Waterfalls and Fish

I was fortunate enough to travel back to the rainforest again this week, but instead of following a winding river into the forest, I went by lake. This lake, Tasik Kenyir, was created in the eighties after a river was dammed for hydroelectric power. The result stretches across three states, formed a thousand tiny islands, and provides a source of some of the most pure water that I have ever seen in my life. I took a pontoon boat out far from shore and swam underneath. In the space between the pontoons, beneath the floorboards, the sun doesn't reflect on the surface of the water. It became crystal clear and I could see for at least a hundred feet below. My own body looked perfectly clear, although distorted, through the water and beyond my toes I saw only a deep aqua abyss. No bottom in sight. The water seemed to be somehow illuminated by the surrounding light and I could see streaks of the sun pour down into the water but where those beams fell, I couldn't tell.

We spent maybe an hour on a speedboat to get to the rainforest and my friends and I watched the shores become more and more narrow as we headed farther up a small river. Our guides explained that this river was closed off to fishermen and was used as a natural fishery that helped repopulate the lake. When the river became too shallow and rocky, we left the boat and traveled on a rough shore trail about half a mile or so farther into the jungle and stopped at a deep blue pool. The guides took out a sack of pellets and tossed them onto the calm surface and within moments slick black shapes started seething and splashing at the grain. I have never seen fish willingly pack so tightly together. They let us wade in the pool with grain in out hands and feel these fish just throw themselves at our legs. It was the weirdest sensation I have ever experienced. Imagine a thousand hungry fish sliding all over themselves and flipping up out of the water to get the food out of your hands. Insane. After that, we headed back for the boat and to a waterfall a few miles away. I will let the pictures do most of the talking, but I have to admit that feeling a waterfall on your face while the mist around you makes a rainbow is one of those moments that I'll come back to whenever things go wrong.

That said, there are some parts of this experience that are absolutely wonderful and make me feel like the luckiest man on the planet, but there are others that make me wonder what I'm doing with myself and why I bothered to come in the first place. Visiting rainforests, meeting people that have never actually spoken to an American, having children ask for autographs after class...those are all things that I will remember for the rest of my life. Getting to look at the U.S. from afar instead of being immersed in it is also valuable and is helping me figure out what I like about American culture and what I can truly do without. For example, let's look at materialism. The way our society is structured, everyone pretty much needs a car to get to work, buy food, and generally manage their lives. With the exception of those that can afford to live in the city, I think this pretty much applies to all of us. American roads are generally good enough so that we really don't need a car with giant tires, a huge engine, and four-wheel drive to get from work to the grocery store to home. Its really not necessary. iPods, laptops that play the latest video game, phones that check email, Starbucks soy milk no fat vanilla frappachinos, do we really need them all? In order to pay for them, what do we give up? We trade our time to work two, sometimes three different jobs so we can pay our bills and pay for things that we ultimately don't need. I see people here, perfectly happy, with a small fraction of what we typically have. Even the average American college student has more than the vast majority of the people that I live and work with in this country. Are they less happy because they don't have as much stuff? Nope. Am I less happy now that I don't have a car and make only $500.00US per month? Absolutely not.

Here, I feel like there's some kind of purpose to my life, like I'm doing something worthwhile. The obstacles that I face are about so much more than exam scores, paychecks, and what kind of car I drive. I need to worry about things like, "How am I going to eat if the waitress doesn't speak English?" or "How do I explain to my kids that even most Americans don't like Bush?" If I meet a family for the first time and they have never talked to an American before, there is a risk they will judge the entire nation based upon my actions. If I'm rude, they might think that all Americans are rude. If I'm nice, things might go differently.

What they know about Americans, in general and at least in the more rural and sheltered areas, comes from television. They know that Americans are in Iraq right now, that Bush is the President, and that almost every American woman on TV is 1.) gorgeous and 2.) likes to have steamy love affairs. This creates a little bit of a problem for the eleven other women in my program as they do not necessarily meet those two criteria. Of course they are all beautiful, but they are not the over-sexualized characters that our friends from Hollywood tend to play. And they certainly do not enjoy being treated accordingly. One of my friends says that one of the many problems she faces with her classes is the boys whistling and yelling at her. In school. With other teachers around. This is no construction sight, these are not grown men, and she does not dress to warrant such attention, but still, it happens. Is her experience the exception to the rule? I'm not sure, but I know she's not the first to have such problems.

Even though I don't face challenges of the same nature (the schoolgirls do not whistle and yell at me) things are not exactly perfect. I do not, for example, have a regular form of transportation around town. I do have a bicycle, but it is awfully inconvenient in the rain or when I am sick. My wonderful foster mother, Puan Nor Azahan, is always willing to give me a ride wherever I want to go, but she travels fairly often and has a family of her own to worry about. I have many local friends, most with cars or motorbikes, but they can be difficult to get in touch with or might say they are on their way and never show up. I could take a taxi, but sometimes they don't show up when I call either. The fact is, there are some nights when I simply cannot leave my apartment, which is in the country a few miles out of town. These are the nights that , despite all of the wonderful things that I've experienced, I realize how much I miss my family, my friends, and my home. Usually, I try and keep busy enough so that I don't have time to think about it, but when there's nothing else to do but think, my mind does wander in that direction. On those nights, I feel ready to go home.

But they are few and far between. I know that I'm not ready to go back and start a career as a...who knows? When I make decisions, I tend to make them based on how I feel, or how I think I will feel. After all, isn't life ultimately about being happy and being content? Can you logically convince yourself to be happy? No. So, sometimes making decisions based on cold hard numbers is not the best way to go about things. And for the most part, I feel happy and content here.