink orchids rise from the forest floor. In the thick underbrush, long vines lie among the rotting leaves, coiled like snakes, ignoring the girls and springing up to slash my legs and trip me. I become totally absorbed in watching my feet. Whenever I fall, all five girls turn and stare in disbelief, exclaiming
“Sori!”
and then seeing that I’m not hurt, dissolve into giggles.
My guides haven’t brought any drinking water for themselves. Perhaps they assumed that my little canteen would hold enough for six, for soon after we leave Memnahop, Sipin begins to complain to me in Pidgin that they’re thirsty.
I remember Nigel’s advice: “Don’t shortchange yourself on water. Believe me, your guides can function on little or no water—they’re used to it—but if you run out of water, you won’t make it to Bimin.” After what happened to my Oreos, I’m afraid to risk the girls’ draining my canteen. So I don’t offer to share. Still, I feel guilty. How could my guides have guessed I would want the canteen all to myself? Probably they had no way of imagining how much fluid a big, sweating American would need. Likewise, I fear, they probably have no idea how firm a foothold I’m going to need to bear my weight in the dangerous place.
After we’ve walked steadily uphill for an hour, we reach the spot where the mountain rises abruptly before us, an almost vertical wall of foliage. The sight of it makes my heart race with fear.
“Mi kisim wind fustaim”
(I’ll rest awhile), I announce, and sit down on a fallen log. Ana, the smallest and most ebullient of the five, starts to scale the mountain, grasping exposed tree roots and outcroppings of rock, gliding from handhold to handhold with the lightness of a butterfly, but Sipin calls her back. With a wry smile, Ana sits down and speaks animatedly in her soprano voice, while the others laugh.
I’ve come to the wrong place, I think, looking up at the cliff face. I don’t belong here. I should have gone to the steppes of Tibet, to those vast, open solitudes where lamas march for days and nights without stopping, their minds drawn inward, their gaze fixed far off into space, their hands absently clutching their magic daggers, their steps springy and rhythmic. Since I’ve rarely been present in my body for longer than a few minutes at a time, what the heck am I doing at the base of this cliff?
To quiet my heart, I look away from the cliff into the woods we’ve come from, thinking of last night’s dream and following it like a winding forest path, following it into memories of an enchanted childhood.
I’m four years old, standing in the middle of an intersection in Fukuoka, Japan. Buses and bicycles rush past. I don’t know where I am, but I’m not afraid, just tired and thirsty and ready to be found. Confident it will work, I sit down on the curb, my chin in my hands, and sob. I can’t tell if I’m managing real tears or if my cheeks are just
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